{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14735/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14735","id":"gutenberg_14735","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14735","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - British","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Political science -- Great Britain -- History","Politics","United Kingdom"],"text":"HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE\n\nNo. 103\n\n_Editors:_\n\nHERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.\nPROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D. LL.D., F.B.A.\nPROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.\nPROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.\n\n\n\n\nPOLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND\n\nFROM LOCKE TO BENTHAM\n\n\nBY\n\nHAROLD J. LASKI\n\n\nSOMETIME EXHIBITIONER OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, OF THE DEPARTMENT OF\nHISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF STUDIES IN THE PROBLEM OF\nSOVEREIGNTY AND AUTHORITY IN THE MODERN STATE\n\n\n\nNEW YORK\nHENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\nLONDON\nWILLIAMS AND NORGATE\n\n\n\n\n1920\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\nIt is impossible for me to publish this book without some expression of\nthe debt it owes to Leslie Stephen's _History of the English Thought in\nthe Eighteenth Century_. It is almost insolent to praise such work; but\nI may be permitted to say that no one can fully appreciate either its\nwisdom or its knowledge who has not had to dig among the original texts.\n\nWere so small a volume worthy to bear a dedication, I should associate\nit with the name of my friend Walter Lippmann. He and I have so often\ndiscussed the substance of its problems that I am certain a good deal of\nwhat I feel to be my own is, where it has merit, really his. This volume\nis thus in great part a tribute to him; though there is little that can\nrepay such friendship as he gives.\n\nH.J.L.\n\nHARVARD UNIVERSITY\nSept. 15, 1919\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER                                       PAGE\n\n  I. INTRODUCTION                                7\n\n II. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION           24\n\nIII. CHURCH AND STATE                           77\n\n IV. THE ERA OF STAGNATION                     127\n\n  V. SIGNS OF CHANGE                           159\n\n VI. BURKE                                     213\n\nVII. THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM    281\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY                                   317\n\nINDEX                                          321\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe eighteenth century may be said to begin with the Revolution of 1688;\nfor, with its completion, the dogma of Divine Right disappeared for ever\nfrom English politics. Its place was but partially filled until Hume and\nBurke supplied the outlines of a new philosophy. For the observer of\nthis age can hardly fail, as he notes its relative barrenness of\nabstract ideas, to be impressed by the large part Divine Right must have\nplayed in the politics of the succeeding century. Its very absoluteness\nmade for keen partisanship on the one side and the other. It could\nproduce at once the longwinded rhapsodies of Filmer and, by repulsion,\nthe wearisome reiterations of Algernon Sidney. Once the foundations of\nDivine Right had been destroyed by Locke, the basis of passionate\ncontroversy was absent. The theory of a social contract never produced\nin England the enthusiasm it evoked in France, for the simple reason\nthat the main objective of Rousseau and his disciples had already been\nsecured there by other weapons. And this has perhaps given to the\neighteenth century an urbaneness from which its predecessor was largely\nfree. Sermons are perhaps the best test of such a change; and it is a\nrelief to move from the addresses bristling with Suarez and Bellarmine\nto the noble exhortations of Bishop Butler. Not until the French\nRevolution were ultimate dogmas again called into question; and it is\nabout them only that political speculation provokes deep feeling. The\nurbanity, indeed, is not entirely new. The Restoration had heralded its\ncoming, and the tone of Halifax has more in common with Bolingbroke and\nHume than with Hobbes and Filmer. Nor has the eighteenth century an\nhistorical profundity to compare with that of the zealous pamphleteers\nin the seventeenth. Heroic archivists like Prynne find very different\nsubstitutes in brilliant journalists like Defoe, and if Dalrymple and\nBlackstone are respectable, they bear no comparison with masters like\nSelden and Sir Henry Spelman.\n\nYet urbanity must not deceive us. The eighteenth century has an\nimportance in English politics which the comparative absence of\nsystematic speculation can not conceal. If its large constitutional\noutlines had been traced by a preceding age, its administrative detail\nhad still to be secured. The process was very gradual; and the attempt\nof George III to arrest it produced the splendid effort of Edmund Burke.\nLocke's work may have been not seldom confused and stumbling; but it\ngave to the principle of consent a permanent place in English politics.\nIt is the age which saw the crystallization of the party-system, and\ntherein it may perhaps lay claim to have recognized what Bagehot called\nthe vital principle of representative government. Few discussions of the\nsphere of government have been so productive as that in which Adam Smith\ngave a new basis to economic science. Few controversies have, despite\nits dullness, so carefully investigated the eternal problem of Church\nand State as that to which Hoadly's bishopric contributed its name. De\nLolme is the real parent of that interpretative analysis which has, in\nBagehot's hands, become not the least fruitful type of political method.\nBlackstone, in a real sense, may be called the ancestor of Professor\nDicey. The very calmness of the atmosphere only the more surely paved\nthe way for the surprising novelties of Godwin and the revolutionists.\n\nNor must we neglect the relation between its ethics and its politics.\nThe eighteenth century school of British moralists has suffered somewhat\nbeside the greater glories of Berkeley and Hume. Yet it was a great work\nto which they bent their effort, and they knew its greatness. The\ndeistic controversy involved a fresh investigation of the basis of\nmorals; and it is to the credit of the investigators that they attempted\nto provide it in social terms. It is, indeed, one of the primary\ncharacteristics of the British mind to be interested in problems of\nconduct rather than of thought. The seventeenth century had, for the\nmost part, been interested in theology and government; and its\npreoccupation, in both domains, with supernatural sanctions, made its\nconclusions unfitted for a period dominated by rationalism. Locke\nregarded his _Human Understanding_ as the preliminary to an ethical\nenquiry; and Hume seems to have considered his _Principles of Morals_\nthe most vital of his works. It may be true, as the mordant insight of\nMark Pattison suggested, that \"those periods in which morals have been\nrepresented as the proper study of man, and his only business, have been\nperiods of spiritual abasement and poverty.\" Certainly no one will be\ninclined to claim for the eighteenth century the spiritual idealism of\nthe seventeenth, though Law and Bishop Wilson and the Wesleyan revival\nwill make us generalize with caution. But the truth was that theological\nethics had become empty and inadequate, and the problem was therefore\nurgent. That is why Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume and Adam Smith--to take\nonly men of the first eminence--were thinking not less for politics than\nfor ethics when they sought to justify the ways of man to man. For all\nof them saw that a theory of society is impossible without the provision\nof psychological foundations; and those must, above all, result in a\ntheory of conduct if the social bond is to be maintained. That sure\ninsight is, of course, one current only in a greater English stream\nwhich reaches back to Hobbes at its source and forward to T.H. Green at\nperhaps its fullest. Its value is its denial of politics as a science\ndistinct from other human relations; and that is why Adam Smith can\nwrite of moral sentiments no less than of the wealth of nations. The\neighteenth century saw clearly that each aspect of social life must find\nits place in the political equation.\n\nYet it is undoubtedly an age of methods rather than of principles; and,\nas such its peaceful prosperity was well suited to its questions.\nProblems of technique, such as the cabinet and the Bank of England\nrequired the absence of passionate debate if they were in any fruitful\nfashion to be solved. Nor must the achievement of the age in politics be\nminimized. It was, of course, a complacent time; but we ought to note\nthat foreigners of distinction did not wonder at its complacency.\nVoltaire and Montesquieu look back to England in the eighteenth century\nfor the substance of political truths. The American colonies took alike\ntheir methods and their arguments from English ancestors; and Burke\nprovided them with the main elements of justification. The very\nquietness, indeed, of the time was the natural outcome of a century of\nstorm; and England surely had some right to be contented when her\npolitical system was compared with the governments of France and\nGermany. Not, indeed, that the full fruit of the Revolution was\ngathered. The principle of consent came, in practice and till 1760, to\nmean the government of the Whig Oligarchy; and the _Extraordinary Black\nBook_ remains to tell us what happened when George III gave the Tory\nparty a new lease of power. There is throughout the time an\nover-emphasis upon the value of order, and a not unnatural tendency to\nconfound the private good of the governing class with the general\nwelfare of the state. It became the fixed policy of Walpole to make\nprosperity the mask for political stagnation. He turned political debate\nfrom principles to personalities, and a sterile generation was the\noutcome of his cunning.\n\nNot that this barrenness is without its compensations. The theories of\nthe Revolution had exhausted their fruitfulness within a generation. The\nconstitutional ideas of the seventeenth century had no substance for an\nEngland where Anglicanism and agriculture were beginning to lose the\nrigid outlines of overwhelming predominance. What was needed was the\nassurance of safety for the Church that her virtue might be tested in\nthe light of nonconformist practice on the one hand, and the new\nrationalism on the other. What was needed also was the expansion of\nEnglish commerce into the new channels opened for it by the victories of\nChatham. Mr. Chief Justice Holt had given it the legal categories it\nwould require; and Hume and Adam Smith were to explain that commerce\nmight grow with small danger to agricultural prosperity. Beneath the\napparent calm of Walpole's rule new forces were fast stirring. That can\nbe seen on every side. The sturdy morality of Johnson, the new literary\nforms of Richardson and Fielding, the theatre which Garrick founded upon\nthe ruins produced by Collier's indignation, the revival of which Law\nand Wesley are the great symbols, show that the stagnation was sleep\nrather than death. The needed events of shock were close at hand. The\npeople of England would never have discovered the real meaning of 1688\nif George III had not denied its principles. When he enforced the\nresignation of the elder Pitt the theories at once of Edmund Burke and\nEnglish radicalism were born; for the _Present Discontents_ and the\n_Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights_ are the dawn of a\nsplendid recovery. And they made possible the speculative ferment which\nshowed that England was at last awake to the meaning of Montesquieu and\nRousseau. Just as the shock of the Lancastrian wars produced the Tudor\ndespotism, so did the turmoil of civil strife produce the complacency of\nthe eighteenth century. But the peace of the Tudors was the death-bed of\nthe Stuarts; and it was the stagnant optimism of the early eighteenth\ncentury which made possible the birth of democratic England.\n\nThe atmosphere of the time, in fact, is deep-rooted in the conditions of\nthe past. Locke could not have written had not Hobbes and Filmer\ndefended in set terms the ideal of despotic government. He announced the\nadvent of the modern system of parliamentary government; and from his\ntime the debate has been rather of the conditions under which it is to\nwork, than of the foundations upon which it is based. Burke, for\nexample, wrote what constitutes the supreme analysis of the statesman's\nart. Adam Smith discussed in what fashion the prosperity of peoples\ncould be best advanced. From Locke, that is to say, the subject of\ndiscussion is rather _politik_ than _staatslehre_. The great debate\ninaugurated by the Reformation ceased when Locke had outlined an\nintelligible basis for parliamentary government. Hume, Bolingbroke,\nBurke, are all of them concerned with the detail of political\narrangement in a fashion which presupposes the acceptance of a basis\npreviously known. Burke, indeed, toward the latter part of his life,\nawoke to the realization that men were dissatisfied with the traditional\nsubstance of the State. But he met the new desires with hate instead of\nunderstanding, and the Napoleonic wars drove the current of democratic\nopinion underground. Hall and Owen and Hodgskin inherited the thoughts\nof Ogilvie and Spence and Paine; and if they did not give them\nsubstance, at least they gave them form for a later time.\n\nNor is the reason for this preoccupation far to seek. The advance of\nEnglish politics in the preceding two centuries was mainly an advance of\nstructure; yet relative at least to continental fact, it appeared\nliberal enough to hide the disharmonies of its inner content. The King\nwas still a mighty influence. The power of the aristocracy was hardly\nbroken until the Reform Bill of 1867. The Church continued to dominate\nthe political aspect of English religious life until, after 1832, new\nelements alien from her ideals were introduced into the House of\nCommons. The conditions of change lay implicit in the Industrial\nRevolution, when a new class of men attained control of the nation's\neconomic power. Only then was a realignment of political forces\nessential. Only then, that is to say, had the time arrived for a new\ntheory of the State.\n\nThe political ideas of the eighteenth century are thus in some sort a\ncomment upon the system established by the Revolution; and that is, in\nits turn, the product of the struggle between Parliament and Crown in\nthe preceding age. But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or\nits theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly\naristocratic. From no accusation were its statesmen more anxious to be\nfree than from that of a belief in democratic government. Whether Whigs\nor Tories were in power, it was always the great families who ruled. For\nthem the Church, at least in its higher branches, existed; and the\ndifference between nobleman and commoner at Oxford is as striking as it\nis hideous to this generation. For them also literature and the theatre\nmade their display; and if Dr. Johnson could heap an immortal contumely\nupon the name of patron, we all know of the reverence he felt in the\npresence of the king. Divine Right and non-resistance were dead, but\nthey had not died without a struggle. Freedom of the press and legal\nequality may have been obtained; but it was not until the passage of\nFox's Libel Act that the first became secure, and Mr. and Mrs. Hammond\nhave recently illumined for us the inward meaning of the second. The\npopulace might, on occasion, be strong enough to force the elder Pitt\nupon an unwilling king, or to shout for Wilkes and liberty against the\nunconstitutional usurpation of the monarch-ridden House of Commons. Such\noutbursts are yet the exception to the prevailing temper. The\ndeliberations of Parliament were still, at least technically, a secret;\nand membership therein, save for one or two anomalies like Westminster\nand Bristol, was still the private possession of a privileged class. The\nRevolution, in fact, meant less an abstract and general freedom, than a\nspecial release from the arbitrary will of a stupid monarch who aroused\nagainst himself every deep-seated prejudice of his generation. The\nEngland which sent James II upon his travels may be, as Hume pointed\nout, reduced to a pathetic fragment even of its electorate. The masses\nwere unknown and undiscovered, or, where they emerged, it was either to\nprotest against some wise reform like Walpole's Excise Scheme, or to\nbecome, as in Goldsmith and Cowper and Crabbe, the object of\nhalf-pitying poetic sentiment. How deep-rooted was the notion of\naristocratic control was to be shown when France turned into substantial\nfact Rousseau's demand for freedom. The protest of Burke against its\nsupposed anarchy swept England like a flame; and only a courageous\nhandful could be found to protest against Pitt's prostitution of her\nfreedom.\n\nSuch an age could make but little pretence to discovery; and, indeed, it\nis most largely absent from its speculation. In its political ideas this\nis necessarily and especially the case. For the State is at no time an\nunchanging organization; it reflects with singular exactness the\ndominating ideas of its environment. That division into government and\nsubjects which is its main characteristic is here noteworthy for the\nnarrowness of the class from which the government is derived, and the\nconsistent inertia of those over whom it rules. There is curiously\nlittle controversy over the seat of sovereign power. That is with most\nmen acknowledged to reside in the king in Parliament. What balance of\nforces is necessary to its most perfect equilibrium may arouse\ndissension when George III forgets the result of half a century's\nevolution. Junius may have to explain in invective what Burke\nmagistrally demonstrated in terms of political philosophy. But the\ndeeper problems of the state lay hidden until Bentham and the\nrevolutionists came to insist upon their presence. That did not mean\nthat the eighteenth century was a soulless failure. Rather did it mean\nthat a period of transition had been successfully bridged. The stage was\nset for a new effort simply because the theories of the older philosophy\nno longer represented the facts at issue.\n\nIt was thus Locke only in this period who confronted the general\nproblems of the modern State. Other thinkers assumed his structure and\ndealt with the details he left undetermined. The main problems, the\nChurch apart, arose when a foreigner occupied the English throne and\nleft the methods of government to those who were acquainted with them.\nThat most happy of all the happy accidents in English history made\nWalpole the fundamental statesman of the time. He used his opportunity\nto the full. Inheriting the possibilities of the cabinet system he gave\nit its modern expression by creating the office of Prime Minister. The\nparty-system was already inevitable; and with his advent to full power\nin 1727 we have the characteristic outlines of English representative\ngovernment. Thenceforward, there are, on the whole, but three large\nquestions with which the age concerned itself. Toleration had already\nbeen won by the persistent necessities of two generations, and the noble\ndetermination of William III; but the place of the Church in the\nRevolution State and the nature of that State were still undetermined.\nHoadly had one solution, Law another; and the genial rationalism of the\ntime, coupled with the political affiliations of the High Church party,\ncombined to give Hoadly the victory; but his opponents, and Law\nespecially, remained to be the parents of a movement for ecclesiastical\nfreedom of which it has been the good fortune of Oxford to supply in\neach succeeding century the leaders. America presented again the problem\nof consent in the special perspective of the imperial relation; and the\ndecision which grew out of the blundering obscurantism of the King\nenabled Burke nobly to restate and amply to revivify the principles of\n1688. Chatham meanwhile had stumbled upon a vaster empire; and the\nindustrial system which his effort quickened could not live under an\neconomic r\u00e9gime which still bore traces of the narrow nationalism of the\nTudors. No man was so emphatically representative of his epoch as Adam\nSmith; and no thinker has ever stated in such generous terms the answer\nof his time to the most vital of its questions. The answer, indeed, like\nall good answers, revealed rather the difficulty of the problem than the\nprospect of its solution; though nothing so clearly heralded the new age\nthat was coming than his repudiation of the past in terms of a real\nappreciation of it. The American War and the two great revolutions\nbrought a new race of thinkers into being. The French seed at last\nproduced its harvest. Bentham absorbed the purpose of Rousseau even\nwhile he rejected his methods. For a time, indeed, the heat and dust of\nwar obscured the issue that Bentham raised. But the certainties of the\nfuture lay on his side.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe English Revolution was in the main a protest against the attempt of\nJames II to establish a despotism in alliance with France and Rome. It\nwas almost entirely a movement of the aristocracy, and, for the most\npart, it was aristocratic opposition that it encountered. What it did\nwas to make for ever impossible the thought of reunion with Rome and the\ntheory that the throne could be established on any other basis than the\nconsent of Parliament. For no one could pretend that William of Orange\nruled by Divine Right. The scrupulous shrank from proclaiming the\ndeposition of James; and the fiction that he had abdicated was not\ncalculated to deceive even the warmest of William's adherents. An\nunconstitutional Parliament thereupon declared the throne vacant; and\nafter much negotiation William and Mary were invited to occupy it. To\nWilliam the invitation was irresistible. It gave him the assistance of\nthe first maritime power in Europe against the imperialism of Louis XIV.\nIt ensured the survival of Protestantism against the encroachments of an\nenemy who never slumbered. Nor did England find the new r\u00e9gime\nunwelcome. Every widespread conviction of her people had been wantonly\noutraged by the blundering stupidity of James. If a large fraction of\nthe English Church held aloof from the new order on technical grounds,\nthe commercial classes gave it their warm support; and many who doubted\nin theory submitted in practice. All at least were conscious that a new\nera had dawned.\n\nFor William had come over with a definite purpose in view. James had\nwrought havoc with what the Civil Wars had made the essence of the\nEnglish constitution; and it had become important to define in set terms\nthe conditions upon which the life of kings must in the future be\nregulated. The reign of William is nothing so much as the period of that\ndefinition; and the fortunate discovery was made of the mechanisms\nwhereby its translation into practice might be secured. The Bill of\nRights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701) are the foundation-stones\nof the modern constitutional system.\n\nWhat, broadly, was established was the dependence of the crown upon\nParliament. Finance and the army were brought under Parliamentary\ncontrol by the simple expedient of making its annual summons essential.\nThe right of petition was re-affirmed; and the independence of the\njudges and ministerial responsibility were secured by the same act which\nforever excluded the legitimate heirs from their royal inheritance. It\nis difficult not to be amazed at the almost casual fashion in which so\nstriking a revolution was effected. Not, indeed, that the solution\nworked easily at the outset. William remained to the end a foreigner,\nwho could not understand the inwardness of English politics. It was the\nnecessities of foreign policy which drove him to admit the immense\npossibilities of the party-system as also to accept his own best\nsafeguard in the foundation of the Bank of England. The Cabinet,\ntowards the close of his reign, had already become the fundamental\nadministrative instrument. Originally a committee of the Privy Council,\nit had no party basis until the ingenious Sunderland atoned for a score\nof dishonesties by insisting that the root of its efficiency would be\nfound in its selection from a single party. William acquiesced but\ndoubtfully; for, until the end of his life, he never understood why his\nministers should not be a group of able counsellors chosen without\nreference to their political affiliations. Sunderland knew better for\nthe simple reason that he belonged to that period when the Whigs and\nTories had gambled against each other for their heads. He knew that no\ncouncil-board could with comfort contain both himself and Halifax; just\nas William himself was to learn quite early that neither honor nor\nconfidence could win unswerving support from John Churchill. There is a\ncertain feverishness in the atmosphere of the reign which shows how many\nkept an anxious eye on St. Germain even while they attended the morning\nlevee at Whitehall.\n\nWhat secured the permanence of the settlement was less the policy of\nWilliam than the blunder of the French monarch. Patience, foresight and\ngenerosity had not availed to win for William more than a grudging\nrecognition of his kingship. He had received only a half-hearted support\nfor his foreign policy. The army, despite his protests, had been\nreduced; and the enforced return of his own Dutch Guards to Holland was\ndeliberately conceived to cause him pain. But at the very moment when\nhis strength seemed weakest James II died; and Louis XIV, despite\nwritten obligation, sought to comfort the last moments of his tragic\nexile by the falsely chivalrous recognition of the Old Pretender as the\nrightful English king. It was a terrible mistake. It did for William\nwhat no action of his own could ever have achieved. It suggested that\nEngland must receive its ruler at the hands of a foreign sovereign. The\nnational pride of the people rallied to the cause for which William\nstood. He was king--so, at least in contrast to Louis' decision, it\nappeared--by their deliberate choice and the settlement of which he was\nthe symbol would be maintained. Parliament granted to William all that\nhis foreign policy could have demanded. His own death was only the\nprelude to the victories of Marlborough. Those victories seemed to seal\nthe solution of 1688. A moment came when sentiment and intrigue combined\nto throw in jeopardy the Act of Settlement. But Death held the stakes\nagainst the gambler's throw of Bolingbroke; and the accession of George\nI assured the permanence of Revolution principles.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe theorist of the Revolution is Locke; and it was his conscious effort\nto justify the innovations of 1688. He sought, as he said, \"to establish\nthe throne of our great Restorer, our present King William, and make\ngood his title in the consent of the people.\" In the debate which\nfollowed his argument remained unanswered, for the sufficient reason\nthat it had the common sense of the generation on his side. Yet Locke\nhas suffered not a little at the hands of succeeding thinkers. Though\nhis influence upon his own time was immense; though Montesquieu owed to\nhim the acutest of his insights; though the principles of the American\nRevolution are in large part an acknowledged adoption of his own; he has\nbecome one of the political classics who are taken for granted rather\nthan read. It is a profound and regrettable error. Locke may not possess\nthe clarity and ruthless logic of Hobbes, or the genius for compressing\ninto a phrase the experience of a lifetime which makes Burke the first\nof English political thinkers. He yet stated more clearly than either\nthe general problem of the modern State. Hobbes, after all, worked with\nan impossible psychology and sought no more than the prescription\nagainst disorder. Burke wrote rather a text-book for the cautious\nadministrator than a guide for the liberal statesman. But Locke saw that\nthe main problem of the State is the conquest of freedom and it was for\nits definition in terms of individual good that he above all strove.\n\nMuch, doubtless, of his neglect is due to the medium in which he worked.\nHe wrote at a time when the social contract seemed the only possible\nretort to the theory of Divine Right. He so emphasized the principle of\nconsent that when contractualism came in its turn to be discarded, it\nwas discovered that Locke suffered far more than Hobbes by the change so\nmade. For Hobbes cared nothing for the contract so long as strong\ngovernment could be shown to be implicit in the natural badness of men,\nwhile Locke assumed their goodness and made his contract essential to\ntheir opportunity for moral expression. Nor did he, like Rousseau, seize\nupon the organic nature of the State. To him the State was always a mere\naggregate, and the convenient simplicity of majority-rule solved, for\nhim, the vital political problems. But Rousseau was translated into the\ncomplex dialectic of Hegel and lived to become the parent of theories he\nwould have doubtless been the first to disown. Nor was Locke aided by\nhis philosophic outlook. Few great thinkers have so little perceived the\npsychological foundations of politics. What he did was rather to fasten\nupon the great institutional necessity of his time--the provision of\nchannels of assent--and emphasize its importance to the exclusion of all\nother factors. The problem is in fact more complex; and the solution he\nindicated became so natural a part of the political fabric that the\nvalue of his emphasis upon its import was largely forgotten when men\nagain took up the study of foundations.\n\nJohn Locke was born at Wrington in Somerset on the 29th of August, 1632.\nHis father was clerk to the county justices and acted as a captain in a\ncavalry regiment during the Civil War. Though he suffered heavy losses,\nhe was able to give his son as good an education as the time afforded.\nWestminster under Dr. Busby may not have been the gentlest of academies,\nbut at least it provided Locke with an admirable training in the\nclassics. He himself, indeed, in the _Thoughts on Education_ doubted the\nvalue of such exercises; nor does he seem to have conceived any\naffection for Oxford whither he proceeded in 1652 as a junior student of\nChrist Church. The university was then under the Puritan control of Dr.\nJohn Owen; but not even his effort to redeem the university from its\nreputation for intellectual laxity rescued it from the \"wrangling and\nostentation\" of the peripatetic philosophy. Yet it was at Oxford that\nhe encountered the work of Descartes which first attracted him to\nmetaphysics. There, too, he met Pocock, the Arabic scholar, and Wallis\nthe mathematician, who must at least have commanded his respect. In 1659\nhe accepted a Senior Studentship of his college, which he retained until\nhe was deemed politically undesirable in 1684. After toying with his\nfather's desire that he should enter the Church, he began the study of\nmedicine. Scientific interest won for him the friendship of Boyle; and\nwhile he was administering physic to the patients of Dr. Thomas, he was\nmaking the observations recorded in Boyle's _History of the Air_ which\nLocke himself edited after the death of his friend.\n\nMeanwhile accident had turned his life into far different paths. An\nappointment as secretary to a special ambassador opened up to him a\ndiplomatic career; but his sturdy commonsense showed him his unfitness\nfor such labors. After his visit to Prussia he returned to Oxford, and\nthere, in 1667, in the course of his medical work, he met Anthony\nAshley, the later Lord Shaftesbury and the Ahitophel of Dryden's great\nsatire. The two men were warmly attracted to each other, and Locke\naccepted an appointment as physician to Lord Ashley's household. But he\nwas also much more than this. The tutor of Ashley's philosophic\ngrandson, he became also his patron's confidential counsellor. In 1663\nhe became part author of a constitutional scheme for Carolina which is\nnoteworthy for its emphasis, thus early, upon the importance of\nreligious toleration. In 1672, when Ashley became Lord Chancellor, he\nbecame Secretary of Presentations and, until 1675, Secretary to the\nCouncil of Trade and Foreign Plantations. Meanwhile he carried on his\nmedical work and must have obtained some reputation in it; for he is\nhonorably mentioned by Sydenham, in his _Method of Curing Fevers_\n(1676), and had been elected to the Royal Society in 1668. But his real\ngenius lay in other directions.\n\nLocke himself has told us how a few friends began to meet at his chamber\nfor the discussions of questions which soon passed into metaphysical\nenquiry; and a page from a commonplace book of 1671 is the first\nbeginning of his systematic work. Relieved of his administrative duties\nin 1675, he spent the next four years in France, mainly occupied with\nmedical observation. He returned to England in 1679 to assist Lord\nShaftesbury in the passionate debates upon the Exclusion Bill. Locke\nfollowed his patron into exile, remaining abroad from 1683 until the\nRevolution. Deprived of his fellowship in 1684 through the malice of\nCharles II, he would have been without means of support had not\nShaftesbury bequeathed him a pension. As it was, he had no easy time.\nHis extradition was demanded by James II after the Monmouth rebellion;\nand though he was later pardoned he refused to return to England until\nWilliam of Orange had procured his freedom. A year after his return he\nmade his appearance as a writer. The _Essay Concerning Human\nUnderstanding_ and the _Two Treatises of Government_ were both published\nin 1690. Five years earlier the _Letter Concerning Toleration_ was\npublished in its Latin dress; and four years afterwards an English\ntranslation appeared. This last, however, perhaps on grounds of\nexpediency, Locke never acknowledged until his will was published; for\nthe time was not yet suited to such generous speculations. Locke was\nthus in his fifty-eighth year when his first admitted work appeared. But\nthe rough attempts at the essay date from 1671, and hints towards the\n_Letter on Toleration_ can be found in fragments of various dates\nbetween the twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth years of his life. Of the\n_Two Treatises_ the first seems to have been written between 1680 and\n1685, the second in the last year of his Dutch exile.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: On the evidence for these dates see the convincing argument\nof Mr. Fox-Bourne in his _Life of Locke_, Vol. II, pp. 165-7.]\n\nThe remaining fourteen years of Locke's life were passed in\nsemi-retirement in East Anglia. Though he held public office, first as\nCommissioner of Appeals, and later of Trade, for twelve years, he could\nnot stand the pressure of London writers, and his public work was only\nintermittent. His counsel, nevertheless, was highly valued; and he seems\nto have won no small confidence from William in diplomatic matters.\nSomers and Charles Montagu held him in high respect, and he had the\nwarm friendship of Sir Isaac Newton. He published some short discussions\non economic matters, and in 1695 gave valuable assistance in the\ndestruction of the censorship of the press. Two years earlier he had\npublished his _Thoughts on Education_, in which the observant reader may\nfind the germ of most of Emile's ideas. He did not fail to revise the\n_Essay_ from time to time; and his _Reasonableness of Christianity_,\nwhich, through Toland, provoked a reply from Stillingfleet and showed\nLocke in retort a master of the controversial art, was in some sort the\nfoundation of the deistic debate in the next epoch. But his chief work\nhad already been done, and he spent his energies in rewarding the\naffection of his friends. Locke died on October 28, 1704, amid\ncircumstances of singular majesty. He had lived a full life, and few\nhave so completely realized the medieval ideal of specializing in\nomniscience. He left warm friends behind him; and Lady Masham has said\nof him that beyond which no man may dare to aspire.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Fox-Bourne, _op. cit_. Letter from Lady Masham to Jean le\nClerc.]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nLocke's _Two Treatises of Government_ are different both in object and\nin value. The first is a detailed and tiresome response to the historic\nimagination of Sir Robert Filmer. In his _Patriarcha_, which first saw\nthe light in 1680, though it had been written long before, the latter\nhad sought to reach the ultimate conclusion of Hobbes without the\nelement of contract upon which the great thinker depended. \"I consent\nwith him,\" said Filmer of Hobbes, \"about the Rights of _exercising_\nGovernment, but I cannot agree to his means of acquiring it.\" That power\nmust be absolute, Filmer, like Hobbes, has no manner of doubt; but his\nmethod of proof is to derive the title of Charles I from Adam. Little\ndifficulties like the origin of primogeniture, or whence, as Locke\npoints out, the universal monarchy of Shem can be derived, the good Sir\nRobert does not satisfactorily determine. Locke takes him up point by\npoint, and there is little enough left, save a sense that history is the\nroot of institutions, when he has done. What troubles us is rather why\nLocke should have wasted the resources of his intelligence upon so\nfeeble an opponent. The book of Hobbes lay ready to his hand; yet he\nalmost ostentatiously refused to grapple with it. The answer doubtless\nlies in Hobbes' unsavory fame. The man who made the Church a mere\ndepartment of the State and justified not less the title of Cromwell\nthan of the Stuarts was not the opponent for one who had a very\npractical problem in hand. And Locke could answer that he was answering\nHobbes implicitly in the second _Treatise_. And though Filmer might\nnever have been known had not Locke thus honored him by retort, he\ndoubtless symbolized what many a nobleman's chaplain preached to his\nmaster's dependents at family prayers.\n\nThe _Second Treatise_ goes to the root of the matter. Why does political\npower, \"a Right of making Laws and Penalties of Death and consequently\nall less Penalties,\" exist? It can only be for the public benefit, and\nour enquiry is thus a study of the grounds of political obedience. Locke\nthus traverses the ground Hobbes had covered in his _Leviathan_ though\nhe rejects every premise of the earlier thinker. To Hobbes the state of\nnature which precedes political organization had been a state of war.\nNeither peace nor reason could prevail where every man was his\nneighbor's enemy; and the establishment of absolute power, with the\nconsequent surrender by men of all their natural liberties, was the only\nmeans of escape from so brutal a r\u00e9gime. That the state of nature was so\ndistinguished Locke at the outset denies. The state of nature is\ngoverned by the law of nature. The law of nature is not, as Hobbes had\nmade it, the antithesis of real law, but rather its condition\nantecedent. It is a body of rules which governs, at all times and all\nplaces, the conduct of men. Its arbiter is reason and, in the natural\nstate, reason shows us that men are equal. From this equality are born\nmen's natural rights which Locke, like the Independents in the Puritan\nRevolution, identifies with life, liberty and property. Obviously\nenough, as Hobbes had also granted, the instinct to self-preservation is\nthe deepest of human impulses. By liberty Locke means the right of the\nindividual to follow his own bent granted only his observance of the\nlaw of nature. Law, in such an aspect, is clearly a means to the\nrealization of freedom in the same way that the rule of the road will,\nby its common acceptance, save its observers from accident. It promotes\nthe initiative of men by defining in terms which by their very statement\nobtain acknowledgment the conditions upon which individual caprice may\nhave its play. Property Locke derives from a primitive communism which\nbecomes transmuted into individual ownership whenever a man has mingled\nhis labor with some object. This labor theory of ownership lived, it may\nbe remarked, to become, in the hands of Hodgskin and Thompson, the\nparent of modern socialism.\n\nThe state of nature is thus, in contrast to the argument of Hobbes,\npre-eminently social in character. There may be war or violence; but\nthat is only when men have abandoned the rule of reason which is\nintegral to their character. But the state of nature is not a civil\nState. There is no common superior to enforce the law of nature. Each\nman, as best he may, works out his own interpretation of it. But\nbecause the intelligences of men are different there is an inconvenient\nvariety in the conceptions of justice. The result is uncertainty and\nchaos; and means of escape must be found from a condition which the\nweakness of men must ultimately make intolerable. It is here that the\nsocial contract emerges. But just as Locke's natural state implies a\nnatural man utterly distinct from Hobbes' gloomy picture, so does\nLocke's social contract represent rather the triumph of reason than of\nhard necessity. It is a contract of each with all, a surrender by the\nindividual of his personal right to fulfil the commands of the law of\nnature in return for the guarantee that his rights as nature ordains\nthem--life and liberty and property--will be preserved. The contract is\nthus not general as with Hobbes but limited and specific in character.\nNor is it, as Hobbes made it, the resignation of power into the hands of\nsome single man or group. On the contrary, it is a contract with the\ncommunity as a whole which thus becomes that common political\nsuperior--the State--which is to enforce the law of nature and punish\ninfractions of it. Nor is Locke's state a sovereign State: the very\nword \"sovereignty\" does not occur, significantly enough, throughout the\ntreatise. The State has power only for the protection of natural law.\nIts province ends when it passes beyond those boundaries.\n\nSuch a contract, in Locke's view, involves the pre-eminent necessity of\nmajority-rule. Unless the minority is content to be bound by the will of\nsuperior numbers the law of nature has no more protection than it had\nbefore the institution of political society. And it is further to be\nassumed that the individual has surrendered to the community his\nindividual right of carrying out the judgment involved in natural law.\nWhether Locke conceived the contract so formulated to be historical, it\nis no easy matter to determine. That no evidence of its early existence\ncan be adduced he ascribes to its origin in the infancy of the race; and\nthe histories of Rome and Sparta and Venice seem to him proof that the\ntheory is somehow demonstrable by facts. More important than origins, he\nseems to deem its implications. He has placed consent in the foreground\nof the argument; and he was anxious to establish the grounds for its\ncontinuance. Can the makers of the original contract, that is to say,\nbind their successors? If legitimate government is based upon the\nconsent of its subjects, may they withdraw their consent? And what of a\nchild born into the community? Locke is at least logical in his consent.\nThe contract of obedience must be free or else, as Hooker had previously\ninsisted, it is not a contract. Yet Locke urged that the primitive\nmembers of a State are bound to its perpetuation simply because unless\nthe majority had power to enforce obedience government, in any\nsatisfactory sense, would be impossible. With children the case is\ndifferent. They are born subjects of no government or country; and their\nconsent to its laws must either be derived from express acknowledgment,\nor by the tacit implication of the fact that the protection of the State\nhas been accepted. But no one is bound until he has shown by the rule of\nhis mature conduct that he considers himself a common subject with his\nfellows. Consent implies an act of will and we must have evidence to\ninfer its presence before the rule of subjection can be applied.\n\nWe have thus the State, though the method of its organization is not\nyet outlined. For Locke there is a difference, though he did not\nexplicitly describe its nature, between State and Government. Indeed he\nsometimes approximates, without ever formally adopting, the attitude of\nPufendorf, his great German contemporary, where government is derived\nfrom a secondary contract dependent upon the original institution of\ncivil society. The distinction is made in the light of what is to\nfollow. For Locke was above all anxious to leave supreme power in a\ncommunity whose single will, as manifested by majority-verdict, could\nnot be challenged by any lesser organ than itself. Government there must\nbe if political society is to endure; but its form and substance are\ndependent upon popular institution.\n\nLocke follows in the great Aristotelian tradition of dividing the types\nof government into three. Where the power of making laws is in a single\nhand we have a monarchy; where it is exercised by a few or all we have\nalternatively oligarchy and democracy. The disposition of the\nlegislative power is the fundamental test of type; for executive and\njudiciary are clearly dependent on it. Nor, as Hobbes argued, is the\nform of government permanent in character; the supreme community is as\ncapable of making temporary as of registering irrevocable decisions. And\nthough Locke admits that monarchy, from its likeness to the family, is\nthe most primitive type of government, he denies Hobbes' assertion that\nit is the best. It seems, in his view, always to degenerate into the\nhands of lesser men who betray the contract they were appointed to\nobserve. Nor is oligarchy much better off since it emphasizes the\ninterest of a group against the superior interest of the community as a\nwhole. Democracy alone proffers adequate safeguards of an enduring good\nrule; a democracy, that is to say, which is in the hands of delegates\ncontrolled by popular election. Not that Locke is anxious for the\nabolition of kingship. His letters show that he disliked the Cromwellian\nsystem and the republicanism which Harrington and Milton had based upon\nit. He was content to have a kingship divested of legislative power so\nlong as hereditary succession was acknowledged to be dependent upon\npopular consent. The main thing was to be rid of the Divine Right of\nkings.\n\nWe have thus an organ for the interpretation of natural law free from\nthe shifting variety of individual judgment. We have a means for\nsecuring impartial justice between members of civil society, and to that\nmeans the force of men has been surrendered. The formulation of the\nrules by which life, liberty and property are to be secured is\nlegislation and this, from the terms of the original contract, is the\nsupreme function of the State. But, in Locke's view, two other functions\nstill remain. Law has not only to be declared. It must be enforced; and\nthe business of the executive is to secure obedience to the command of\nlaw. But Locke here makes a third distinction. The State must live with\nother States, both as regards its individual members, and as a\ncollective body; and the power which deals with this aspect of its\nrelationships, Locke termed \"federative.\" This last distinction, indeed,\nhas no special value; and its author's own defence of it is far from\nclear. More important, especially, for future history, was his emphasis\nof the distinction between legislature and executive. The making of laws\nis for Locke a relatively simple and rapid task; the legislature may do\nits work and be gone. But those who attend to their execution must be\nceaseless in their vigilance. It is better, therefore, to separate the\ntwo both as to powers and persons. Otherwise legislators \"may exempt\nthemselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both\nin its making and its execution, to their own private wish, and thereby\ncome to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community,\ncontrary to the end of society and government.\" The legislator must\ntherefore be bound by his own laws; and he must be chosen in such\nfashion that the representative assembly may fairly represent its\nconstituencies. It was the patent anomalies of the existent scheme of\ndistribution which made Locke here proffer his famous suggestion that\nthe rotten boroughs should be abolished by executive act. One hundred\nand forty years were still to pass before this wise suggestion was\ntranslated into statute.\n\nThough Locke thus insisted upon the separation of powers, he realized\nthat emergencies are the parent of special need; and he recognized that\nnot only may the executive, as in England, share in the task of\nlegislation, but also may issue ordinances when the legislature is not\nin session, or act contrary to law in case of grave danger. Nor can the\nexecutive be forced to summon the legislature. Here, clearly enough,\nLocke is generalizing from the English constitution; and its sense of\ncompromise is implicit in his remarks. Nor is his surrender here of\nconsent sufficient to be inconsistent with his general outlook. For at\nthe back of each governmental act, there is, in his own mind, an active\ncitizen body occupied in judging it with single-minded reference to the\nlaw of nature and their own natural rights. There is thus a standard of\nright and wrong superior to all powers within the State. \"A government,\"\nas he says, \"is not free to do as it pleases ... the law of nature\nstands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others.\"\nThe social contract is secreted in the interstices of public statutes.\n\nIts corollary is the right of revolution. It is interesting that he\nshould have adopted this position; for in 1676 he had uttered the\nthought that not even the demands of conscience[3] can justify\nrebellion. That was, however, before the tyranny of Charles had driven\nhim into exile with his patron, and before James had attempted the\nsubversion of all constitutional government. To deny the right of\nrevolution was to justify the worst demands of James, and it is in its\nfavor that he exerts his ablest controversial power. \"The true remedy,\"\nhe says, \"of force without authority is to oppose force to it.\" Let the\nsovereign but step outside the powers derived from the social contract\nand resistance becomes a natural right. But how define such invasion of\npowers? The instances Locke chose show how closely, here at least, he\nwas following the events of 1688. The substitution of arbitrary will for\nlaw, the corruption of Parliament by packing it with the prince's\ninstruments, betrayal to a foreign prince, prevention of the due\nassemblage of Parliament--all these are a perversion of the trust\nimposed and operate to effect the dissolution of the contract. The\nstate of nature again supervenes, and a new contract may be made with\none more fitted to observe it. Here, also, Locke takes occasion to deny\nthe central position of Hobbes' thesis. Power, the latter had argued,\nmust be absolute and there cannot, therefore, be usurpation. But Locke\nretorts that an absolute government is no government at all since it\nproceeds by caprice instead of reason; and it is comparable only to a\nstate of war since it implies the absence of judgment upon the character\nof power. It lacks the essential element of consent without which the\nbinding force of law is absent. All government is a moral trust, and the\nidea of limitation is therein implied. But a limitation without the\nmeans of enforcement would be worthless, and revolution remains as the\nreserve power in society. The only hindrance to its exertion that Locke\nsuggests is that of number. Revolution should not, he urges, be the act\nof a minority; for the contract is the action of the major portion of\nthe people and its consent should likewise obtain to the dissolution of\nthe covenant.\n\n[Footnote 3: King, _Life of Locke_, pp. 62, 63.]\n\nThe problem of Church and State demanded a separate discussion; and it\nis difficult not to feel that the great _Letter on Toleration_ is the\nnoblest of all his utterances. It came as the climax to a long evolution\nof opinion; and, in the light of William's own conviction, it may be\nsaid to have marked a decisive epoch of thought. Already in the\nsixteenth century Robert Brown and William the Silent had denounced the\npersecution of sincere belief. Early Baptists like Busher and Richardson\nhad finely denied its validity. Roger Williams in America, Milton in\nEngland had attacked its moral rightness and political adequacy; while\nchurchmen like Hales and Taylor and the noble Chillingworth had shown\nthe incompatibility between a religion of love and a spirit of hate. Nor\nhad example been wanting. The religious freedom of Holland was narrow,\nas Spinoza had found, but it was still freedom. Rhode Island,\nPennsylvania, South Carolina and Massachusetts had all embarked upon\nadmirable experiment; and Penn himself had aptly said that a man may go\nto chapel instead of church, even while he remains a good constable.\nAnd in 1687, in the preface to his translation of Lactantius, Burnet had\nnot merely attacked the moral viciousness of persecution, but had drawn\na distinction between the spheres of Church and State which is a\nremarkable anticipation of Locke's own theory.\n\nLocke himself covers the whole ground; and since his opinions on the\nproblem were at least twenty years old, it is clear that he was\nconsistent in a worthy outlook. He proceeds by a denial that any element\nof theocratic government can claim political validity. The magistrate is\nconcerned only with the preservation of social peace and does not deal\nwith the problem of men's souls. Where, indeed, opinions destructive of\nthe State are entertained or a party subversive of peace makes its\nappearance, the magistrate has the right of suppression; though in the\nlatter case force is the worst and last of remedies. In the English\nsituation, it follows that all men are to be tolerated save Catholics,\nMahomedans and atheists. The first are themselves deniers of the rights\nthey would seek, and they find the centre of their political allegiance\nin a foreign power. Mahomedan morals are incompatible with European\ncivil systems; and the central factor in atheism is the absence of the\nonly ultimately satisfactory sanction of good conduct. Though Church and\nState are thus distinct, they act for a reciprocal benefit; and it is\nthus important to see why Locke insists on the invalidity of\npersecution. For such an end as the cure of souls, he argues, the\nmagistrate has no divine legation. He cannot, on other grounds, use\nforce for the simple reason that it does not produce internal\nconviction. But even if that were possible, force would still be\nmistaken; for the majority of the world is not Christian, yet it would\nhave the right to persecute in the belief that it was possessed of\ntruth. Nor can the implication that the magistrate has the keys of\nheaven be accepted. \"No religion,\" says Locke finely, \"which I believe\nnot to be true can be either true or profitable to me.\" He thus makes of\nthe Church an institution radically different from the ruling\nconceptions of his time. It becomes merely a voluntary society, which\ncan exert no power save over its members. It may use its own ceremonies,\nbut it cannot impose them on the unwilling; and since persecution is\nalien from the spirit of Christ, exclusion from membership must be the\nlimit of ecclesiastical disciplinary power. Nor must we forget the\nadvantages of toleration. Its eldest child is charity, and without it\nthere can be no honesty of opinion. Later controversy did not make him\nmodify these principles; and they lived, in Macaulay's hands, to be a\nvital weapon in the political method of the nineteenth century.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nAny survey of earlier political theory would show how little of novelty\nthere is in the specific elements of Locke's general doctrine. He is at\nall points the offspring of a great and unbroken tradition; and that not\nthe least when he seems unconscious of it. Definite teachers, indeed, he\ncan hardly be said to have had; no one can read his book without\nperceiving how much of it is rooted in the problems of his own day. He\nhimself has expressed his sense of Hooker's greatness, and he elsewhere\nhad recommended the works of Grotius and Pufendorf as an essential\nelement in education. But his was a nature which learned more from men\nthan books; and he more than once insisted that his philosophy was woven\nof his own \"coarse thoughts.\" What, doubtless, he therein meant was to\nemphasize the freshness of his contact with contemporary fact in\ncontrast with the technical jargon of the earlier thinkers. At least his\nwork is free from the mountains of allusion which Prynne rolled into the\nbottom of his pages; and if the first Whig was the devil, he is\nsingularly free from the irritating pedantry of biblical citation. Yet\neven with these novelties, no estimate of his work would be complete\nwhich failed to take account of the foundations upon which he builded.\n\nHerein, perhaps, the danger is lest we exaggerate Locke's dependence\nupon the earlier current of thought. The social contract is at least as\nold as when Glaucon debated with Socrates in the market-place at Athens.\nThe theory of a state of nature, with the rights therein implied, is the\ncontribution, through Stoicism, of the Roman lawyers, and the great\nmedieval contrast to Aristotle's experimentalism. To the latter, also,\nmay be traced the separation of powers; and it was then but little more\nthan a hundred years since Bodin had been taken to make the doctrine an\nintegral part of scientific politics. Nor is the theory of a right to\nrevolution in any sense his specific creation. So soon as the\nReformation had given a new perspective to the problem of Church and\nState every element of Locke's doctrine had become a commonplace of\ndebate. Goodman and Knox among Presbyterians, Suarez and Mariana among\nCatholics, the author of the _Vindici\u00e6_ and Francis Hotman among the\nHuguenots, had all of them emphasized the concept of public power as a\ntrust; with, of course, the necessary corollary that its abuse entails\nresistance. Algernon Sydney was at least his acquaintance; and he must\nhave been acquainted with the tradition, even if tragedy spared him the\ndetails, of the _Discourses on Government_. Even his theory of\ntoleration had in every detail been anticipated by one or other of a\nhundred controversialists; and his argument can hardly claim either the\nlofty eloquence of Jeremy Taylor or the cogent simplicity of William\nPenn.\n\nWhat differentiates Locke from all his predecessors is the manner of his\nwriting on the one hand, and the fact of the Revolution on the other.\nEvery previous thinker save Sydney--the latter's work was not published\nuntil 1689--was writing with the Church hardly less in mind than the\npurely political problems of the State; even the secular Hobbes had\ndevoted much thought and space to that \"kingdom of darkness\" which is\nRome. And, Sydney apart, the resistance they had justified was always\nresistance to a religious tyrant; and Cartwright was as careful to\nexclude political oppression from the grounds of revolution as Locke was\nto insist upon it as the fundamental excuse. Locke is, in fact, the\nfirst of English thinkers the basis of whose argument is mainly secular.\nNot, indeed, that he can wholly escape the trammels of ecclesiasticism;\nnot until the sceptical intelligence of Hume was such freedom possible.\nBut it is clear enough that Locke was shifting to very different ground\nfrom that which arrested the attention of his predecessors. He is\nattempting, that is to say, a separation between Church and State not\nmerely in that Scoto-Jesuit sense which aimed at ecclesiastical\nindependence, but in order to assert the pre-eminence of the State as\nsuch. The central problem is with him political, and all other questions\nare subsidiary to it. Therein we have a sense, less clear in any\nprevious writer save Machiavelli, of the real result of the decay of\nmedieval ideals. Church and State have become transposed in their\nsignificance. The way, as a consequence, lies open to new dogmas.\n\nThe historical research of the nineteenth century has long since made an\nend of the social contract as an explanation of state-origins; and with\nit, of necessity, has gone the conception of natural rights as anterior\nto organized society. The problem, as we now know, is far more complex\nthan the older thinkers imagined. Yet Locke's insistence on consent and\nnatural rights has received new meaning from each critical period of\nhistory since he wrote. The theory of consent is vital because without\nthe provision of channels for its administrative expression, men tend to\nbecome the creatures of a power ignorant at once and careless of their\nwill. Active consent on the part of the mass of men emphasizes the\ncontingent nature of all power and is essential to the full realization\nof freedom; and the purpose of the State, in any sense save the mere\nsatisfaction of material appetite, remains, without it, unfulfilled. The\nconcept of natural right is most closely related to this position. For\nso long as we regard rights as no more than the creatures of law, there\nis at no point adequate safeguard against their usurpation. A merely\nlegal theory of the State can never, therefore, exhaust the problems of\npolitical philosophy.\n\nNo thinker has seen this fact more clearly than Locke; and if his effort\nto make rights something more than interests under juridical protection\ncan not be accepted in the form he made it, the underlying purpose\nremains. A State, that is to say, which aims at giving to men the full\ncapacity their trained initiative would permit is compelled to regard\ncertain things as beyond the action of an ordinary legislature. What\nStammler calls a \"natural law with changing content\"[4]--a content\nwhich changes with our increasing power to satisfy demand--is essential\nif the state is to live the life of law. For here was the head and\ncentre of Locke's enquiry. \"What he was really concerned about,\" said\nT.H. Green, \"was to dispute 'the right divine of kings to govern\nwrong.'\" The method, as he conceived, by which this could be\naccomplished was the limitation of power. This he effected by two\ndistinct methods, the one external, the other internal, in character.\n\n[Footnote 4: Cf. my _Authority in the Modern State_, p. 64., and\nthe references there cited.]\n\nThe external method has, at bottom, two sides. It is, in the first\nplace, achieved by a narrow definition of the purpose of the state. To\nLocke the State is little more than a negative institution, a kind of\ngigantic limited liability company; and if we are inclined to cavil at\nsuch restraint, we may perhaps remember that even to neo-Hegelians like\nGreen and Bosanquet this negative sense is rarely absent, in the\ninterest of individual exertion. But for Locke the real guarantee of\nright lies in another direction. What his whole work amounts to in\nsubstance--it is a significant anticipation of Rousseau--is a denial\nthat sovereignty can exist anywhere save in the community as a whole. A\ncommon political superior there doubtless must be; but government is an\norgan to which omnipotence is wanting. So far as there is a sovereign at\nall in Locke's book, it is the will of that majority which Rousseau\ntried to disguise under the name of the general will; but obviously the\nconception lacks precision enough to give the notion of sovereignty the\nmeans of operation. The denial is natural enough to a man who had seen,\nunder three sovereigns, the evils of unlimited power; and if there is\nlacking to his doctrine the well-rounded logic of Hobbes' proof that an\nunlimited sovereign is unavoidable, it is well to remember that the\nshift of opinion is, in our own time, more and more in the direction of\nLocke's attitude. That omnicompetence of Parliament which Bentham and\nAustin crystallized into the retort to Locke admits, in later hands, of\nexactly the amelioration he had in mind; and its ethical inadequacy\nbecomes the more obvious the more closely it is studied.[5]\n\n[Footnote 5: Cf. my _Problem of Sovereignty_, Chap. I.]\n\nThe internal limitation Locke suggested is of more doubtful value.\nGovernment, he says, in substance, is a trustee and trustees abuse their\npower; let us therefore divide it as to parts and persons that the\ntemptation to usurp may be diminished. There is a long history to this\ndoctrine in its more obvious form, and it is a lamentable history. It\ntied men down to a tyrannous classification which had no root in the\nmaterial it was supposed to distinguish. Montesquieu took it for the\nroot of liberty; Blackstone, who should have known better, repeated the\npious phrases of the Frenchman; and they went in company to America to\npersuade Madison and the Supreme Court of the United States that only\nthe separation of powers can prevent the approach of tyranny. The facts\ndo not bear out such assumption. The division of powers means in the\nevent not less than their confusion. None can differentiate between the\njudge's declaration of law and his making of it.[6] Every government\ndepartment is compelled to legislate, and, often enough, to undertake\njudicial functions. The American history of the separation of powers\nhas most largely been an attempt to bridge them; and all that has been\ngained is to drive the best talent, save on rare occasion, from its\npublic life. In France the separation of powers meant, until recent\ntimes, the excessive subordination of the judiciary to the cabinet. Nor\nmust we forget, as Locke should have remembered, the plain lesson of the\nCromwellian constitutional experiments. That the dispersion of power is\none of the great needs of the modern State at no point justifies the\nrigid categories into which Locke sought its division.[7]\n\n[Footnote 6: Cf. Mr. Justice Holmes' remarks in _Jensen_ v.\n_Southern Pacific_, 244 U.S. 221.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Cf. my _Authority in the Modern State_, pp. 70 f.]\n\nNor must we belittle the criticism, in its clearest form the work of\nFitz James Stephen,[8] that has been levelled at Locke's theory of\ntoleration. For the larger part of the modern world, his argument is\nacceptable enough; and its ingenious compromises have made it especially\nrepresentative of the English temper. Yet much of it hardly meets the\nargument that some of his opponents, as Proast for example, had made.\nHis conception of the visible church as no part of the essence of\nreligion could win no assent from even a moderate Anglican; and, once\nthe visible church is admitted, Locke's facile distinction between\nChurch and State falls to the ground. Nor can it be doubted that he\nunderestimated the power of coercion to produce assent; the policy of\nLouis XIV to the Huguenots may have been brutal, but its efficacy must\nbe unquestionable. And it is at least doubtful whether his theory has\nany validity for a man who held, as Roman Catholics of his generation\nwere bound to hold, that the communication of his particular brand of\ntruth outweighed in value all other questions. \"Every Church,\" he wrote,\n\"is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or heretical\"; but to any\nearnest believer this would approximate to blasphemy. Nor could any\nserious Christian accept the view that \"under the gospel '...there is no\nsuch thing as a Christian commonwealth'\"; to Catholics and Presbyterians\nthis must have appeared the merest travesty of their faith.\n\n[Footnote 8: Cf. also Coleridge's apt remark. _Table Talk_, Jan. 3,\n1834.]\n\nHere, indeed, as elsewhere Locke is the true progenitor of Benthamism,\nand his work can hardly be understood save in this context. Just as in\nhis ethical enquiries it was always the happiness of the individual that\nhe sought, so in his politics it was the happiness of the subject he had\nin view. In each case it was to immediate experience that he made his\nappeal; and this perhaps explains the clear sense of a contempt for past\ntradition which pervades all his work. \"That which is for the public\nwelfare,\" he said, \"is God's will\"; and therein we have the root of that\nutilitarianism which, as Maine pointed out, is the real parent of all\nnineteenth century change. And with Locke, as with the Benthamites, his\nclear sense of what utilitarianism demanded led to an over-emphasis of\nhuman rationalism. No one can read the _Second Treatise_ without\nperceiving that Locke looked upon the State as a machine which can be\nbuilt and taken to pieces in very simple fashion. Herein, undoubtedly,\nhe over-simplified the problem; and that made him miss some of the\ncardinal points a true psychology of the State must seize. His very\ncontractualism, indeed, is part of this affection for the rational. It\nresulted in his failure to perceive how complex is the mass of motives\nimbedded in the political act. The significance of herd instinct and the\nvast primitive deeps of the unconscious were alike hidden from him. All\nthis is of defect; and yet excusably. For it needed the demonstration by\nDarwin of the kinship of man and beast for us to see the real substance\nof Aristotle's vision that man is embedded in political society.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nOnce Locke's work had become known, its reputation was secure. Not,\nindeed, that it was entirely welcome to his generation. Men were not\nwanting who shrank from his thoroughgoing rationalism and felt that\nanything but reason must be the test of truth. Those who stood by the\nancient ways found it easy to discover republicanism and the roots of\natheistic doctrine in his work; and even the theories of Filmer could\nfind defenders against him in the Indian summer of prerogative under\nQueen Anne. John Hutton informed a friend that he was not less dangerous\nthan Spinoza; and the opinion found an echo from the nonjuring sect.\nBut these, after all, were but the eddies of a stream fast burying\nitself in the sands. For most, the Revolution was a final settlement,\nand Locke was welcome as a writer who had discovered the true source of\npolitical comfort. So it was that William Molyneux could embody the\nideas of the \"incomparable treatise\" in his demand for Irish freedom; a\nbook which, even in those days, occasioned some controversy. Nor is it\nuninteresting to discover that the translation of Hotman's\n_Franco-Gallia_ should have been embellished with a preface from one\nwho, as Molyneux wrote to Locke,[9] never met the Irish writer without\nconversing of their common master. How rapidly the doctrine spread we\nlearn from a letter of Bayle's in which, as early as 1693, Locke has\nalready became \"the gospel of the Protestants.\" Nor was his immediate\ninfluence confined to England. French Huguenots and the Dutch drew\nnaturally upon so happy a defender; and Barbeyrac, in the translation of\nPufendorf which he published in 1706, cites no writer so often as\nLocke. The speeches for the prosecution in the trial of Sacheverell were\nalmost wholesale adaptations of his teaching; and even the accused\ncounsel admitted the legality of James' deposition in his speech for the\ndefence.\n\n[Footnote 9: Locke, Works (ed. of 1812), IX. 435.]\n\nMore valuable testimony is not wanting. In the _Spectator_, on six\nseparate occasions, Addison speaks of him as one whose possession is a\nnational glory. Defoe in his _Original Power of the People of England_\nmade Locke the common possession of the average man, and offered his\nacknowledgments to his master. Even the malignant genius of Swift\nsoftened his hate to find the epithet \"judicious\" for one in whose\ndoctrines he can have found no comfort. Pope summarized his teaching in\nthe form that Bolingbroke chose to give it. Hoadly, in his _Original and\nInstitution of Civil Government_, not only dismisses Filmer in a first\npart each page of which is modelled upon Locke, but adds a second\nsection in which a defence of Hooker serves rather clumsily to conceal\nthe care with which the _Second Treatise_ had also been pillaged. Even\nWarburton ceased for a moment his habit of belittling all rivals in the\nfield he considered his own to call him, in that _Divine Legation_ which\nhe considered his masterpiece, \"the honor of this age and the instructor\nof the future\"; but since Warburton's attack on the High Church theory\nis at every point Locke's argument, he may have considered this\nself-eulogy instead of tribute. Sir Thomas Hollis, on the eve of English\nRadicalism, published a noble edition of his book. And there is perhaps\na certain humor in the remembrance that it was to Locke's economic\ntracts that Bolingbroke went for the arguments with which, in the\n_Craftsman_, he attacked the excise scheme of Walpole. That is\nirrefutable evidence of the position he had attained.\n\nYet the tide was already on the ebb, and for cogent reasons. There still\nremained the tribute to be paid by Montesquieu when he made Locke's\nseparation of powers the keystone of his own more splendid arch. The\nmost splendid of all sciolists was still to use his book for the outline\nof a social contract more daring even than his own. The authors of the\n_Declaration of Independence_ had still, in words taken from Locke, to\nreassert the state of nature and his rights; and Mr. Martin of North\nCarolina was to find him quotable in the debates of the Philadelphia\nConvention. Yet Locke's own weapons were being turned against him and\nwhat was permanent in his work was being cast into the new form required\nby the time. A few sentences of Hume were sufficient to make the social\ncontract as worthless as the Divine Right of kings, and when Blackstone\ncame to sum up the result of the Revolution, if he wrote in contractual\nterms it was with a full admission that he was making use of fiction so\nfar as he went behind the settlement of 1688. Nor is the work of Dean\nTucker without significance. The failure of England in the American war\nwas already evident; and it was not without justice that he looked to\nLocke as the author of their principles. \"The Americans,\" he wrote,\n\"have made the maxims of Locke the ground of the present war\"; and in\nhis _Treatise Concerning Civil Government_ and his _Four Letters_ he\ndeclares himself unable to understand on what Locke's reputation was\nbased. Meanwhile the English disciples of Rousseau in the persons of\nPrice and Priestley suggested to him that Locke, \"the idol of the\nlevellers of England,\" was the parent also of French destructiveness.\nBurke took up the work thus begun; and after he had dealt with the\ncontract theory it ceased to influence political speculation in England.\nIts place was taken by the utilitarian doctrine which Hume had outlined;\nand once Bentham's _Fragment_ had begun to make its way, a new epoch\nopened in the history of political ideas.\n\nLocke might, indeed, claim that he had a part in this renaissance; but,\nonce the influence of Burke had passed, it was to other gods men turned.\nFor Bentham made an end of natural rights; and his contempt for the past\nwas even more unsparing than Locke's own. It is more instructive to\ncompare his work with Hobbes and Rousseau than with later thinkers; for\nafter Hume English speculation works in a medium Locke would not have\nunderstood. Clearly enough, he has nothing of the relentless logic which\nmade Hobbes' mind the clearest instrument in the history of English\nphilosophy. Nor has he Hobbes' sense of style or pungent grasp of the\ngrimness of facts about him. Yet he need not fear the comparison with\nthe earlier thinker. If Hobbes' theory of sovereignty is today one of\nthe commonplaces of jurisprudence, ethically and politically we occupy\nourselves with erecting about it a system of limitations each one of\nwhich is in some sort due to Locke's perception. If we reject Locke's\nview of the natural goodness of men, Hobbes' sense of their evil\ncharacter is not less remote from our speculations. Nor can we accept\nHobbes' Erastianism. Locke's view of Church and State became, indeed, a\nkind of stepchild to it in the stagnant days of the later Georges; but\nWesleyanism, on the one hand, and the Oxford movement on the other,\npointed the inevitable moral of even an approximation to the Hobbesian\nview. And anyone who surveys the history of Church and State in America\nwill be tempted to assert that in the last hundred years the\nseparateness for which Locke contended is not without its justification.\nLocke's theory is a means of preserving the humanity of men; Hobbes\nmakes their reason and conscience the subjects of a power he forbids\nthem to judge. Locke saw that vigilance is the sister of liberty, where\nHobbes dismissed the one as faction and the other as disorder. At every\npoint, that is to say, where Hobbes and Locke are at variance, the\nfuture has been on Locke's side. He may have defended his cause less\nsplendidly than his rival; but it will at least be admitted by most that\nhe had a more splendid cause to defend.\n\nWith Rousseau there is no contrast, for the simple reason that his\nteaching is only a broadening of the channel dug by Locke. No element\nintegral to the _Two Treatises_ is absent from the _Social Contract_.\nRousseau, indeed, in many aspects saw deeper than his predecessor. The\nform into which he threw his questions gave them an eternal significance\nLocke can perhaps hardly claim. He understood the organic character of\nthe State, where Locke was still trammelled by the bonds of his narrow\nindividualism. It is yet difficult to see that the contribution upon\nwhich Rousseau's fame has mainly rested is at any point a real advance\nupon Locke. The general will, in practical instead of semi-mystic terms,\nreally means the welfare of the community as a whole; and when we\nenquire how that general will is to be known, we come, after much\nshuffling, upon the will of that majority in which Locke also put his\ntrust. Rousseau's general will, indeed, is at bottom no more than an\nassertion that right and truth should prevail; and for this also Locke\nwas anxious. But he did not think an infallible criterion existed for\nits detection; and he was satisfied with the convenience of a simple\nnumerical test. Nor would it be difficult to show that Locke's state has\nmore real room for individuality than Rousseau's. The latter made much\nshow of an impartible and inalienable sovereignty eternally vested in\nthe people; but in practice its exercise is impossible outside the\nconfines of a city-state. Once, that is to say, we deal with modern\nproblems our real enquiry is still the question of Locke--what limits\nshall we place upon the power of government? Rousseau has only\nemphasized the urgency of the debate.\n\nWherein, perhaps, the most profound distinction between Locke's teaching\nand our own time may be discovered is in our sense of the impossibility\nthat a final answer can be found to political questions. Each age has\nnew materials at its command; and, today, a static philosophy would\ncondemn itself before completion. We do not build Utopias; and the\nattempt to discover the eternal principles of political right invites\ndisaster at the outset. Yet that does not render useless, even for our\nown day, the kind of work Locke did. In the largest sense, his questions\nare still our own. In the largest sense, also, we are near enough to his\ntime to profit at each step of our own efforts by the hints he proffers.\nThe point at which he stood in English history bears not a little\nresemblance to our own. The emphasis, now as then, is upon the problem\nof freedom. The problem, now as then, was its translation into\ninstitutional terms. It is the glory of Locke that he brought a generous\npatience and a searching wisdom to the solution he proffered to his\ngeneration.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHURCH AND STATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe Revolution of 1688 drew its main source of strength from the\ntraditional dislike of Rome, and the eager desire to place the Church of\nEngland beyond the reach of James' aggression. Yet it was not until a\ngeneration had passed that the lines of ecclesiastical settlement were,\nin any full sense clear. The difficulties involved were mostly\ngovernmental, and it can hardly even yet be said that they have been\nsolved. The nature of the relation between Church and State, the\naffiliation between the Church and Nonconformist bodies, the character\nof its internal government--all these had still to be defined. Nor was\nthis all. The problem of definition was made more complex by schism and\ndisloyalty. An important fraction of the Church could not accept at all\nthe fact of William's kingship; and if the larger part submitted, it\ncannot be said to have been enthusiastic.\n\nNor did the Church make easy the situation of the Nonconformists.\nToleration of some kind was rapidly becoming inevitable; and with a\nCalvinist upon the throne persecution of, at any rate, the Presbyterians\nbecame finally impossible. Yet the definition of what limits were to be\nset to toleration was far from easy. The Church seemed like a fortress\nbeleaguered when Nonjurors, Deists, Nonconformists, all alike assaulted\nher foundations. To loosen her hold upon political privilege seemed to\nbe akin to self-destruction. And, after all, if Church and State were to\nstand in some connection, the former must have some benefit from the\nalliance. Did such partnership imply exclusion from its privilege for\nall who could not accept the special brand of religious doctrine? Locke,\nat least, denied the assumption, and argued that since Churches are\nvoluntary societies, they cannot and ought not to have reciprocal\nrelation with the State. But Locke's theory was meat too strong for the\ndigestion of his time; and no statesman would then have argued that a\ngovernment could forego the advantage of religious support. And William,\nafter all, had come to free the church from her oppressor. Freedom\nimplied protection, and protection in that age involved establishment.\nIt was thus taken for granted by most members of the Church of England\nthat her adoption by the State meant her superiority to every other form\nof religious organization. Superiority is, by its nature exclusive, the\nmore especially when it is united to a certainty of truth and a kinship\nwith the dominant political interest of the time. Long years were thus\nto pass before the real meaning of the Toleration Act secured\ntranslation into more generous statutes.\n\nThe problem of the Church's government was hardly less complex. The very\nacerbity with which it was discussed proclaims that we are in an age of\nsettlement. Much of the dispute, indeed, is doubtless due to the dislike\nof all High Churchmen for William; with their consequent unwillingness\nto admit the full meaning of his ecclesiastical supremacy. Much also is\ndue to the fact that the bench of bishops, despite great figures like\nTillotson and Wake, was necessarily chosen for political aptitude rather\nthan for religious value. Nor did men like Burnet and Hoadly, for all\ntheir learning, make easy the path for brethren of more tender\nconsciences. The Church, moreover, must have felt its powers the more\nvaluable from the very strength of the assault to which she was\nsubjected. And the direct interference with her governance implied by\nthe Oaths of Allegiance and of Abjuration raised questions we have not\nyet solved. It suggested the subordination of Church to State; and men\nlike Hickes and Leslie were quick to point out the Erastianism of the\nage. It is a fact inevitable in the situation of the English Church that\nthe charge of subjection to the State should rouse a deep and quick\nresentment. She cannot be a church unless she is a _societas perfecta_;\nshe cannot have within herself the elements of perfect fellowship if\nwhat seem the plain commands of Christ are to be at the mercy of the\nking in Parliament. That is the difficulty which lies at the bottom of\nthe debate with Wake in one age and with Hoadly in the next. In some\nsort, it is the problem of sovereignty that is here at issue; and it is\nin this sense that the problems of the Revolution are linked with the\nOxford Movement. But Newman and his followers are the unconscious\nsponsors of a debate which grows in volume; and to discuss the thoughts\nof Wake and Hoadly and Law is thus, in a vital aspect, the study of\ncontemporary ideas.\n\nWe are not here concerned with the wisdom of those of William's advisers\nwho exacted an oath of allegiance from the clergy. It raised in acute\nform the validity of a doctrine which had, for more than a century, been\nthe main foundation of the alliance between throne and altar in England.\nThe demand precipitated a schism which lingered on, though fitfully,\nuntil the threshold of the nineteenth century. The men who could not\ntake the oath were, many of them, among the most distinguished churchmen\nof the time. Great ecclesiastics like Sancroft, the archbishop of\nCanterbury and one of the seven who had gained immortality by his\nresistance to James, saints like Ken, the bishop of Bath and Wells,\nscholars like George Hickes and Henry Dodwell, men like Charles Leslie,\nborn with a genius for recrimination; much, it is clear, of what was\nbest in the Church of England was to be found amongst them. There is not\na little of beauty, and much of pathos in their history. Most, after\ntheir deprivation, were condemned to poverty; few of them recanted. The\nlives of men like Sancroft and Ken and the younger Ambrose Bonwicke are\npart of the great Anglican tradition of earnest simplicity which later\nJohn Keble was to illustrate for the nineteenth century. The Nonjurors,\nas they were called, were not free from bitterness; and the history of\ntheir effort, after the consecration of Hilkiah Bedford and Ralph\nTaylor, to perpetuate the schism is a lamentable one. Not, indeed, that\nthe history even of their decline is without its interest; and the\nstudy, alike of their liturgy and their attempt at reunion with the\nEastern Church, must always possess a singular interest for students of\necclesiastical history.\n\nYet the real interest of the Nonjuring schism was political rather than\nreligious; and its roots go out to vital events of the past. At the\nbottom it is the obverse side of the Divine Right of kings that they\nrepresent. That theory, which was the main weapon of the early secular\nstate against the pretensions of Rome, must naturally have commanded the\nallegiance of members of a church which James I, its main exponent, had\ndeclared of vital import to his very existence. Its main opponents,\nmoreover, were Catholics and Dissenters; so that men like Andrewes must\nhave felt that when they answered Bellarmine they were in substance also\ndefenders of their Church. After the great controversy of James I's\nreign resistance as a duty had come to be regarded as a main element in\nJesuit and Nonconformist teaching; with the result that its antithesis\nbecame, as a consequence of the political situation, no less integral a\npart of Church of England doctrine. For it was upon the monarchy that\nthe Church had come to depend for its existence; and if resistance to\nthe king were made, as Knox and Bellarmine had in substance made it, the\nmain weapon of the dissenting churches there was little hope that it\nwould continue to exist once the monarchy was overthrown. And it is\nthis, unquestionably, which explains why stout ecclesiastics like Barrow\nand Jackson can write in what seems so Erastian a temper. When they urge\nthe sovereignty of the State, their thesis is in truth the sovereignty\nof the Church; and that means the triumph of men who looked with\ncontemptuous hatred upon Nonconformists of every sect. The Church of\nEngland taught non-resistance as the condition of its own survival.\n\nHow deep-rooted this doctrine had become in the course of the\nseventeenth century the writings of men like Mainwaring and Sanderson\nsufficiently show; yet nothing so completely demonstrates its widespread\nacceptance as the result of the Revolution. Four hundred clergy\nabandoned their preferment because James ruled by Divine Right; and they\ncould not in conscience resist even his iniquities. An able tract of\n1689[10] had collected much material to show how integral the doctrine\nwas to the beliefs of the Church. Had William's government, indeed,\nrefrained from the imposition of the oath, it is possible that there\nmight have been no schism at all; for the early Nonjurors at\nleast--perhaps Hickes and Turner are exceptions--would probably have\nwelcomed anything which enabled the avoidance of schism. Once, however,\nthe oath was imposed three vital questions were raised. Deprivation\nobviously involved the problem of the power of the State over the\nChurch. If the act of a convention whose own legality was at best\ndoubtful could deprive the consecrated of their position, was the Church\na Church at all, or was it the mere creature of the secular power? And\nwhat, moreover, of conscience? It could not be an inherent part of the\nChurch's belief that men should betray their faith for the sake of\npeace. Later thinkers added the purely secular argument that resistance\nin one case made for resistance in all. Admit, it was argued by Leslie,\nthe right to disobey, and the fabric of society is at a stroke\ndissolved. The attitude is characteristic of that able controversialist;\nand it shows how hardly the earlier notions of Divine Right were to\ndie.\n\n[Footnote 10: _The History of Passive Obedience_. Its author was\nJeremy Collier.]\n\nThese theories merit a further examination. Williams, later the Bishop\nof Chichester, had argued that separation on the basis of the oath was\nunreasonable. \"All that the civil power here pretends to,\" he wrote \"is\nto secure itself against the practices of dissatisfied persons.\" The\nNonjurors, in this view, were making an ecclesiastical matter of a\npurely secular issue. He was answered, among others, by Samuel Grascom,\nin an argument which found high favor among the stricter of his sect.\n\"The matter and substance of these Oaths,\" he said, \"is put into the\nprayers of the Church, and so far it becomes a matter of communion. What\npeople are enjoined in the solemn worship to pray for, is made a matter\nof communion; and if it be simple, will not only justify, but require a\nseparation.\" Here is the pith of the matter. For if the form and\nsubstance of Church affairs is thus to be left to governmental will,\nthen those who obey have left the Church and it is the faithful remnant\nonly who constitute the true fellowship. The schism, in this view, was\nthe fault of those who remained subject to William's dominion. The\nNonjurors had not changed; and they were preserving the Church in its\nintegrity from men who strove to betray it to the civil power.\n\nThis matter of integrity is important. The glamour of Macaulay has\nsomewhat softened the situation of those who took the oaths; and in his\npages the Nonjurors appear as stupid men unworthily defending a dead\ncause. It is worth while to note that this is the merest travesty.\nTillotson, who succeeded Sancroft on the latter's deprivation, and\nBurnet himself had urged passive resistance upon Lord William Russell as\nessential to salvation; Tenison had done likewise at the execution of\nMonmouth. Stillingfleet, Patrick, White Kennett, had all written in its\nfavor; and to William Sherlock belongs the privilege of having defended\nand attacked it in two pamphlets each of which challenges the pithy\nbrilliance of the other. Clearly, so far as consistency is in question,\nthe Nonjurors might with justice contend that they had right on their\nside. And even if it is said that the policy of James introduced a new\nsituation the answer surely is that Divine Right and non-resistance can,\nby their very nature, make no allowance for novelty.\n\nThe root, then, of this ecclesiastical contention is the argument later\nadvanced by Leslie in his \"Case of the Regale and the Pontificate\" in\nwhich he summarized the Convocation dispute. The State, he argues, has\nno power over bishops whose relationship to their flock is purely\nspiritual and derived from Christ. The Church is independent of all\ncivil institution, and must have therefore within herself the powers\nnecessary to her life as a society. Leslie repudiates Erastianism in the\nstrongest terms. Not only is it, for him, an encroachment upon the\nrights of Christ, but it leads to deism in the gentry and to dissent\namong the common people. The Church of England comes to be regarded as\nno more than the creature of Parliamentary enactment; and thus to leave\nit as the creature of human votes, is to destroy its divinity.\n\nIt is easy enough to see that men who felt in this fashion could hardly\nhave decided otherwise than as they did. The matter of conscience,\nindeed, was fundamental to their position. \"I think,\" said the Bishop of\nWorcester on his death-bed, \"I could suffer at a stake rather than take\nthis oath.\" That, indeed, represents the general temper. Many of them\ndid not doubt that James had done grievous wrong; but they had taken the\noath of allegiance to him, and they saw in their conscience no means of\nescape from their vow. \"Their Majesties,\" writes the author of the\naccount of Bishop Lake's death, \"are the two persons in the world whose\nreign over them, their interest and inclination oblige them most to\ndesire, and nothing but conscience could restrain them from being as\nforward as any in all expressions of loyalty.\" In such an aspect, even\nthose who believe their attitude to have been wrong, can hardly doubt\nthat they acted rightly in their expression of it. For, after all,\nexperience has shown that the State is built upon the consciences of\nmen. And the protest they made stands out in the next generation in\nvivid contrast to a worldly-minded and politically-corrupt Church which\nonly internal revolution could awaken from its slumbers.\n\nNo one represents so admirably as Charles Leslie the political argument\nof the case. At bottom it is an argument against anarchy that he\nconstructs, and much of what he said is medieval enough in tone to\nsuggest de Maistre's great defence of papalism as the secret of\nworld-order. He stands four square upon divine right and passive\nobedience. \"What man is he who can by his own natural authority bend the\nconscience of another? That would be far more than the power of life,\nliberty or prosperity. Therefore they saw the necessity of a divine\noriginal.\" Such a foundation, he argued elsewhere, is necessary to\norder, for \"if the last resort be in the people, there is no end of\ncontroversy at all, but endless and unremediable confusion.\" Nor had he\nsympathy for the Whig attack on monarchy. \"The reasons against Kings,\"\nhe wrote, \"are as strong against all powers, for men of any titles are\nsubject to err, and numbers more than fewer.\" And nothing can unloose\nthe chain. \"Obedience,\" he said in the _Best of All_, \"is due to\ncommonwealths by their subjects even for conscience' sake, where the\nprinces from whom they have revolted have given up their claim.\"\n\nThe argument has a wider history than its controversial statement might\nseem to warrant. At bottom, clearly enough, it is an attack upon the new\ntradition which Locke had brought into being. What seems to impress it\nmost is the impossibility of founding society upon other than a divine\norigin. Anything less will not command the assent of men sufficiently to\nbe immune from their evil passions. Let their minds but once turn to\nresistance, and the bonds of social order will be broken. Complete\nsubmission is the only safeguard against anarchy. So, a century later,\nde Maistre could argue that unless the whole world became the subject of\nRome, the complete dissolution of Christian society must follow. So,\ntoo, fifty years before, Hobbes had argued for an absolute dominion lest\nthe ambitions and desires of men break through the fragile boundaries of\nthe social estate.\n\nThe answer is clear enough; and, indeed, the case against the Nonjurors\nis nowhere so strong as on its political side. Men cannot be confined\nwithin the limits of so narrow a logic. They will not, with Bishop Ken,\nrejoice in suffering as a doctrine of the Cross. Rather will oppression\nin its turn arouse a sense of wrong and that be parent of a conscience\nwhich provokes to action. Here was the root of Locke's doctrine of\nconsent; for unless the government, as Hume was later to point out, has\non its side the opinion of men, it cannot hope to endure. The fall of\nJames was caused, not as the Nonjurors were tempted to think, by popular\ndisregard of Divine personality, but by his own misunderstanding of the\nlimits to which misgovernment may go. Here their opponents had a\nstrong case to present; for, as Stillingfleet remarked, if William had\nnot come over there might have been no Church of England for the\nNonjurors to preserve. And other ingenious compromises were suggested.\nNon-resistance, it was argued by Sherlock, applied to government in\ngeneral; and the oath, as a passage in the _Convocation Book_ of Overall\nseemed to suggest, might be taken not less to a _de facto_ monarch than\nto one _de jure_. Few, indeed would have taken the ground of Bishop\nBurnet, and allotted the throne to William and Mary as conquerors of\nthe Kingdom; at least the pamphlet in which this uncomfortable doctrine\nwas put forward the House of Commons had burned by the common hangman.\n\nWhat really defeated the Nonjurors' claims was commonsense. Much the\nablest attack upon their position was Stillingfleet's defence of the\npolicy employed in filling up the sees vacated by deprivation; and it is\nremarkable that the theory he employs is to insist that unless the\nlawfulness of what had been done is admitted, the Nonjuror's position is\ninevitable. \"If it be unlawful to succeed a deprived bishop,\" he\nwrote,[11] \"then he is the bishop of the diocese still: and then the law\nthat deprives him is no law, and consequently the king and Parliament\nthat made that law no king and Parliament: and how can this be\nreconciled with the Oath of Allegiance, unless the Doctor can swear\nallegiance to him who is no King and hath no authority to govern.\" All\nthis the Nonjurors would have admitted, and the mere fact that it could\nbe used as argument against them is proof that they were out of touch\nwith the national temper. What they wanted was a legal revolution which\nis in the nature of things impossible. We may regret that the oath was\ndeemed essential, and feel that it might not have been so stoutly\npressed. But the leaders of a revolution \"tread a path of fire\"; and the\nfault lay less at the door of the civil government than in the fact that\nthis was an age when men acted on their principles. William and his\nadvisers, with the condition of Ireland and Scotland a cause for\nagitation, with France hostile, with treason and plot not absent from\nthe episcopate itself, had no easy task; what, in the temper of the\ntime, gives most cause for consideration, is the moderate spirit in\nwhich they accomplished it.\n\n[Footnote 11: _A Vindication of their Majesties' Authority to fill\nthe Sees of the Deprived Bishops_ (1691).]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe Nonjuring schism was by no means the only difficulty which the\nChurch of England had to confront in these troubled years. The\ndefinition of her relationship with State and nation, if at the moment\nit aroused less bitterness, was in the long run more intricate in its\nnature. That some sort of toleration was inevitable few, save a group of\nprejudiced irreconcilables, would have denied. But greater things were\nin the air, and there were still many who dreamed of a grand scheme of\nComprehension, by which all save the more extreme Dissenters would have\nbeen admitted to the Church. It is this which explains the acrimonious\ndebates of the next two years. The hatred of the Church for dissent can\nonly be understood by those who study with care the insults heaped upon\nher by the sectaries during the Civil Wars. That men who had striven for\nher dissolution should be admitted to her privileges seemed to Churchmen\nas tragic as ironical. Nor must we miss the political aspect of the\nmatter. William had received an eager, if natural, support from\nNonconformists; and since the vast majority of them was Whig in temper,\nthe greater the degree of toleration, the greater likelihood there was\nof an attack upon the Church. Exclusion thus became a fundamental\narticle of the Tory creed; and it was the more valued because it\nenabled them to strike at their opponents through an institution which\nat the trial of Sacheverell, in 1710, still showed an overwhelming hold\nupon the mass of the people.\n\nThe attitude of mind herein implied is in large part the reaction from\nthe Erastian temper of the government. Under William, that temper is\nintelligible enough; for unless he held the Church in strict control, he\nmust have felt that he was giving a large handle to his enemies. Under\nAnne, the essence of the situation remained unchanged, even though her\neager sympathy with the Church was beyond all question. William had\nrelieved Nonconformists from the burden of penal statute; the Occasional\nConformity Act of 1713 broadly continued the exclusion of all save the\nmore yielding of them from political office. When the Hanoverians\nsucceeded they were willing to repeal its more rigid intolerance; but\nthe Test Act remained as evidence that the Dissenters were not yet\nregarded as in a full sense part of the national life.\n\nThe reasons for the hatred of dissent go back in part to the Civil War\nand in part also to the feeling of common ground between the dissenting\ninterest and Rome which was born of the struggle under Elizabeth and\nJames. The pamphlets are innumerable; and most of them deserve the\ncomplete obliquity into which they have fallen. We are told, in the\neighteenth as in the seventeenth century, that the Presbyterian theory\nof government is inconsistent with the existence of the civil power.\n\"They claim,\" said Leslie, \"power to abrogate the laws of the land\ntouching ecclesiastical matters, if they judge them hurtful or\nunprofitable... They require the civil magistrate to be subject to their\npower.\" Of Knox or Cartwright this is no unfair account; but of the\nlater Presbyterians it is the merest travesty. It supposes that they\nwould be willing to push to the utmost limit the implications of the\ntheory of the two kingdoms--a supposition which their passive submission\nto the Act of 1712 restoring lay patronage decisively refutes. Bramhall\nhad no doubt that their discipline was \"the very quintessence of refined\npopery,\" and the argument is repeated by a hundred less learned\npamphleteers. Neither the grim irony of Defoe nor the proven facts of\nthe case could wean either the majority of Churchmen or the masses of\nthe people from the belief that the Revolution endangered the very\nexistence of the Church and that concession would be fatal. So stoutly\ndid the Church resist it that the accession of George I alone, in\nLecky's view, prevented the repeal of the Toleration Act and the\ndestruction of the political benefits of the Revolution.\n\nBut nowhere was the temper of the time more clearly displayed than in\nthe disputes over Convocation. To William's advisers, perhaps, more than\nto the Church itself their precipitation is due; for had they not, at\nthe outset of the reign, suggested large changes in the liturgy\nsuspicions then aroused might well have slumbered. As it was, the\nquestion of the royal supremacy immediately came into view and the\nclergy spared no effort to meet the issue so raised. And this they felt\nthe more bitterly because the upper house of Convocation, two-thirds of\nwhich were William's nominees, naturally inclined to his side. Both\nunder William and Anne the dispute continued, and the lower clergy\nshrank from no opportunity of conflict. They fought the king, the\narchbishop, the upper house. They attacked the writings of Toland and\nBurnet, the latter's book since recognized as one of the great treasures\nof Anglican literature. In the main, of course, the struggle was part of\nthe perennial conflict between High Church doctrine and\nlatitudinarianism. But that was only a fragment of the issue. What\nreally was in question was the nature of the State's power over the\nChurch. That could be left unanswered so long, as with James I and\nCharles, the two powers had but a single thought. The situation changed\nonly when State and Church had different policies to fulfil and\ndifferent means for their attainment.\n\nThe controversy had begun on the threshold of William's accession; but\nits real commencement dates from 1697. In that year was published the\n_Letter to a Convocation Man_, probably written by Sir Bartholomew\nShower, an able if unscrupulous Jacobite lawyer, which maliciously,\nthough with abounding skill, raised every question that peaceful\nchurchmen must have been anxious to avoid. The _Letter_ pointed out the\ngrowth of infidelity and the increasing suspicion that the Church was\nbecoming tainted with Socinian doctrine. Only the assembly of\nConvocation could arrest these evils. The author did not deny that the\nking's assent was necessary to its summons. But he argued that once the\nConvocation had met, it could, like Parliament, debate all questions\nrelevant to its purpose. \"The one of these courts,\" said Shower, \"is of\nthe same power and use with regard to the Church as the other is in\nrespect to the State,\" and he insisted that the writ of summons could\nnot at any point confine debate. And since the Convocation was an\necclesiastical Parliament, it followed that it could legislate and thus\nmake any canons \"provided they do not impugn common law, statutes,\ncustoms or prerogative.\" \"To confer, debate and resolve,\" said Shower,\n\"without the king's license, is at common law the undoubted right of\nconvocation.\"\n\nHere was a clear challenge which was at once answered, in _The Authority\nof Christian Princes_, by William Wake, who was by far the most learned\nof the latitudinarian clergy, and the successor of Tenison in the see of\nCanterbury. His argument was purely historical. He endeavored to show\nthat the right to summon ecclesiastical synods was always the\nprerogative of the early Christian princes until the aggression of the\npopes had won church independence. The Reformation resumed the primitive\npractice; and the Act of Submission of 1532 had made it legally\nimpossible for the clergy to discuss ecclesiastical matters without\nroyal permission. Historically, the argument of Wake was irrefutable;\nbut what mostly impressed the Church was the uncompromising Erastianism\nof his tone. Princes, he said, \"may make what laws or constitutions they\nthink fit for the Church.... a canon is but as matter prepared for the\nroyal stamp.\" In this view, obviously, the Church is more than a\ndepartment of the State. But Wake went even farther, \"I cannot see why\nthe Supreme Magistrate,\" he wrote, \"who confessedly has a power to\nconfirm or reject their (Convocation's) decrees, may not also make such\nother use of them as he pleases, and correct, improve, or otherwise\nalter their resolutions, according to his own liking, before he gives\nhis authority to them.\"\n\nSo defined no Church could claim in any true sense the headship of\nChrist; for it was clearly left at the mercy of the governmental view of\nexpedient conduct. Wake's answer aroused a sensation almost as acute as\nthe original _Letter_ of Shower. But by far the ablest criticism it\nprovoked was that of Francis Atterbury, then a young student of Christ\nChurch and on the threshold of his turbulent career. His _Rights, Powers\nand Privileges of an English Convocation Stated and Vindicated_ not only\nshowed a masterly historic sense in its effort to traverse the\nunanswerable induction of Wake, but challenged his position more\nsecurely on the ground of right. The historical argument, indeed, was\nnot a safe position for the Church, and Wake's rejoinder in his _State\nof the Church_ (1703) is generally conceded to have proved his point, so\nfar as the claim of prescription is concerned. But when Atterbury moves\nto the deeper problem of what is involved in the nature of a church, he\nhas a powerful plea to make. It is unnecessary now to deal with his\ncontention that Wake's defence of the Royal Supremacy undermines the\nrights of Parliament; for Wake could clearly reply that the seat of that\npower had changed with the advent of the Revolution. Where the avoidance\nof sympathy is difficult is in his insistence that no Church can live\nwithout an assembly to debate its problems, and that no assembly can be\nreal which is subject to external control. \"Their body,\" as he remarks,\n\"will be useless to the State and by consequence contemptible\"; for its\nopinions will not be born of that free deliberation which can alone\nensure respect. Like all High Churchmen, Atterbury has a clear sense\nthat Church and State can no longer be equated, and he is anxious to\npreserve the personality of the Church from the invasions of an alien\nbody. To be real, it must be independent, and to be independent, it must\nhave organs of self-expression. But neither William nor Anne could\nafford to forego the political capital involved in ecclesiastical\ncontrol and Erastian principles proceeded to their triumph.\n\nHere, as elsewhere, it was Charles Leslie who best summed up the\nfeeling of High Churchmen. His _Case of the Regale_ (1701) is by far the\nablest of his many able performances. He saw at the outset that the real\nissue was defined by the Church's claim to be a divine society, with\nrights thus consecrated by the conditions of its origin. If it was\ndivine, invasion did not touch its _de jure_ rights. \"How,\" he asked,\n\"can rights that are divine be given up? If they are divine, no human\nauthority can either supersede or limit them.... How can rights that are\ninherent be given up? If they are inherent, they are inseparable. The\nright to meet, to consult, to make rules or canons for the regulation of\nthe society, is essential to every society as such ... can she then part\nwith what is essential to her?\" Nor could it be denied that \"where the\nchoice of the governors of one society is in the hands of another\nsociety, that society must be dependent and subject to the other.\" The\nChurch, in the Latitudinarian view was thus either the creature of the\nstate or an _imperium in imperio_; but Leslie would not admit that\nfruitful stumbling block to the debate. \"The sacred and civil powers\nwere like two parallel lines which could never meet or interfere ... the\nconfusion arises ... when the civil power will take upon them to control\nor give laws to the Church, in the exercise of her spiritual authority.\"\nHe did not doubt that the Church should give securities for its loyalty\nto the king, and renounce any effort at the coercion of the civil\nmagistrate. But the Church was entitled to a similar privilege, and\nkings should not \"have their beneficence and protection to the Church of\nChrist understood as a bribe to her, to betray and deliver up into their\nhands the powers committed into her charge by Christ.\" Nor did he fail\nto point out the suicidal nature of Erastianism. For the church's hold\nupon men is dependent upon their faith in the independence of her\nprinciples. \"When they see bishops,\" he wrote wisely, \"made by the\nCourt, they are apt to imagine that they speak to them the court\nlanguage; and lay no further stress upon it than the charge of a judge\nat an assizes, who has received his instructions beforehand from the\nCourt; and by this means the state has lost the greatest security of her\ngovernment.\"\n\nThe argument is powerful enough; though it should be noted that some of\nits implications remain undetermined. Leslie does not say how the\nspheres of Church and State are to be differentiated. He does not\nexplain the methods whereby an establishment is to be made compatible\nwith freedom. For it is obvious that the partnership of Church and State\nmust be upon conditions; and once the State had permitted the existence\nof creeds other than that of its official adoption, it could not\nmaintain the exclusive power for which the Church contended. And when\nthe Church not only complained of State-betrayal, but attempted the use\nof political means to enforce remedial measures it was inevitable that\nstatesmen would use the weapons ready to their hand to coerce it to\ntheir will. The real remedy for the High Churchmen was not exclusiveness\nbut disestablishment.\n\nThat this is the meaning of the struggle did not appear until the reign\nof George I. What is known as the Bangorian controversy was due to the\nposthumous publication, in 1716, of the papers of George Hickes, the\nmost celebrated of the Nonjurors in his generation. The papers are of\nno special import; but taken in connection with the Jacobite rising of\n1715 they seemed to imply a new attack upon the Revolution settlement.\nSo, at least, they were interpreted by Benjamin Hoadly, then Bishop of\nBangor, and a stout upholder of the Latitudinarian school. The conflict\ntoday has turned to dust and ashes; and few who read the multitude of\npamphlets it evoked, or stand amazed at their personal bitterness, can\nunderstand why more than a hundred writers should have thought it\nnecessary to inform the world of their opinions, or why the London Stock\nExchange should have felt so passionate an interest in the debate as to\ncease for a day the hubbub of its transactions. Nor can any one make\nheroes from the personalities of its protagonists. Hoadly himself was a\ntypical bishop of the political school, who rose from humble\ncircumstances to the wealthy bishopric of Winchester through a\nremarkable series of translations. Before the debate of 1716, he was\nchiefly known by two political tracts in which he had rewritten, in less\ncogent form, and without adequate acknowledgment, the two treatises of\nLocke. He clearly realized how worthless the dogma of Divine Right had\nbecome, without being certain of the principles by which it was to be\nreplaced. Probably, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out, his theorizing is\nthe result of a cloudy sense of the bearing of the Deist controversy. If\nGod is to be banished from direct connection with earthly affairs, we\nmust seek a human explanation of political facts. And he became\nconvinced that this attitude applies not less completely to\necclesiastical than to secular politics. Of his opponents, by far the\nablest was William Law, the only theologian whom Gibbon may be said to\nhave respected, and the parent, through his mystical writings, of the\nWesleyan movement. Snape, then Provost of Eton, was always incisive; and\nhis pamphlet went through seventeen editions in a single year and\nprovoked seven replies within three months. Thomas Sherlock would not be\neither himself or his father's son, were he not caustic, logical and\ndirect. But Hoadly and Law between them exhaust the controversy, so far\nas it has meaning for our own day. The less essential questions like\nHoadly's choice of friends, his attitude to prayer, the accuracy of the\ndetails in his account of the Test Act, the cause of his refusal to\nanswer Law directly, are hardly now germane to the substance of the\ndebate. Hoadly's position is most fully stated in his _Preservative\nagainst the Principles and Practice of Nonjurors_ which he published in\n1716 as a counterblast to the papers of Hickes; and they are briefly\nsummarized in the sermon preached before the King on March 31, 1717, on\nthe text \"My Kingdom is not of this world,\" and published by royal\ncommand. Amid a vast wilderness of quibbles and qualifications, some\nsimple points emerge. What he was doing was to deprive the priesthood of\nclaims to supernatural authority that he might vindicate for civil\ngovernment the right to preserve itself not less against persons in\necclesiastical office than against civil assailants. To do so he is\nforced to deny that the miraculous powers of Christ and the Apostles\ndescended to their successors. For if that assumption is made we grant\nto fallible men privileges which confessedly belong to persons outside\nthe category of fallibility. And, exactly in the fashion of Leslie in\nthe _Regale_ he goes on to show that if a Church is a supernatural\ninstitution, it cannot surrender one jot or tittle of its prerogative.\nIt is, in fact, an _imperium in imperio_ and its conflict with the state\nis inevitable. But if the Church is not a supernatural institution, what\nis its nature? Hoadly here attacks the doctrine which lies at the basis\nof all ecclesiastical debate. The Church, he claims, is not a visible\nsociety, presided over by men who have authority directly transmitted by\nChrist. There are not within it \"viceregents who can be said properly to\nsupply his place; no interpreters upon whom his subjects are absolutely\nto depend; no judges over the conscience or religion of his people. For\nif this were so that any such absolute viceregent authority, either for\nthe making of new laws, or interpreting old ones, or judging his\nsubjects, in religious matters, were lodged in any men upon earth, the\nconsequence would be that what still retains the name of the Church of\nChrist would not be the kingdom of Christ, but the kingdom of those men\ninvested with such authority. For whoever hath such an authority of\nmaking laws is so far a king, and whoever can add new laws to those of\nChrist, equally obligatory, is as truly a king as Christ himself. Nay,\nwhosoever hath an absolute authority to interpret any written or spoken\nlaws, it is he who is truly the lawgiver to all intents and purposes,\nand not the person who first wrote and spoke them.\"\n\nThe meaning is clear enough. What Hoadly is attacking is the theory of a\nvisible Church of Christ on earth, with the immense superstructure of\nmiracle and infallibility erected thereon. The true Church of Christ is\nin heaven; and the members of the earthly society can but try in a\nhuman, blundering way, to act with decency and justice. Apostolic\nsuccession, the power of excommunication, the dealing out of forgiveness\nfor men's sins, the determination of true doctrine, insofar as the\nChurch claims these powers, it is usurping an authority that is not its\nown. The relation of man to God is his private affair, and God will ask\nfrom him sincerity and honesty, rather than judge him for his\npossession of some special set of dogmas. Clearly, therefore, if the\nChurch is no more than this, it has no supernatural pretensions to\noppose to the human claims of the State. And since the State must have\nwithin itself all the means of sufficient life, it has the right to\nresist the ecclesiastical onslaught as based upon the usurpation of\npower assumed without right. And in later treatises Hoadly did for\nceremonial exactly what he had done for church government. The eucharist\nbecame a piece of symbolism and excommunication nothing more than an\nannouncement--\"a mere external thing\"--that the rules of the fellowship\nhave been broken. It at no point is related to the sinner's opportunity\nof salvation.\n\nIn such an aspect, it would clearly follow that the Church has no\nmonopoly of truth. It can, indeed, judge its own beliefs; but reason\nalone can demonstrate the inadequacy of other attitudes. Nor does its\njudgment preclude the individual duty to examine into the truth of\nthings. The real root of faith is not the possession of an infallible\ndogma, but the arriving honestly at the dogma in which you happen to\nbelieve. For the magistrate, he urges, what is important is not the\ntable of your springs of action, but the conduct itself which is based\nupon that table; from which it follows that things like the Test and\nCorporation Acts have no real political validity. They have been imposed\nupon the State by the narrow interpretations of an usurping power; and\nthe Nonconformist claim to citizenship would thus seem as valid as that\nof a member of the Church of England.\n\nAll this sounds sensible enough; though it is curious doctrine in the\nmouth of a bishop of that church. And this, in fact, is the\nstarting-point of Law's analysis of Hoadly. No one who reads the\nunsparing vigor of his criticism can doubt that Law must have been\nthoroughly happy in the composition of his defence; and, indeed, his is\nthe only contribution to the debate which may claim a permanent place in\npolitical literature. In one sense, indeed, the whole of Law's answer is\nan _ignoratio elenchi_, for he assumes the truth of that which Hoadly\nsets out to examine, with the inevitable result that each writer is, for\nthe most part, arguing from different premises. But on the assumption\nthat Hoadly is a Christian, Law's argument is an attack of great power.\nHe shows conclusively that if the Church of England is no more than\nHoadly imagines it to be, it cannot, in any proper historic sense, be\ncalled the Church of England at all. For every one of the institutions\nwhich Hoadly calls an usurpation, is believed by Churchmen to be\nintegral to its nature. And if sincerity alone is to count as the test,\nthen there cannot, for the existing world, be any such thing as\nobjective religious truth. It subverted not merely absolute\nauthority--which the Church of England did not claim--but any authority\nin the Church. It impugned the authority of the Crown to enforce\nreligious belief by civil penalties. Hoadly's rejection of authority,\nmoreover, is in Law's view fatal to government of any kind. For all\nlawful authority must affect eternal salvation insofar as to disobey it\nis to sin. The authority the Church possesses is inherent in the very\nnature of the Church; for the obligation to a belief in Christianity is\nthe same thing as to a belief in that Church which can be shown to\nrepresent Christ's teaching.\n\nFrom Law's own point of view, the logic of his position is undeniable;\nand in his third letter to Hoadly, the real heart of his attack, he\ntouches the centre of the latter's argument. For if it is sincerity\nwhich is alone important it would follow that things false and wrong are\nas acceptable to God as things true and right, which is patently absurd.\nNor has Hoadly given us means for the detection of sincerity. He seemed\nto think that anyone was sincere who so thought himself; but, says Law,\n\"it is also possible and as likely for a man to be mistaken in those\nthings which constitute true sincerity as in those things which\nconstitute true religion.\" Clearly, sincerity cannot be the pith of the\nmatter; for it may be mistaken and directed to wrong ends. The State, in\nfact, may respect conscience, but Hoadly is no more entitled to assume\nthe infallibility of private belief than he is to deny the infallibility\nof the Church's teaching. That way lies anarchy.\n\nHere, indeed, the antagonists were on common ground. Both had denied the\nabsolute character of any authority; but while Hoadly virtually\npostulates a Church which logically is no more than those who accept\nthe moral law as Christ described it, Law restricts the Church to that\nsociety which bears the traditional marks of the historic institution.\nOn Hoadly's principles, there was no reason why anyone not hostile to\nthe civil power should not enjoy political privilege; on Law's there was\nevery reason simply because those who denied the doctrines of the High\nChurch refused a truth open for their acceptance. Law, indeed, goes so\nfar as to argue that in the light of his principles Hoadly should be a\nDeist; and there is ground for what, in that age, was a valuable point\nto make. The sum total of it all is that for the bishop the outward\nactions of men alone concern the State; while Law insists that the root\nof action and the test of fitness is whether men have seen a certain\naspect of the truth and grasped it.\n\nThe result, to say the least, was calamitous. In May of 1717,\nconvocation met and the Lower House immediately adopted an unanimous\nreport condemning the \"Preservative\" and the sermon. But Hoadly had the\ngovernment behind him and the convocation was prorogued before further\naction could be taken. Snape, Hare, Mosse and Sherlock, all of whom were\nchaplains royal, and had been drawn into the conflict, were dismissed\nfrom their office; and for more than one hundred and thirty-five years\nconvocation was not again summoned. It was a striking triumph for\nErastianism, though the more liberal principles of Hoadly were less\nsuccessful. Robert Walpole was on the threshold of his power, and, as a\nmanager of Sacheverell's impeachment, he had seen the hold of the Church\nupon the common people, may even, indeed, have remembered that Hoadly's\nown dwelling had been threatened with destruction in the popular\nexcitement. _Quieta non movere_ was his motto; and he was not interested\nin the niceties of ecclesiastic metaphysic. So the Test Act remained\nimmovable until 1828; while the annual Act of Indemnity for its\ninfractions represented that English genius for illogical mitigation\nwhich solves the deeper problems of principle while avoiding the\nconsideration of their substance.\n\nIn the hundred and twenty years which passed between the Bangorian\nControversy and the Oxford Movement, there is only one volume upon the\nproblem of Church and State which deserves more than passing notice.\nBishop Warburton was the Lord Brougham of his age; and as its\nself-constituted universal provider of intellectual fare, he deemed it\nhis duty to settle this, amongst others of the eternal questions. The\neffort excited only the contempt of Leslie Stephen--\"the peculiar\nWarburton mixture,\" he says \"of sham logic and bluster.\" Yet that is\nhardly fair to the total result of Warburton's remarks. He tried to\nsteer a middle path between the logical result of such Erastianism as\nthat of the _Independent Whig_, on the one hand, and the excessive claim\nof High Churchmanship on the other. Naturally enough, or the writer\nwould not be Warburton, the book is full of tawdry rhetoric and stupid\nquibbles. But the _Alliance between Church and State_ (1736) set the\ntemper of speculation until the advent of Newman, and is therefore\nmaterial for something more than contempt. It acutely points out that\nsocieties generate a personality distinct from that of their members in\nwords reminiscent of an historic legal pronouncement.[12] \"When any\nnumber of men,\" he says, \"form themselves into a society, whether civil\nor religious, this society becomes a body different from that aggregate\nwhich the number of individuals composed before the society was\nformed.... But a body must have its proper personality and will, which\nwithout these is no more than a shadow or a name.\"\n\n[Footnote 12: Dicey, _Law and Opinion in England_ (2nd edition),\np. 165.]\n\nAnd that is the root of Warburton's pronouncement. The Church is a\nsociety distinct from the State, but lending to that body its assistance\nbecause without the sanction of religion the full achievement of the\nsocial purpose is impossible. There is thus an alliance between them,\neach lending its support to the other for their common benefit. The two\nremain distinct; the union between them is of a federal kind. But they\ninterchange their powers, and this it is which explains at once the\nroyal supremacy and the right of Churchmen to a share in the\nlegislature. This also it is which explains the existence of a Test\nAct, whereby those who might injure that which the State has undertaken\nto protect are deprived of their power to evil. And, in return, the\nChurch engages to \"apply its utmost endeavors in the service of the\nState.\" It becomes attached to its benefactor from the privilege it\nreceives; and the dangers which might arise from its natural\nindependence are thus obviated. For a federal union precludes the grave\nproblem of an _imperium in imperio_, and the \"mischiefs which so\nterrified Hobbes\" are met by the terms upon which it is founded.\n\nIt is easy enough to discover the loopholes in the theory. The contract\ndoes not exist, or, at least, it is placed by Warburton \"in the same\narchive with the famous original compact between monarch and people\"\nwhich has been the object of vast but fruitless searches. Nor does the\nAct of Submission bear upon its face the marks of that tender care of\nthe protection of an independent society which Warburton declared a\nvital tenet of the Union. Yet such criticisms miss the real significance\nof the theory. It is really the introduction into English politics of\nthat notion of the two societies which, a century before, Melville and\nBellarmine had made so fruitful. With neither Presbyterian nor Jesuit\nwas the separation complete, for the simple reason that each had a\nsecret conviction that the ecclesiastical society was at bottom the\nsuperior. Yet the theory was the parent of liberty, if only because it\npointed the way to a balance of power between claims which, before, had\nseemed mutually exclusive.\n\nUntil the Toleration Act, the theory was worthless to the English Church\nbecause its temper, under the \u00e6gis of Laudian views, had been in\nsubstance theocratic. But after 1692 it aptly expressed the compromise\nthe dominant party of the Church had then in mind. They did, indeed,\nmistake the power of the Church, or, rather, they submitted to the State\nso fully that what they had intended for a partnership became an\nabsorption. So that the Erastianism of the eighteenth century goes deep\nenough to make the Church no more than a moral police department of the\nState. Saints like Ken and preachers like South are replaced by\nfashionable prelates like Cornwallis, who made Lambeth Palace an adjunct\nto Ranelagh Gardens, and self-seeking pluralists like Bishop Watson. The\nChurch could not even perceive the meaning of the Wesleyan revolt; and\nits charity was the irritating and complacent patronage of the\nobstrusive Hannah More. Its learning decayed, its intelligence\nslumbered; and the main function it fulfilled until Newman's advent was\nthe provision of rich preferment to the younger sons of the nobility. It\nis a far cry from Lake of Chichester and Bishop Ken to a church which\nwas merely an annex to the iniquities of the civil list.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nNo one can mistake the significance of this conflict. The opponents of\nErastianism had a deep sense of their corporate Church, and it was a\nplea for ecclesiastical freedom that they were making. They saw that a\nChurch whose patronage and discipline and debates were under the control\nof an alien body could not with honesty claim that Christ was in truth\ntheir head. If the Church was to be at the mercy of private judgment\nand political expediency, the notion of a dogmatic basis would have to\nbe abandoned. Here, indeed, is the root of the condemnation of Tindal\nand of Hoadly; for they made it, by their teaching, impossible for the\nChurch to possess an ethos of her own. It was thus against the\nsovereignty of the State that they protested. Somewhere, a line must be\ndrawn about its functions that the independence of the Church might be\nsafeguarded. For its supporters could not be true to their divine\nmission if the accidental vote of a secular authority was by right to\nimpose its will upon the Church. The view of it as simply a religious\nbody to which the State had conceded certain rights and dignities, they\nrepudiated with passion. The life of the Church was not derived from the\nState; and for the latter to attempt its circumscription was to usurp an\nauthority not rightly its own.\n\nThe real difficulty of this attitude lay in the establishment. For here\nthe Church was, at bottom, declaring that the State life must be lived\nupon terms of her own definition. That was possible before the\nReformation; but with the advent of Nonconformity and the growth of\nrationalism the exclusive character of the Church's solution had become\nunacceptable. If the Church was to become so intimately involved with\nthe State as an establishment implied, it had no right to complain, if\nstatesmen with a genius for expediency were willing to sacrifice it to\nthe attainment of that ideal. For the real secret of independence is,\nafter all, no more than independence. The Church sought it without being\nwilling to pay the price. And this it is which enabled Hoadly to emerge\ntriumphant from an ordeal where logically he should have failed. The\nState, by definition is an absorptive animal; and the Church had no\nright to complain if the price of its privileges was royal supremacy. A\ncentury so self-satisfied as the eighteenth would not have faced the\ndifficulties involved in giving political expression to the High Church\ntheory.\n\nYet the protest remained, and it bore a noble fruit in the next century.\nThe Oxford movement is usually regarded as a return to the seventeenth\ncentury, to the ideals, that is to say, of Laud and Andrewes.[13] In\nfact, its real kinship is with Atterbury and Law. Like them, it was\nsearching the secret of ecclesiastical independence, and like them it\ndiscovered that connection with the State means, in the end, the\nsacrifice of the church to the needs of each political situation. \"The\nState has deserted us,\" wrote Newman; and the words might have been\nwritten of the earlier time. The Oxford movement, indeed, like its\npredecessor, built upon foundations of sand; and when Lord Brougham told\nthe House of Lords that the idea of the Church possessing \"absolute and\nunalienable rights\" was a \"gross and monstrous anomaly\" because it would\nmake impossible the supremacy of Parliament, he simply announced the\nresult of a doctrine which, implicit in the Act of Submission, was first\ncompletely defined by Wake and Hoadly. Nor has the history of this\ncontroversy ended. \"Thoughtful men,\" the Archbishop of Canterbury has\ntold the House of Lords,[14] \"... see the absolute need, if a Church is\nto be strong and vigorous, for the Church, _qua_ church, to be able to\nsay what it can do as a church.\" \"The rule of the sovereign, the rule of\nParliament,\" replied Lord Haldane,[15] \"extend as far as the rule of the\nChurch. They are not to be distinguished or differentiated, and that was\nthe condition under which ecclesiastical power was transmitted to the\nChurch of England.\" Today, that is to say, as in the past, antithetic\ntheories of the nature of the State hinge, in essence, upon the problem\nof its sovereignty. \"A free church in a free state,\" now, as then, may\nbe our ideal; but we still seek the means wherewith to build it.\n\n[Footnote 13: Cf. my _Problem of Sovereignty_, Chapter III.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _Parliamentary Debates_. Fifth Series, Vol. 34,\np. 992 (June 3, 1919).]\n\n[Footnote 15: _Parliamentary Debates_. Fifth Series, Vol. 34, p 1002.\nThe quotation does not fully represent Lord Haldane's views.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ERA OF STAGNATION\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nWith the accession of George I, there ensued an era of unexampled calm\nin English politics, which lasted until the expulsion of Walpole from\npower in 1742. No vital questions were debated, nor did problems of\nprinciple force themselves into view; and if the Jacobites remained in\nthe background as an element invincibly hostile to absorption, the\nfailure of their effort in 1715 showed how feeble was their hold on\nEnglish opinion. Not, indeed, that the new dynasty was popular. It had\nnothing of that romantic glamour of a lost cause so imperishably\nrecorded in Scott's pages. The first Georges were heavy and foreign and\nmeagre-souled; but at least they were Protestant, and, until the reign\nof George III, they were amenable to management. In the result, an\nopposition in the classic sense was hardly needed; for the only question\nto be considered was the personalities who were to share in power. The\ndominating temper of Walpole decided that issue; and he gave thereby to\nthe political struggle the outlines in which it was encased for a\ngeneration.\n\nIt is a dull period, but complacent; for it was not an unprosperous\ntime. Agriculture and commerce both were abundant; and the increasing\ndevelopment of towns shows us that the Industrial Revolution loomed in\nthe near distance. The eager continuance of the deistic controversy\nsuggests that there was something of novelty beneath the calm; for\nTindal and Woolston and Chubb struck at the root of religious belief,\nand Shaftesbury's exaltation of Hellenism not only contributed to the\n_Aufklarung_ in Scotland, but suggested that Christian ideals were not\nto go unchallenged. But the literature of the time is summarized in\nPope; and the easy neatness of his verses is quaintly representative of\nthe Georgian peace. Defoe and Swift had both done their work; and the\nlatter had withdrawn to Ireland to die like a rat in a hole. Bishop\nBerkeley, indeed, was convinced of the decadence of England; but his\n_Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain_ (1721) shows rather\nthe effect of the speculative mania which culminated in the South Sea\nBubble upon a noble moral nature than a genius for political thought.\nCertainly no one in that generation was likely to regard with\nseriousness proposals for the endowment of motherhood and a tax upon the\nestate of bachelors. The cynical sophistries of Mandeville were, despite\nthe indignation they aroused, more suited to the age that Walpole\ngoverned. It is, in fact, the character of the minister which sets the\nkeynote of the time. An able speaker, without being a great orator, a\nsuperb administrator, eager rather for power than for good, rating men\nlow by instinct and corrupting them by intelligence, Walpole was not the\nman, either in type of mind or of temperament, to bring great questions\nto the foreground of debate. He was content to maintain his hold over\nthe respect of the Crown, and to punish able rivals by exclusion from\noffice. One by one, the younger men of talent, Carteret, Pulteney,\nChesterfield, Pitt, were driven into hostility. He maintained himself in\noffice by a corruption as efficiently administered as it was cynically\nconceived. An opposition developed less on principle than on the belief\nthat spoils are matter rather for distribution than for concentration.\nThe party so formed had, indeed, little ground save personal animosity\nupon which to fight; and its ablest exertions could only seize upon a\ndoubtful insult to a braggart sea-captain as the pretext of the war it\nwas Walpole's ambition no less than policy to avoid. From 1726 until\n1735 the guiding spirit of the party was Bolingbroke; but in the latter\nyear he quarrelled with Pulteney, nominally its leader, and retired in\nhigh dudgeon to France. But in the years of his leadership he had\nevolved a theory of politics than which nothing so clearly displays the\nintellectual bankruptcy of the time.\n\nTo understand the argument of Bolingbroke it is necessary to remember\nthe peculiar character of his career. He had attained to the highest\noffice under Anne at an exceptionally early age; and his period of\npower had been distinguished by the vehemence with which he pursued the\nideal of a strict division of parties and the expulsion of all alien\nelements from the government. But he had staked all his fortunes upon a\nscheme he had neither the resolution to plan nor the courage to execute;\nand his flight to France, on the Hanoverian accession, had been followed\nby his proscription. Walpole soon succeeded alike to his reputation and\nplace; and through an enormous bribe to the bottomless pocket of the\nKing's mistress St. John was enabled to return from exile, though not to\npolitical place. His restless mind was dissatisfied with exclusion from\npower, and he occupied himself with creating an alliance between the\nTories and malcontent Whigs for Walpole's overthrow. The alliance\nsucceeded, though too late for Bolingbroke to enjoy the fruits of\nsuccess; but in effecting the purgation of the Tory party from its taint\nof Jacobitism he rendered no inconsiderable service. His foundation,\nmoreover, of the _Craftsman_--the first official journal of a political\nparty in England--showed his appreciation of the technique of political\ncontroversy. Most of it is dead now, and, indeed, no small part of its\ncontemporary success is due to the making of comment in terms of the\nimmediate situation, as also by its consistent use of a personal\nreference which has, save in the mass, no meaning for today. Though,\ndoubtless, the idea of its inception was derived from journals like\nDefoe's _Review_ and Leslie's _Rehearsal_, which had won success, its\nintimate connection with the party leadership was a novel element; and\nit may therein claim a special relation to the official periodicals of a\nlater generation.\n\nThe reputation of Bolingbroke as a political philosopher is something\nthat our age can hardly understand. \"A solemn trifler,\" Lord Morley has\ncalled him; and it is difficult to know why his easy declamation was so\nlong mistaken for profound thought. Much, doubtless, is due to that\npersonal fascination which made him the inspiration of men so different\nas Pope and Voltaire; and the man who could supply ideas to Chatham and\nDisraeli cannot be wholly devoid of merit. Certainly he wrote well, in\nthat easy elegance of style which was the delight of the eighteenth\ncentury; and he is consistently happy in his choice of adjectives. But\nhis work is at every point embellished with that affectation of\nclassical learning which was the curse of his age. He sought no general\ntruths, and he is free from the accusation of sincerity. Nor has he any\nenthusiasm save that of bitter partisanship. He hated Walpole, and his\npolitical writings are, at bottom, no more than an attempt to generalize\nhis animosity. The _Dissertation on Parties_ (1734) and the _Idea of a\nPatriot King_ (1738) might have betrayed us, taken alone, into regarding\ntheir author as a disinterested observer watching with regret the\ndevelopment of a fatal system; but taken in conjunction with the _Letter\nto Sir W. Windham_ (1717), which was not published until after his\ndeath, and is written with an acrid cynicism fatal to his claim to\nhonesty, they reveal the opinions as no more than a mask for ambition\nborn of hate.\n\nThe whole, of course, must have some sort of background; and the\n_Letters on the Study of History_ (1735) was doubtless intended to\nsupply it. Experience is to be the test of truth, since history is\nphilosophy teaching by example. But Bolingbroke's own argument supplies\nits refutation. His history is an arbitrary selection of instances\nintended to illustrate the particular ideas which happened to be\nuppermost in his mind. The Roman consuls were chosen by annual election;\nwhence it is clear that England should have, if not an annual, at least\na triennial parliament. He acknowledges that the past in some degree\nunknown determines the present. He has some not unhappy remarks upon the\nevils of an attitude which fails to look upon events from a larger\naspect than their immediate environment. But his history is intended\nless to illustrate the working of principle than to collect cases worthy\nof citation. Time and space do not exist as categories; he is as content\nwith a Roman anecdote as with a Stuart illustration. He is willing,\nindeed, to look for the causes of the Revolution as far back as the\nreign of James I; though he shows his lack of true perception when he\nascribes the true inwardness of the Reformation to the greed of the\nmonarch for the spoils of the clergy. At bottom what mainly impresses\nhim is the immense influence of personal accident upon events.\nIntrigue, a sudden dislike, some backstairs piece of gossip, here is the\nreal root of great changes. And when he expresses a \"thorough contempt\"\nfor the kind of work scholars such as Scaliger and Petavius had\nachieved, he shows his entire ignorance of the method whereby alone a\nknowledge of general principle can be attained.\n\nA clear vision, of course, he has, and he was not beguiled by high\nnotions of prerogative or the like. The divine right of kings is too\nstupid to be worth the trouble of refutation; all that makes a king\nimportant is the authority he exerts. So, too, with the Church; for\nBolingbroke, as a professed deist, has no trouble with such matters as\nthe apostolic succession. He makes great show of his love of liberty,\nwhich is the true end of government; and we are informed with a vast\nsolemnity of the \"perpetual danger\" in which it always stands. So that\nthe chief end of patriotism is its maintenance; though we are never told\nwhat liberty is, nor how it is to be maintained. The social compact\nseems to win his approbation and we learn that the secret of the\nBritish constitution is the balance of powers and their mutual\nindependency. But what the powers are, and how their independence is\npreserved we do not learn, save by an insistence that the safety of\nEurope is to be found in playing off the ambitions of France and Austria\nagainst each other; an analogy the rejection of which has been the\nsecret of English constitutional success. We learn of the evil of\nstanding armies and the danger of Septennial Parliaments. We are told\nthat parties are mainly moved by the prospect of enjoying office and\nvast patronage; and a great enough show is made of his hatred for\ncorruption as to convince at least some critics of distinction of his\nsincerity. The parties of the time had, as he sees, become divided by no\ndifference save that of interest; and herein, at least, he shows us how\ncompletely the principles of the Revolution had become exhausted. He\nwants severe penalties upon electoral corruption. He would have\ndisfranchised the rotten boroughs and excluded placemen from Parliament.\nThe press was to be free; and there is at least a degree of generous\ninsight in his plea for a wider commercial freedom in colonial matters.\nYet what, after all, does this mean save that he is fighting a man with\nthe patronage at his disposal and a majority upon the committee for the\nsettlement of disputed elections? And what else can we see in his desire\nfor liberty of the press save a desire to fight Walpole in the open,\nwithout fear of the penalties his former treason had incurred?\n\nHis value can be tested in another way. His _Idea of a Patriot King_ is\nthe remedy for the ills he has depicted. He was sixty years old when it\nappeared, and he had then been in active politics for thirty-five years,\nso that we are entitled to regard it as the fruit of his mature\nexperience. He was too convinced that the constitution was \"in the\nstrictest sense a bargain, a conditional contract between the prince and\nthe people\" to attempt again the erection of a system of prerogative.\nYet it is about the person of the monarch that the theory hinges. He is\nto have no powers inconsistent with the liberties of the people; for\nsuch restraints will not shackle his virtues while they limit the evil\npropensities of a bad king. What is needed is a patriot king who will\ndestroy corruption and awaken the spirit of liberty. His effective\ngovernment will synchronize with the commencement of his reign; and he\nwill at once dismiss the old and cunning ministers, to replace them by\nservants who are wise. He will not stand upon party, but upon the State.\nHe will unite the forces of good counsel into a single scheme.\nComplaints will be answered, the evildoers punished. Commerce will flow\non with uninterrupted prosperity, and the navy of England receive its\ndue meed of attention. His conduct must be dignified, and he must\nacquire his influence not apart from, but on account of, the affection\nof his people. \"Concord,\" says Bolingbroke in rhapsodical prospection,\n\"will appear breeding peace and prosperity on every hand\"; though he\nprudently hopes also that men will look back with affection upon one\n\"who desired life for nothing so much as to see a King of Great Britain\nthe most powerful man in the country, and a patriot King at the head of\na united people.\"\n\nBolingbroke himself has admitted that such a monarch would be a \"sort of\nstanding miracle,\" and perhaps no other comment upon his system is\nrequired. A smile in Plato at the sight of his philosopher-King in such\nstrange company might well be pardoned. It is only necessary to point\nout that the person whom Bolingbroke designates for this high function\nwas Frederick, Prince of Wales, to us the most meagre of a meagre\ngeneration, but to Bolingbroke, by whose grace he was captivated, \"the\ngreatest and most glorious of human beings.\" This exaltation of the\nmonarch came at a time when a variety of circumstances had combined to\nshow the decrease of monarchical sentiment. It bears upon its every page\nthe marks of a personal antagonism. It is too obviously the programme of\na party to be capable of serious interpretation as a system. The\nminister who is to be impeached, the wise servants who are to gain\noffice, the attack on corruption, the spirited foreign policy--all these\nhave the earmarks of a platform rather than of a philosophy. Attacks on\ncorruption hardly read well in the mouth of a dissolute gambler; and the\none solid evidence of deep feeling is the remark on the danger of\nfinance in politics. For none of the Tories save Barnard, who owed his\nparty influence thereto, understood the financial schemes of Walpole;\nand since they were his schemes obviously they represented the triumph\nof devilish ingenuity. The return of landed men to power would mean the\nreturn of simplicity to politics; and one can imagine the country\nsquires, the last resort of enthusiasm for Church and King, feeling that\nBolingbroke had here emphasized the dangers of a r\u00e9gime which already\nfaintly foreshadowed their exclusion from power. The pamphlet was the\ncornerstone in the education of Frederick's son; and when George III\ncame to the throne he proceeded to give such heed to his master as the\ncircumstances permitted. It is perhaps, as Mr. A.L. Smith has argued,\nunfair to visit Bolingbroke with George's version of his ideal; yet they\nare sufficiently connected for the one to give the meaning to the other.\nChatham, indeed, was later intrigued by this ideal of a national party;\nand before Disraeli discovered that England does not love coalitions he\nexpended much rhetoric upon the beauties of a patriotic king. But\nChatham was a wayward genius who had nothing of that instinct for common\ncounsel which is of the essence of party government; while it is\nnecessary to draw a firm line between Disraeli's genial declamation and\nhis practice when in office. It is sufficient to say that the one effort\nfounded upon the principles of Bolingbroke ended in disaster; and that\nhis own last reflections express a bitter disillusion at the result of\nthe event which he looked to as the inauguration of the golden age.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe fall of Walpole, indeed, released no energies for political thought;\nthe system continued, though the men were different. What alone can be\ndetected is the growth of a democratic opinion which found its\nsustenance outside the House of Commons, the opinion the strength of\nwhich was later to force the elder Pitt upon an unwilling king. An able\npamphlet of the time shows us the arrival of this unlooked-for portent.\n_Faction detected by the Evidence of Facts_ (1742) was, though it is\nanonymous,[16] obviously written by one in touch with the inner current\nof affairs. The author had hoped for the fall of Walpole, though he sees\nthe chaos in its result. \"A republican spirit,\" he says, \"has strangely\narisen\"; and he goes on to tell how the electors of London and\nWestminster were now regarding their members as delegates to whom\ninstructions might be issued. \"A new party of malcontents\" had arisen,\n\"assuming to themselves, though very falsely, the title of the People.\"\nThey affect, he tells us, \"superiority to the whole legislature ... and\nendeavor in effect to animate the people to resume into their own hands\nthat vague and loose authority which exists (unless in theory) in the\npeople of no country upon earth, and the inconvenience of which is so\nobvious that it is the first step of mankind, when formed into society,\nto divest themselves of it, and to delegate it forever from themselves.\"\nThe writer clearly foreshadows, even in his dislike, that temper which\nproduced the Wilkes affair, and made it possible for Cartwright and\nHorne Tooke and Sir Thomas Hollis to become the founders of English\nradicalism.\n\n[Footnote 16: It was probably written by Lord Egmont.]\n\nYet the influence of that temper still lay a generation ahead; and the\nnext piece of import comes from a mind which, though perhaps the most\npowerful of all which have applied themselves to political philosophy in\nEngland, was, from its very scepticism, incapable of constructive\neffort. David Hume was thirty-one years of age when he published (1742)\nthe first series of his essays; and his _Treatise of Human Nature_ which\nhad fallen \"dead-born from the press\" was in some sort compensated by\nthe success of the new work. The second part, entitled _Political\nDiscourses_, was published in 1752, almost simultaneously with the\n\"_Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals_.\" As in the case of\nHume's metaphysical studies, they constitute the most powerful\ndissolvent the century was to see. Yet nowhere was so clearly to be\ndemonstrated the euthanasia into which English politics had fallen.\n\nHume, of course, is always critical and suggestive, and even if he had\nno distinctive contribution to make, he gave a new turn to speculation.\nThere is something almost of magic in the ease with which he demolishes\ndivine right and the social contract. The one is an inevitable deduction\nfrom theism, but it protects an usurper not less than an hereditary\nking, and gives a \"divine commission\" as well to a constable as to the\nmost majestic prince. The proponents of the social contract are in no\nbetter case. \"Were you to preach,\" he remarks, \"in most parts of the\nworld that political connections are founded altogether on voluntary\nconsent, or on a mutual promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you\nas seditious for loosening the ties of obedience; if your friends did\nnot before shut you up as delirious for advancing such absurdities.\" The\noriginal contract could not be produced, and, even if it were, it would\nsuppose the \"consent of the fathers to bind the children even to the\nmost remote generations.\" The real truth, as he remarks, is that \"almost\nall the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains\nany record in story, have been founded originally on usurpation, or on\nconquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair consent or voluntary\nsubjection of the people.\" If we then ask why obedience is possible, the\nsufficient answer is that \"it becomes so familiar that most men never\nmake any inquiry about its origin or cause, any more than about the\nprinciple of gravity, resistance, or the most universal laws of nature.\"\n\nGovernment, in short, is dependent upon the inescapable facts of\npsychology. It might be unnecessary if all desires could be individually\nfulfilled by making them, or if man showed to his fellow-men the same\ntender regard he has for himself. So happy a condition does not exist;\nand government is the most useful way of remedying the defects of our\nsituation. A theologian might say that Hume derives government from\noriginal sin; to which he would have replied by denying the fall. His\nwhole attitude is simply an insistence that utility is the touchstone of\ninstitutions, and he may claim to be the first thinker who attempted its\napplication to the whole field of political science. He knows that\nopinion is the sovereign ruler of mankind, and that ideas of utility lie\nat the base of the thoughts which get accepted. He does not, indeed,\ndeny that fear and consent enter into the attitude of men; he simply\nasserts that these also are founded upon a judgment of utility in the\nthing judged. We obey because otherwise \"society could not subsist,\" and\nsociety subsists for its utility. \"Men,\" he says \"could not live at all\nin society, at least in a civilized society, without laws and\nmagistrates and judges, to prevent the encroachments of the strong upon\nthe weak, of the violent upon the just and equitable.\"\n\nUtilitarianism is, of course, above all a method; and it is not unfair\nto say of Hume that he did not get very far beyond insistence on that\npoint. He sees that the subjection of the many to the few is rooted in\nhuman impulse; but he has no penetrating inquiry, such as that of Locke\nor Hobbes, into the purpose of such subjection. So, too, it is the sense\nof public interest which determines men's thoughts on government, on who\nshould rule, and what should be the system of property; but the ethical\nsubstance of these questions he leaves undetermined. Politics, he\nthinks, may one day be a science; though he considers the world still\ntoo young for general truths therein. The maxims he suggests as of\npermanent value, \"that a hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals,\nand a people voting by their representatives form the best monarchy,\nautocracy and democracy\"; that \"free governments ... are the most\nruinous and oppressive to their provinces\"; that republics are more\nfavorable to science, monarchies to art; that the death of a political\nbody is inevitable; would none of them, probably, be accepted by most\nthinkers at the present time. And when he constructs an ideal\nconstitution, irrespective of time and place, which is to be regarded as\npractical because it resembles that of Holland, it is obvious that the\nhistorical method had not yet come fully into being.\n\nYet Hume is full of flashes of deep wisdom, and it would be an avoidance\nof justice not to note the extent of the spasmodic insight that he had.\nHe has a keen eye for the absurdity of Pope's maxim that administration\nis all in all; nothing can ever make the forms of government immaterial.\nHe accepts Harrington's dictum that the substance of government\ncorresponds to the distribution of property, without making it, as later\nthinkers have done, the foundation of all political forces. He sees that\nthe Crown cannot influence the mass of men, or withstand the new balance\nof property in the State; a prophecy of which the accuracy was\ndemonstrated by the failure of George III. \"In all governments,\" as he\nsays, \"there is a perpetual intestinal struggle, open or secret,\"\nbetween Authority and Liberty; though his judgment that neither \"can\never absolutely prevail,\" shows us rather that we are on the threshold\nof _laissez-faire_ than that Hume really understood the problem of\nfreedom. He realized that the House of Commons had become the pivot of\nthe State; though he looked with dread upon the onset of popular\ngovernment. He saw the inevitability of parties, as also their tendency\nto persist in terms of men instead of principles. He was convinced of\nthe necessity of liberty to the progress of the arts and sciences; and\nno one, save Adam Smith, has more acutely insisted upon the evil effect\non commerce of an absolute government. He emphasized the value of\nfreedom of the press, in which he saw the secret whereby the mixed\ngovernment of England was maintained. \"It has also been found,\" he said\nin a happy phrase, \"... that the people are no such dangerous monsters\nas they have been represented, and that it is in every respect better to\nguide them like rational creatures than to lead or drive them like brute\nbeasts.\" There is, in fact, hardly a page of his work in which some such\nacuteness may not be found.\n\nNot, indeed, that a curious blindness is absent. Hume was a typical\nchild of one aspect of the eighteenth century in his hatred of\nenthusiasm, and the form in which he most abominates it is religious.\nWhy people's religious opinions should lead to antagonism he could no\nmore understand than why people should refuse to pass one another on a\nroad. Wars of religion thus seemed to him based upon a merely frivolous\nprinciple; and in his ideal commonwealth he made the Church a department\nof the State lest it should get out of hand. He was, moreover, a static\nphilosopher, disturbed by signs of political restlessness; and this led\nto the purgation of Whig doctrines from his writings, and their\nconsistent replacement by a cynical conservatism. He was always afraid\nthat popular government would mean mob-rule; and absolute government is\naccordingly recommended as the euthanasia of the British constitution.\nNot even the example of Sweden convinced him that a standing army might\nexist without civil liberty being endangered; and he has all the noxious\nfallacies of his time upon the balance of power. Above all, it is\nstriking to see his helplessness before the problem of national\ncharacter. Mainly he ascribes it to the form of government, and that in\nturn to chance. Even the friend of Montesquieu can see no significance\nin race or climate. The idea, in fact, of evolution is entirely absent\nfrom his political speculation. Political life, like human life, ends in\ndeath; and the problem is to make our egress as comfortable as we can,\nfor the prime evil is disturbance. It is difficult not to feel that\nthere is almost a physical basis in his own disease for this love of\nquiet. The man who put indolence among the primary motives of human\nhappiness was not likely to view novel theories with unruffled temper.\n\nHume has an eminent place among economists, and for one to whom the\nstudy of such phenomena was but a casual inquiry, it is marvelous how\nmuch he saw. He is free from the crude errors of mercantilism; and\ntwenty years before Adam Smith hopes, \"as a British subject,\" for the\nprosperity of other countries. \"Free communication and exchange\" seems\nto him an ordinance of nature; and he heaps contempt upon those\n\"numberless bars, obstructions and imposts which all nations of Europe,\nand none more than England, have put upon trade.\" Specie he places in\nits true light as merely a medium of exchange. The supposed antagonism\nbetween commerce and agriculture he disposes of in a half-dozen\neffective sentences. He sees the place of time and distance in the\ndiscussion of economic want. He sees the value of a general level of\neconomic equality, even while he is sceptical of its attainment. He\ninsists upon the economic value of high wages, though he somewhat\nbelittles the importance of wealth in the achievement of happiness.\nBefore Bentham, who on this point converted Adam Smith, he knew that the\nrate of interest depends upon the supply of and demand for loans. He\ninsists that commerce demands a free government for its progress,\npointing out, doubtless from his abundant French experience, that an\nabsolute government gives to the commercial class an insufficient status\nof honor. He pointed out, doubtless with France again in his mind, the\nevils of an arbitrary system of taxation. \"They are commonly converted,\"\nhe says with unwonted severity, \"into punishments on industry; and also,\nby their unavoidable inequality, are more grievous, than by the real\nburden which they impose.\" And he emphasizes his belief that the best\ntaxes are those which, like taxes upon luxury, press least upon the\npoor.\n\nSuch insight is extraordinary enough in the pre-Adamite epoch; but even\nmore remarkable are his psychological foundations. The wealth of the\nState, he says, is the labor of its subjects, and they work because the\nwants of man are not a stated sum, but \"multiply every moment upon\nhim.\" The desire for wealth comes from the idea of pleasure; and in the\n_Treatise on Human Nature_ he discusses with superb clarity the way in\nwhich the idea of pleasure is related at once to individual satisfaction\nand to that sympathy for others which is one of the roots of social\nexistence. He points out the need for happiness in work. \"The mind,\" he\nwrites, \"acquires new vigor, enlarges its powers and faculties, and by\nan assiduity in honest industry both satisfies its own appetites and\nprevents growth of unnatural ones\"; though, like his predecessor,\nFrancis Hutcheson, he overemphasizes the delights opened by civilization\nto the humbler class of men. He gives large space in his discussion to\nthe power of will; and, indeed, one of the main advantages he ascribed\nto government was the compulsion it puts upon us to allow the categories\nof time and space a part in our calculations. He does not, being in his\nown life entirely free from avarice, regard the appetite for riches as\nman's main motive to existence; though no one was more urgent in his\ninsistence that \"the avidity of acquiring goods and possessions for\nourselves and our nearest friends is ... destructive of society\" unless\nbalanced by considerations of justice. And what he therein intended may\nbe gathered from the liberal notions of equality he manifested. \"Every\nperson,\" he wrote in a famous passage, \"if possible ought to enjoy the\nfruits of his labor in a full possession of all the necessaries, and\nmany of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt but such an equality\nis most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less the happiness\nof the rich than it adds to that of the poor.\" It is clear that we have\nmoved far from the narrow confines of the old political arithmetic. The\ntheory of utility enables Hume to see the scope of economics--the word\nitself he did not know--in a more generous perspective than at any\nprevious time. It would be too much to say that his grasp of its\npsychological foundation enabled him entirely to move from the\nlimitations of the older concept of a national prosperity expressed only\nin terms of bullion to the view of economics as a social science. But at\nleast he saw that economics is rooted in the nature of men and therein\nhe had the secret of its true understanding. _The Wealth of Nations_\nwould less easily have made its way had not the insight of Hume prepared\nthe road for its reception.\n\nWhat, then, and in general, is his place in the history of political\nthought? Clearly enough, he is not the founder of a system; his work is\nrather a series of pregnant hints than a consecutive account of\npolitical facts. Nor must we belittle the debt he owes to his\npredecessors. Much, certainly, he owed to Locke, and the full radiance\nof the Scottish enlightenment emerges into the day with his teaching.\nFrancis Hutcheson gave him no small inspiration; and Hutcheson means\nthat he was indebted to Shaftesbury. Indeed, there is much of the sturdy\ncommonsense of the Scottish school about him, particularly perhaps in\nthat interweaving of ethics, politics and economics, which is\ncharacteristic of the school from Hutcheson in the middle seventeenth\ncentury, to the able, if neglected, Lorimer in the nineteenth.[17] He is\nentitled to be considered the real founder of utilitarianism. He first\nshowed how difficult it is in politics to draw a distinction between\nethical right and men's opinion of what ought to be. He brings to an end\nwhat Coleridge happily called the \"metapolitical school.\" After him we\nare done with the abuse of history to bolster up Divine Right and social\ncontract; for there is clearly present in his use of facts a true sense\nof historical method. He put an end also to the confusion which resulted\nfrom the effort of thinkers to erect standards of right and wrong\nindependent of all positive law. He took the facts as phenomena to be\nexplained rather than as illustrations of some favorite thesis to be\nmaintained in part defiance of them. Conventional Whiggism has no\nfoothold after he has done with its analysis. His utilitarianism was the\nfirst efficient substitute for the labored metaphysics of the contract\nschool; and even if he was not the first to see through its\npretensions--that is perhaps the claim of Shaftesbury--he was the first\nto show the grounds of their uselessness. He saw that history and\npsychology together provide the materials for a political philosophy.\nSo that even if he could not himself construct it the hints at least\nwere there.\n\n[Footnote 17: There are few books which show so clearly as Lorimer's\n_Institutes of Nations_ (1872) how fully the Scottish school was in the\nmidstream of European thought.]\n\nHis suggestiveness, indeed, may be measured in another fashion. The\nmetaphysics of Burke, so far as one may use a term he would himself have\nrepudiated, are largely those of Hume. The place of habit and of social\ninstinct alongside of consent, the perception that reason alone will not\nexplain political facts, the emphasis upon resistance as of last resort,\nthe denial that allegiance is a mere contract to be presently explained,\nthe deep respect for order--all these are, after all, the fabric from\nwhich the thought of Burke was woven. Nor is there in Bentham's defence\nof Utilitarianism argument in which he would have recognized novelty.\nHerein, at least, his proof that morality is no more than general\nopinion of utility constructs, in briefer form, the later arguments of\nBentham, Paley and the Mills, nor can their mode of statement claim\nsuperiority to Hume's. So that on either side of his work he foreshadows\nthe advent of the two great schools of modern political thought. His\nutilitarianism is the real path by which radical opinion at last found\nmeans of acceptance. His use of history is, through Burke, the ancestor\nof that specialized conservatism begotten of the historical method. If\nthere is thus so much, it is, of course, tempting to ask why there is\nnot more. If Hume has the materials why did he fail to build up a system\nfrom them? The answer seems twofold. In part it is the man himself. His\ngenius, as his metaphysics show, lay essentially in his power of\ndestruction; and the man who gave solipsism to philosophy was not likely\nto effect a new creation in politics. In part, also, the condition of\nthe time gave little stimulus to novelty. Herein Hume was born a\ngeneration too early. Had he written when George III attempted the\ndestruction of the system of the Revolution, and when America and France\ncombined to raise again the basic questions of politics, he might have\ndone therein what Adam Smith effected in his own field. But the time had\nnot yet come; and it was left to Burke and Bentham to reap where he had\nsown.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nSIGNS OF CHANGE\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nFrom Hume until the publication of Burke's _Present Discontents_ (1770)\nthere is no work on English politics of the first importance. Walpole\nhad fallen in 1742; but for the next fifteen years his methods dominated\nthe parliamentary scene. It was only with the advent of the elder Pitt\nto power that a new temper may be observed, a temper quickened by what\nfollowed on the accession of George III. Henceforward, it is not untrue\nto say that the early complacency of the time was lost; or, at least, it\nwas no longer in the ascendant again until the excesses of the French\nRevolution enabled Burke to persuade his countrymen into that grim\nsatisfaction with their own achievement of which Lord Eldon is the\nstanding model. The signs of change are in each instance slight, though\ncollectively they acquire significance. It was difficult for men to\ngrumble where, as under Walpole, each harvest brought them greater\nprosperity, or where, as under Chatham, they leaped from victory to\nvictory. Something of the exhilaration of these years we can still catch\nin the letters which show the effort made by the jaded Horace Walpole to\nturn off with easy laughter his deep sense of pride. In the House of\nCommons, indeed, there is nothing, until the Wilkes case, to show that a\nnew age has come. It is in the novels of Richardson and Fielding, the\nfirst shy hints of the romantic temper in Gray and Collins, above all in\nthe awakening of political science, that novelty is apparent.\n\nSo far as a new current of thought can ever be referred to a single\nsource, the French influence is the effective cause of change. Voltaire\nand Montesquieu had both visited England in the period of Walpole's\nadministration, and both had been greatly influenced by what they saw.\nRousseau, indeed, came later on that amazing voyage which the\ngood-natured Hume insisted would save him from his dread of persecution,\nand there is evidence enough that he did not relish his experience. Yet\nwhen he came, in 1762, to publish the _Contrat Social_ it was obvious\nthat he had drunk deeply of English thought. The real meaning of their\nwork to Englishmen lay in the perspective they gave to English\ninstitutions. Naturally enough, there was a vast difference between the\nsimplicity of a government where sovereignty was the monarch's will and\none in which a complex distribution of powers was found to secure a\ngeneral freedom. The Frenchmen were amazed at the generous equality of\nEnglish judicial procedure. The liberty of unlicensed printing--less\nadmirable than they accounted it--the difference between a _Habeas\nCorpus_ and a _lettre de cachet_, the regular succession of Parliaments,\nall these impressed them, who knew the meaning of their absence, as a\nmagnificent achievement. The English constitution revealed to France an\nimmense and unused reservoir of philosophic illustration. Even to\nEnglishmen itself that meaning was but partly known. Locke's system was\na generalization from its significance at a special crisis. Hume had\npartial glimpses of its inner substance. But for most it had become a\ndiscreet series of remedies for particular wrongs. Its analysis as a\nconnected whole invigorated thought as nothing had done since the Civil\nWars had elaborated the theory of parliamentary sovereignty. What was\nmore significant was the realization of Montesquieu's import\nsimultaneously with the effort of George III to revive crown influence.\nMontesquieu thus became the prophet of a new race of thinkers.\nRousseau's time was not yet; though within a score of years it was\npossible to see him as the rival to Burke's conservatism.\n\nIt is worth while to linger for a moment upon the thesis which underlies\nthe _Esprit des Lois_ (1748). It is a commonplace now that Montesquieu\nis to be regarded as the founder of the historical method. The present\nis to be explained by its ancestry. Laws, governments, customs are not\ntruths absolute and universal, but relative to the time of their origin\nand the country from which they derive. It would be inaccurate, with\nRousseau on the threshold, to say that his influence demolished the\nsystems of political abstraction which, at their logical best, and in\nthe most complete unreality, are to be found in Godwin's _Political\nJustice_; but it is not beyond the mark to affirm that after his time\nsuch abstract systems were on the defensive. Therein, with all his\nfaults, he had given Burke the clue to those truths he so profoundly\nsaw--the sense of the State as more than a mechanical contrivance, the\nhigh regard for prescription, the sense of law as the voice of past\nwisdom. He was, said Burke, \"the greatest genius which has enlightened\nthis age\"; and Burke had every reason to utter that noble panegyric. But\nMontesquieu was more than this. He emphasized legislation as the main\nmechanism of social change; and therein he is the parent of that\ndecisive reversal of past methods of which Bentham first revealed the\ntrue significance. Nor had any thinker before his time so emphasized the\nimportance of liberty as the true end of government; even the placid\nBlackstone adopted the utterance from him in his inaugural lecture as\nVinerian professor. He insisted, too, on the danger of perversion to\nwhich political principle lies open; a feeling which found consistent\nutterance both in the debates of the Philadelphia Convention, and in\nthe writings of Bentham and James Mill. What, perhaps, is most\nimmediately significant is his famous praise of the British\nConstitution--the secret of which he entirely misapprehended--and his\ndiscovery of its essence in the separation of powers. The short sixth\nchapter of his eleventh book is the real keynote of Blackstone and De\nLolme. It led them to investigate, on principles of at least doubtful\nvalidity, an edifice never before described in detail. It is, when the\nlast criticism has been made, an immense step forward from the uncouth\nantiquarianism of Coke's Second Institute to the neatly reticulated\nstructure erected upon the foundations of Montesquieu's hint. That it\nwas wrong was less important than that the attempt should have been\nmade. The evil that men do lives after them; and few doctrines have been\nmore noxious in their consequence than this theory of checks and\nbalances. But Blackstone's _Commentaries_ (1765-9) produced Bentham's\n_Fragment on Government_ (1776), and with that book we enter upon the\nrealistic study of the British Constitution.\n\nRousseau is in an antithetic tradition; but just as he drew from\nEnglish thinkers so did he exercise upon the next generation an\ninfluence the more logical because the inferences he drew were those\nthat his masters, with the English love of compromise, had sought to\navoid. Rousseau is the disciple of Locke; and the real difference\nbetween them is no more than a removal of the limitations upon the power\nof government which Locke had proposed. It is a removal at every point\nconditioned by the interest of the people. For Rousseau declared that\nthe existing distribution of power in Europe was a monstrous thing, and\nhe made the people sovereign that there might be no hindrance to their\nachievement in the shape of sinister interest. The powers of the people\nthus became their rights and herein was an unlimited sanction for\ninnovation. It is easy enough then to understand why such a philosophy\nshould have been anathema to Burke. Rousseau's eager sympathy for humble\nmen, his optimistic faith in the immediate prospect of popular power\nwere to Burke the symptoms of insane delusion and their author \"the\ngreat professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England.\"\nBut Burke forgot that the real secret of Rousseau's influence was the\nsuccess of the American Revolution; and no one had done more than Burke\nhimself to promote its cause and justify its principles. That revolution\nestablished what Europe might well consider a democracy; and its\nstatesmen were astonished not less at the vigilance with which America\nguarded against the growth of autocratic government, than at the\nsoberness with which it checked the supposed weakness of the sovereign\npeople. America made herself independent while what was best in Europe\ncombined in enthusiastic applause; and it seemed as though the maxims of\nRousseau had been taken to heart and that a single, vigorous exertion of\npower could remove what deliberation was impotent to secure. Here\nRousseau had a message for Great Britain which Burke at every stage\ndenied. Nor, at the moment, was it influential except in the general\nimpetus it gave to thought. But from the moment of its appearance it is\nan undercurrent of decisive importance; and while in its metaphysical\nform it failed to command acceptance, in the hands of Bentham its\nresults were victorious. Bentham differs from Rousseau not in the\nconclusions he recommends so much as in the language in which he clothes\nthem. Either make a final end of the optimism of men like Hume and\nBlackstone, or the veneration for the past which is at the root of\nBurke's own teaching.\n\nIt is easy to see why thought such as this should have given the\nstimulus it did. Montesquieu came to praise the British constitution at\na time when good men were aghast at its perversion. There was no room in\nmany years for revolution, but at least there was place for hearty\ndiscontent and a seeking after new methods. Of that temper two men so\ndifferent as the elder Pitt and Wilkes are the political symbols. The\nformer's rise to power upon the floodtide of popular enthusiasm meant\nnothing so much as a protest against the cynical corruption of the\nprevious generation. Wilkes was a sign that the populace was slowly\nawaking to a sense of its own power. The French creed was too purely\nlogical, too obviously the outcome of alien conditions, to fit in its\nentirety the English facts; and, it must be admitted, memories of wooden\nshoes played not a little part in its rejection. The rights of man made\nonly a partial appeal until the miseries of Pitt's wars showed what was\ninvolved in that rejection; and then it was too late. But no one could\nfeel without being stirred the illumination of Montesquieu; and\nRousseau's questions, even if they proved unanswerable, were stuff for\nthought. The work of the forty years before the French Revolution is\nnothing so much as a preparation for Bentham. The torpor slowly passes.\nThe theorists build an edifice each part of which a man whose passion is\nattuned to the English nature can show to be obsolete and ugly. If the\nFrench thinkers had conferred no other benefit, that, at least, would\nhave been a supreme achievement.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe first book to show the signs of change came in 1757. John Brown's\n_Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_ is largely\nforgotten now; though it went through seven editions in a year and was\nat once translated into French. Brown was a clergyman, a minor planet in\nthe vast Warburtonian system, who had already published a volume of\ncomment upon the _Characteristics_ of Shaftesbury. His book is too\nevidently modelled upon Montesquieu, whom he mentions with reverence, to\nmake us doubt its derivation. There is the same reliance upon Livy and\nMachiavelli, the same attempt at striking generalization; though the\nargument upon which Brown's conclusions are based is seldom given,\nperhaps because his geometric clarity of statement impressed him as\nself-demonstrative. Brown's volumes are an essay upon the depravity of\nthe times. He does not deny it humanitarianism, and a still lingering\nsense of freedom, but it is steeped in corruption and displays nothing\nso much as a luxurious and selfish effeminacy. He condemns the\nuniversities out of hand, in phrases which Gibbon and Adam Smith would\nnot have rejected. He deplores the decay of taste and learning. Men\ntrifle with Hume's gay impieties, and could not, if they would,\nappreciate the great works of Bishop Warburton. Politics has become\nnothing save a means of promoting selfish interests. The church, the\ntheatre, and the arts have all of them lost their former virtues. The\nneurotic temper of the times is known to all. The nation, as was shown\nin 1745, when a handful of Highlanders penetrated without opposition to\nthe heart of the kingdom, has grown slack and cowardly. Gambling\npenetrates every nook and cranny of the upper class; the officers of the\narmy devote themselves to fashion; the navy's main desire is for prize\nmoney. Even the domestic affections are at a low ebb; and the grand tour\nbrings back a new species of Italianate Englishman. The poor, indeed,\nthe middle class, and the legal and medical professions, Brown\nspecifically exempts from this indictment. But he emphasizes his belief\nthat this is unimportant. \"The manners and principles of those who\nlead,\" he says, \"... not of those who are governed ... will ever\ndetermine the strength or weakness, and therefore the continuance or\ndissolution of a state.\"\n\nThis profligacy Brown compares to the languid vice which preceded the\nfall of Carthage and of Rome; and he sees the approaching ruin of Great\nBritain at the hands of France, unless it can be cured. So far as he has\nan explanation to offer, it seems to be the fault of Walpole, and the\ndecay of religious sentiment. His remedy is only Bolingbroke's Patriot\nKing, dressed up in the habit of the elder Pitt, now risen to the height\nof power. What mainly stirred Englishmen was the prophecy of defeat on\nthe morrow of the disastrous convention of Kloster Seven; but when Wolfe\nand Clive repaired that royal humiliation Brown seems to have died a\nnatural death. What is more interesting than his prophecies was the\nevidence of a close reading of Montesquieu. English liberty, he says, is\nthe product of the climate; a kind of mixture, it appears, of fog and\nsullen temper. Nations inevitably decay, and the commercial grandeur of\nEngland is the symptom of old age; it means a final departure from the\nsimplicity of nature and breeds the luxury which kills by enervation.\nBrown has no passion, and his book reads rather like Mr. Galsworthy's\n_Island Pharisees_ sufficiently expurgated to be declaimed by a\nwell-bred clergyman in search of preferment on the ground of attention\nto the evils of his time. It describes undoubted facts, and it shows\nthat the era of content has gone. But its careful periods and strangely\nfar-off air lack the eagerness for truth which Rousseau put into his\nquestions. Brown can neither explain nor can he proffer remedy. He sees\nthat Pitt is somehow significant; but when he rules out the popular\nvoice as devoid of all importance, he deprives himself of the means\nwhereby to grasp the meaning of the power that Pitt exerted. Nothing\ncould prove more strongly the exactitude of Burke's _Present\nDiscontents_. Nothing could better justify the savage indignation of\nJunius.\n\nHume was the friend of Montesquieu, though twenty years his junior; and\nthe _Esprit des Lois_ travelled rapidly to Scotland. There it caught the\neye of Adam Ferguson, the author of a treatise on refinement, and by the\ninfluence of Hume and Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the\nUniversity of Edinburgh. Ferguson seems to have been immensely popular\nin his time, and certainly he has a skill for polished phrase, and a\ngenial paraphrase of other men's ideas. His _Essay on the History of\nCivil Society_ (1767), which in a quarter of a century went through six\neditions, was thought by Helv\u00e9tius superior to Montesquieu, though Hume\nhimself, as always the incarnation of kindness, recommended its\nsuppression. At least Ferguson read enough of Montesquieu to make some\nfluent generalities sound plausible. He knows that the investigation of\nsavage life will throw some light upon the origins of government. He\nsees the folly of generalizing easily upon the state of nature. He\ninsists, probably after conversation with Adam Smith, upon the social\nvalue of the division of functions. He does not doubt the original\nequality of men. He thinks the luxury of his age has reached the limit\nof its useful growth. Property he traces back to a parental desire to\nmake a better provision for children \"than is found under the\npromiscuous management of many copartners.\" Climate has the new\nimportance upon which Montesquieu has insisted; or, at least, as it\n\"ripens the pineapple and the tamarina,\" so it \"inspires a degree of\nmildness that can even assuage the rigours of despotical government.\"\nThe priesthood--this is Hume--becomes a separate influence under the\nsway of superstition. Liberty, he says, \"is maintained by the continued\ndifferences and oppositions of numbers, not by their concurring zeal in\nbehalf of equitable government.\" The hand that can bend Ulysses' bow is\ncertainly not here; and this pinchbeck Montesquieu can best be left in\nthe obscurity into which he has fallen. The _Esprit des Lois_ took\ntwenty years in writing; and it needed the immense researches of men\nlike Savigny before its significance could fully be grasped. Facile\npopularisers of this sort may have mollified the drawing-room; but they\ndid not add to political ideas.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA more fertile source of inquiry was to be found among the students of\nconstitutional law. Blackstone's _Commentaries on the Laws of England_\n(1765-9) has had ever since its first publication an authority such as\nCoke only before possessed. \"He it is,\" said Bentham, \"who, first of\nall institutional writers, has taught jurisprudence to speak the\nlanguage of the Scholar and the Gentleman.\" Certainly, as Professor\nDicey has remarked, \"the book contains much real learning about our\nsystem of government.\" We are less concerned here with Blackstone as an\nantiquarian lawyer than as a student of political philosophy. Here his\npurpose seems obvious enough. The English constitution raised him from\nhumble means through a Professorship at Oxford to a judgeship in the\nCourt of Common Pleas. He had been a member of Parliament and refused\nthe office of Solicitor-General. He had thus no reason to be\ndissatisfied with the conditions of his time; and the first book of the\n_Commentaries_ is nothing so much as an attempt to explain why English\nconstitutional law is a miracle of wisdom.\n\nConstitutional law, as such, indeed, found no place in Blackstone's\nbook. It creeps in under the rights of persons, where he deals with the\npower of king and Parliament. His treatment implies a whole philosophy.\nLaws are of three kinds--of nature, of God, and of the civil state.\nCivil law, with which alone he is concerned, is \"a rule of civil conduct\nprescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and\nprohibiting what is wrong.\" It is, he tells us, \"called a rule to\ndistinguish it from a compact or agreement.\" It derives from the\nsovereign power, of which the chief character is the making of laws.\nSociety is based upon the \"wants and fears\" of men; and it is coeval\nwith their origin. The idea of a state of nature \"is too wild to be\nseriously admitted,\" besides being contrary to historical knowledge.\nSociety implies government, and whatever its origins or its forms there\n\"must be in all of them a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled\nauthority, in which the _jura summa imperii_, or rights of sovereignty\nreside.\" The forms of government are classified in the usual way; and\nthe British constitution is noted as a happy mixture of them all. \"The\nlegislature of the Kingdom,\" Blackstone writes, \"is entrusted to three\npowers entirely independent of each other; first the King, secondly the\nlords spiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of\npersons, chosen for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour\nor their property; and, thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen by\nthe people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy;\nand as this aggregate body, actuated by different springs and attentive\nto different interests, composes the British Parliament and has the\nsupreme disposal of everything; there can be no inconvenience attempted\nby either of the three branches, but will be withstood by one of the\nother two; each branch being armed with a negative power, sufficient to\nrepel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous.\" It\nis in the king in Parliament that British sovereignty resides. Eschewing\nthe notion of an original contract, Blackstone yet thinks that all the\nimplications of it are secured. \"The constitutional government of this\nisland,\" he says, \"is so admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing\ncan endanger or hurt it, but destroying the equilibrium of power between\none branch of the legislature and the rest.\"\n\nAll this is not enough; though, as Bentham was to show in his _Fragment\non Government_, it is already far too much. \"A body of nobility,\" such\nis the philosophic interpretation of the House of Lords, \"is also more\npeculiarly necessary in our mixed and compounded constitution, in order\nto support the rights of both the Crown and people, by forming a barrier\nto withstand the encroachments of both ... if they were confounded with\nthe mass of the people, and like them had only a vote in electing\nrepresentatives, their privileges would soon be borne down and\noverwhelmed by the popular torrent, which would effectually level all\ndistinctions.\" \"The Commons,\" he says further, \"consist of all such men\nof property in the kingdom as have not seats in the House of Lords.\" The\nlegal irresponsibility of the King is emphasized. \"He is not only\nincapable of doing wrong,\" says Blackstone, \"but even of thinking wrong;\nhe can never mean to do an improper thing; in him is no folly or\nweakness,\" though he points out that the constitution \"has allowed a\nlatitude of supposing the contrary.\" The powers of the King are\ndescribed in terms more suitable to the iron despotism of William the\nNorman than to the backstairs corruption of George III. The right of\nrevolution is noted, with justice, as belonging to the sphere of morals\nrather than of law.\n\n\"Its true defect,\" says Professor Dicey of the _Commentaries_, \"is the\nhopeless confusion both of language and of thought introduced into the\nwhole subject of constitutional law by Blackstone's habit--common to all\nthe lawyers of his time--of applying old and inapplicable terms to new\ninstitutions.\" This is severe enough; yet Blackstone's sins are deeper\nthan the criticism would suggest. He introduced into English political\nphilosophy that systematic attention to forms instead of substance upon\nwhich the whole vicious theory of checks and balances was erected. He\nmade no distinction between the unlimited sovereignty of law and the\nvery obviously limited sovereignty of reality. He must have known that\nto talk of the independence of the branches of the legislature was\nsimple nonsense at a time when King and peers competed for the control\nof elections to the House of Commons. His idealization of a peerage\nwhose typical spiritual member was Archbishop Cornwallis and whose\ntemporal embodiment was the Duke of Bedford would not have deceived a\nschoolboy had it not provided a bulwark against improvement. It was\nridiculous to describe the Commons as representative of property so long\nas places like Manchester and Sheffield were virtually disfranchised.\nHis picture of the royal prerogative was a portrait against every detail\nof which what was best in England had struggled in the preceding century\nand a half. He has nothing to say of the cabinet, nothing of ministerial\nresponsibility, nothing of the party system. What he did was to produce\nthe defence of a non-existent system which acted as a barrier to all\nlegal, and much political, progress in the next half-century. He gave\nmen material without cause for satisfaction.\n\nAs a description of the existing government there is thus hardly an\nelement of Blackstone's work which could stand the test of critical\ninquiry. But even worse was its philosophy. As Bentham pointed out, he\nwas unaware of the distinction between society and government. The state\nof nature exists, or fails to exist, with startling inconsistency.\nBlackstone, in fact, was a Lockian who knows that Hume and Montesquieu\nhave cut the ground from under his master's feet, and yet cannot\nunderstand how, without him, a foundation is to be supplied. Locke,\nindeed, seems to him, as a natural conservative, to go too far, and he\nrejects the original contract as without basis in history; yet\ncontractual notions are present at every fundamental stage of his\nargument. The sovereign power, so we are told, is irresistible; and then\nbecause Blackstone is uncertain what right is to mean, we hear of moral\nlimitations upon its exercise. He speaks continually of representation\nwithout any effort to examine into the notions it conveys. The members\nof society are held to be equal; and great pains are taken to justify\nexistent inequalities. \"The natural foundations of sovereignty,\" he\nwrites, \"are the three great requisites... of wisdom, goodness and\npower.\" Yet there is nowhere any proof in his book that steps have been\ntaken in the British Constitution to associate these with the actual\nexertion of authority. Nor has he clear notions of the way in which\nproperty is to be founded. Communism, he writes in seventeenth century\nfashion, is the institution of the all-beneficent Creator who gave the\nearth to men; property comes when men occupy some special portion of the\nsoil continuously or mix their labor with movable possessions. This is\npure Locke; though the conclusions drawn by Blackstone are utterly\nremote from the logical result of his own premises.\n\nThe truth surely is that Blackstone had, upon all these questions, only\nthe most confused sort of notions. He had to preface his work with some\nsort of philosophic theory because the conditions of the age demanded\nit. The one source of enlightenment when he wrote was Hume; but for some\nuncertain reason, perhaps his piety, Blackstone makes no reference to\nthe great sceptic's speculations. So that he was driven back upon\nnotions he felt to be false, without a proper realization of their\nfalsity. His use of Montesquieu shows rather how dangerous a weapon a\ngreat idea can be in the hands of one incompetent to understand it, than\nthe fertility it contained. The merit of Blackstone is his learning,\nwhich was substantial, his realization that the powers of law demand\nsome classification, his dim yet constant sense that Montesquieu is\nright alike in searching for the roots of law in custom and in applying\nthe historical method to his explanations. But as a thinker he was\nlittle more than an optimistic trifler, too content with the conditions\nof his time to question its assumptions.\n\nDe Lolme is a more interesting figure; and though, as with Blackstone,\nwhat he failed to see was even more remarkable than what he did\nperceive, his book has real ability and merit. De Lolme was a citizen of\nGeneva, who published his _Constitution of England_ in 1775, after a\ntwelve months' visit to shores sufficiently inhospitable to leave him to\ndie in obscurity and want. His book, as he tells us in his preface, was\nno mean success, though he derived no profit from it. Like Blackstone,\nhe was impressed by the necessity of obtaining a constitutional\nequilibrium, wherein he finds the secret of liberty. The attitude was\nnot unnatural in one who, with his head full of Montesquieu, was a\nwitness of the struggle between Junius and the King. He has, of course,\nthe limitation common to all writers before Burke of thinking of\ngovernment in purely mechanical terms. \"It is upon the passions of\nmankind,\" he says, \"that is, upon causes which are unalterable, that the\naction of the various parts of a state depends. The machine may vary as\nto its dimensions; but its movement and acting springs still remain\nintrinsically the same.\" Elsewhere he speaks of government as \"a great\nballet or dance in which ... everything depends upon the disposition of\nthe figures.\" He does not deal, that is to say, with men as men, but\nonly as inert adjuncts of a machine by which they are controlled. Such\nan attitude is bound to suffer from the patent vices of all abstraction.\nIt regards historic forces as distinct from the men related to them.\nEvery mob, he says, must have its Spartacus; every republic will tend to\nunstability. The English avoid these dangers by playing off the royal\npower against the popular. The King's interest is safeguarded by the\ndivision of Parliament into two Houses, each of which rejects the\nencroachment of the other upon the executive. His power is limited by\nparliamentary privilege, freedom of the press, the right of taxation and\nso forth. The theory was not true; though it represented with some\naccuracy the ideals of the time.\n\nNor must we belittle what insight De Lolme possessed. He saw that the\nearly concentration of power in the royal hands prevented the\ncontinental type of feudalism from developing in England; with the\nresult that while French nobles were massacring each other, the English\npeople could unite to wrest privileges from the superior power. He\nunderstood that one of the mainsprings of the system was the\nindependence of the judges. He realized that the party-system--he never\nused the actual term--while it provides room for men's ambitions at the\nsame time prevents the equation of ambition with indispensability. \"Woe\nto him,\" says De Lolme, \"... who should endeavor to make the people\nbelieve that their fate depends on the persevering virtue of a single\ncitizen.\" He sees the paramount value of freedom of the press. This, as\nhe says, with the necessity that members should be re-elected, \"has\ndelivered into the hands of the people at large the exercise of the\ncensorial power.\" He has no doubt but that resistance is the remedy\nwhereby governmental encroachment can be prevented; \"resistance,\" he\nsays, \"is the ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of\npower.\" He points out how real is the guarantee of liberty where the\nonus of proof in criminal cases is thrown upon the government. He\nregards with admiration the supremacy of the civil over the military\narm, and the skillful way in which, contrary to French experience, it\nhas been found possible to maintain a standing army without adding to\nthe royal power. Nor can he fail to admire the insight which organizes\n\"the agitation of the popular mind,\" not as \"the forerunner of violent\ncommotions\" but to \"animate all parts of the state.\" Therein De Lolme\nhad grasped the real essence of party government.\n\nIt was, of course, no more than symptomatic of his time that cabinet and\nprime minister should have escaped his notice. A more serious defect was\nhis inability, with the Wilkes contest prominently in his notice, to\nsee that the people had assumed a new importance. For the masses,\nindeed, De Lolme had no enthusiasm. \"A passive share,\" he thought, \"was\nthe only one that could, with safety to the state, be trusted\" to the\nhumble man. \"The greater part,\" he wrote, \"of those who compose this\nmultitude, taken up with the care of providing for their subsistence,\nhave neither sufficient leisure, nor even, in consequence of their\nimperfect education, the degree of information, requisite for functions\nof this kind.\" Such an attitude blinded him to the significance of the\nAmerican conflict, which he saw unattended by its moral implications. He\ntrusted too emphatically to the power of mechanisms to realize that\ninstitutions which allowed of such manipulation as that of George III\ncould not be satisfactory once the people had awakened to a sense of its\nown power. The real social forces of the time found there no channels of\nactivity; and the difference between De Lolme and Bagehot is the\nlatter's power to go behind the screen of statute to the inner sources\nof power.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe basis of revolutionary doctrine was already present in England when,\nin 1762, Rousseau published his _Contrat Social_. With its fundamental\ndoctrines Locke had already made his countrymen familiar; and what was\nneeded for the appreciation of its teaching was less a renaissance than\ndiscontent. So soon as men are dissatisfied with the traditional\nfoundations of the State, a gospel of natural rights is certain to make\nits appearance. And, once the design of George III had been made\nfamiliar by his treatment of Chatham and Wilkes, the discontent did not\nfail to show itself. Indeed, in the year before the publication of\nRousseau's book, Robert Wallace, a Scottish chaplain royal, had written\nin his _Various Prospects_ (1761) a series of essays which are at once\nan anticipation of the main thesis of Malthus and a plea for the\nintegration of social forces by which alone the mass of men could be\nraised from misery. In the light of later experience it is difficult not\nto be impressed by the modernist flavour of Wallace's attack. He\ninsists upon the capacity of men and the disproportion between their\npotential achievement and that which is secured by actual society. Men\nare in the mass condemned to ignorance and toil; and the lust of power\nsets man against his neighbor to the profit of the rich. Wallace traces\nthese evils to private property and the individualistic organization of\nwork, and he sees no remedy save community of possessions and a\nrenovated educational system. Yet he does not conceal from himself that\nit is to the interest of the governing class to prevent a revolution\nwhich, beneficent to the masses, would be fatal to themselves; nor does\nhe conceive it possible until the fertility of men has been reduced to\nthe capacity of the soil. He speculates upon the chances of a new spirit\namong men, of an all-wise legislator, and of the beneficent example of\ncolonies upon the later Owenite model. But his book is contemporaneous\nwith our own ideas rather than with the thoughts of his generation. Nor\ndoes it seem to have excited any general attention.\n\nIt is five years after Rousseau that we see the first clear signs of his\ninfluence. Naturally enough the men amongst whom the new spirit spread\nabroad were the Nonconformists. For more than seventy years they had\nbeen allowed existence without recognition. None had more faithfully\nsupported the new dynasty than they; none had been paid less for their\nallegiance. Their utmost effort could secure only a sparing mitigation\nof the Test Act. All of them were Whigs, and the doctrines of Locke\nsuited exactly their temper and their wants. There were amongst them\nable men in every walk of life, and they were apt to publication. Joseph\nPriestley, in particular, gave up with willingness to mankind what was\nobviously meant for chemical science. A few years previously Brown of\nthe _Estimate_ had submitted a scheme for national education, in which\nthe essential principle was Church control. Priestley had answered him,\nand was encouraged by friends to expand his argument into a general\ntreatise. His _Essay on the First Principles of Government_ appeared in\n1768; and, if for nothing else, it would be noteworthy because it was\ntherein that the significance of the \"greatest happiness principle\"\nfirst flashed across Bentham's mind. But the book shows more than this.\n\"I had placed,\" says Priestley with due modesty, \"the foundation of some\nof the most valuable interests of mankind on a broader and firmer basis\nthan Mr. Locke\"; and the breadth and firmness are Rousseau's\ncontribution.\n\nCertainly we herein meet new elements. On the very threshold of the book\nwe meet the dogma of the perfectibility of man. \"Whatever,\" Priestley\nrhapsodizes, \"was the beginning of this world, the end will be glorious\nand paradisaical, beyond what our imaginations can now conceive.\" \"The\ninstrument of this progress ... towards this glorious state\" is\ngovernment; though a little later we are to find that the main business\nof government is noninterference. Men are all equal, and their natural\nrights are indefeasible. Government must be restrained in the interests\nof liberty. No man can be governed without his consent; for government\nis founded upon a contract by which civil liberty is surrendered in\nexchange for a power to share in public decisions. It thus follows that\nthe people must be sovereign, and interference with their natural\nrights will justify resistance. Every government, he says, is \"in its\noriginal principles, and antecedent to its present form an equal\nrepublic\"; wherefore, of course, it follows that we must restore to men\nthe equality they have lost. And, equally, of course, this would bestow\nupon the Nonconformists their full citizenship; for Warburton's\n_Alliance_, to attack which Priestley exhausts all the resources of his\ningenuity, has been one of the main instruments in their degradation.\n\"Unbounded liberty in matters of religion,\" which means the abolition of\nthe Establishment, promises to be \"very favorable to the best interests\nof mankind.\"\n\nSo far the book might well be called an edition of Rousseau for English\nNonconformists; but there are divergences of import. It can never be\nforgotten in the history of political ideas that the alliance of Church\nand State made Nonconformists suspicious of government interference.\nTheir original desire to be left unimpeded was soon exalted into a\ndefinite theory; and since political conditions had confined them so\nlargely to trade none felt as they did the hampering influence of\nState-restrictions. The result has been a great difficulty in making\nliberal doctrines in England realize, until after 1870, the organic\nnature of the State. It remains for them almost entirely a police\ninstitution which, once it aims at the realization of right, usurps a\nfunction far better performed by individuals. There is no sense of the\ncommunity; all that exists is a sum of private sentiments. \"Civil\nliberty,\" says Priestley, \"has been greatly impaired by an abuse of the\nmaxim that the joint understanding of all the members of a State,\nproperly collected, must be preferable to that of individuals; and\nconsequently that the more the cases are in which mankind are governed\nby this united reason of the whole community, so much the better;\nwhereas, in truth, the greater part of human actions are of such a\nnature, that more inconvenience would follow from their being fixed by\nlaws than from their being left to every man's arbitrary will.\" If my\nneighbor assaults me, he suggests, I may usefully call in the police;\nbut where the object is the discovery of truth, the means of education,\nthe method of religious belief, individual initiative is superior to\nState action. The latter produces an uniform result \"incompatible with\nthe spirit of discovery.\" Nor is such attempt at uniform conditions just\nto posterity; men have no natural right to judge for the future. Men are\ntoo ignorant to fix their own ideas as the basis of all action.\n\nPriestley could not escape entirely the bondage of past tradition; and\nthe metaphysics which Bentham abhorred are scattered broadcast over his\npages. Nevertheless the basis upon which he defended his ideas was a\nutilitarianism hardly less complete than that which Bentham made the\ninstrument of revolution. \"Regard to the general good,\" he says, \"is the\nmain method by which natural rights are to be defended.\" \"The good and\nhappiness of the members, that is, the majority of the members of any\nState, is the great standard by which everything relating to that state\nmust finally be determined.\" In substance, that is to say, if not\ncompletely in theory, we pass with Priestley from arguments of right to\nthose of expediency. His chief attack upon religious legislation is\nsimilarly based upon considerations of policy. His view of the\nindividual as a never-ending source of fruitful innovation anticipates\nall the later Benthamite arguments about the well-spring of individual\nenergy. Interference and stagnation are equated in exactly similar\nfashion to Adam Smith and his followers. Priestley, of course, was\ninconsistent in urging at the outset that government is the chief\ninstrument of progress; but what he seems to mean is less that\ngovernment has the future in its hands than that government action may\nwell be decisive for good or evil. Typical, too, of the later Benthamism\nis his glorification of reason as the great key which is to unlock all\ndoors. That is, of course, natural in a scientist who had himself made\ndiscoveries of vital import; but it was characteristic also of a school\nwhich scanned a limitless horizon with serene confidence in a future of\nunbounded good. Even if it be said that Priestley has all the vices of\nthat rationalism which, as with Bentham, oversimplifies every problem it\nencounters, it is yet adequate to retort that a confidence in the\nenergies of men was better than the complacent stagnation of the\nprevious age.\n\nIt is difficult to measure the precise influence that Priestley exerted;\ncertainly among Nonconformists it cannot have been small. Dr. Richard\nPrice is a lesser figure; and much of the standing he might have had has\nbeen obliterated by two unfortunate incidents. His sinking-fund scheme\nwas taken up by the younger Pitt, and proved, though the latter believed\nin it to the last, to be founded upon an arithmetical fallacy which did\nnot sit well upon a fellow of the Royal Society. His sermon on the\nFrench Revolution provoked the _Reflections_ of Burke; and, though much\nof the right was on the side of Price, it can hardly be said that he\nsurvived Burke's onslaught. Yet he was a considerable figure in his day,\nand he shows, like Priestley, how deep-rooted was the English\nrevolutionary temper. He has not, indeed, Priestley's superb optimism;\nfor the rigid _a priori_ morality of which he was the somewhat muddled\ndefender was less favorable to a confidence in reason. He had a good\ndeal of John Brown's fear that luxury was the seed of English\ndegeneration; the proof of which he saw in the decline of the\npopulation. His figures, in fact, were false; but they were unessential\nto the general thesis he had to make.\n\nPrice, like Priestley a leading Nonconformist, was stirred to print by\nthe American Revolution; and if his views were not widely popular, his\n_Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty_ (1776) attained its eighth\nedition within a decade. This, with its supplement _Additional\nObservations_ (1777), presents a perfectly coherent theory. Nor is their\nancestry concealed. They represent the tradition of Locke, modified by\nthe importations of Rousseau. Price owes much to Priestley and to Hume,\nand he takes sentences from Montesquieu where they aid him. But he has\nlittle or nothing of Priestley's utilitarianism and the whole argument\nis upon the abstract basis of right. Liberty means self-government, and\nself-government means the right of every man to be his own legislator.\nPrice, with strict logic, follows out this doctrine to its last\nconsequence. Taxes become \"free gifts for public services\"; laws are\n\"particular provisions or regulations established by Common Consent for\ngaining protection and safety\"; magistrates are \"trustees or deputies\nfor carrying these regulations into execution.\" And almost in the words\nof Rousseau, Price goes on to admit that liberty, \"in its most perfect\ndegree, can be enjoyed only in small states where every independent\nagent is capable of giving his suffrage in person and of being chosen\ninto public offices.\" He knows that large States are inevitable, though\nhe thinks that representation may be made so adequate as to minimize the\nsacrifice of liberty involved.\n\nBut the limitation upon government is everywhere emphasized.\n\"Government,\" he says, \"... is in the very nature of it a trust; and\nall its powers a Delegation for particular ends.\" He rejects the theory\nof parliamentary sovereignty as incompatible with self-government; if\nthe Parliament, for instance, prolonged its life, it would betray its\nconstituents and dissolve itself. \"If omnipotence,\" he writes, \"can with\nany sense be ascribed to a legislature, it must be lodged where all\nlegislative authority originates; that is, in the People.\" Such a\nsystem is alone compatible with the ends of government, since it cannot\nbe supposed that men \"combine into communities and institute government\"\nfor self-enslavement. Nor is any other political system \"consistent with\nthe natural equality of mankind\"; by which Price means that no man \"is\nconstituted by the author of nature the vassal or subject of another, or\nhas any right to give law to him, or, without his consent, to take away\nany part of his property or to abridge him of his liberty.\" From all of\nwhich it is concluded that liberty is inalienable; and a people which\nhas lost it \"must have a right to emancipate themselves as soon as they\ncan.\" The aptness of the argument to the American situation is obvious\nenough; and nowhere is Price more happy or more formidable than when he\napplies his precepts to phrases like \"the unity of the empire\" and the\n\"honor of the kingdom\" which were so freely used to cover up the\ninevitable results of George's obstinacy.\n\nThe _Essay on the Right of Property in Land_ (1781) of William Ogilvie\ndeserves at least a passing notice. The author, who published his book\nanonymously, was a Professor of Latin in the University of Aberdeen and\nan agriculturist of some success. His own career was distinctly\nhonorable. The teacher of Sir James Mackintosh, he had a high reputation\nas a classical scholar and deserves to be remembered for his effort to\nreform a college which had practically ceased to perform its proper\nacademic functions. His book is virtually an essay upon the natural\nright of men to the soil. He does not doubt that the distress of the\ntimes is due to the land monopoly. The earth being given to men in\ncommon, its invasion by private ownership is a dangerous perversion. Men\nhave the right to the full product of their labor; but the privileges of\nthe landowner prevent the enjoyment of that right. The primary duty of\nevery State is the increase of public happiness; and the happiest nation\nis that which has the greatest number of free and independent\ncultivators. But governments attend rather to the interest of the higher\nclasses, even while they hold out the protection of the common people as\nthe main pretext of their authority. The result is their maintenance of\nland-monopoly even though it affects the prime material of all essential\nindustries, prevents the growth of population, and makes the rich\nwealthier at the expense of the poor. It breeds oppression and\nignorance, and poisons improvement by preventing individual initiative.\nHe points out how a nation is dominated by its landlords, and how they\nhave consistently evaded the fiscal burdens they should bear. Only in a\nreturn to a nation of freeholders can Ogilvie see the real source of an\nincrease in happiness.\n\nSuch criticism is revolutionary enough, though when he comes to speak of\nactual changes, he had little more to propose than a system of peasant\nproprietorship. What is striking in the book is its sense of great,\nimpending changes, its thorough grasp of the principle of utility, its\nrealization of the immense agricultural improvement that is possible if\nthe landed system can be so changed as to bring into play the impulses\nof humble men. He sees clearly enough that wealth dominates the State;\nand his interpretation of history is throughout economic. Ogilvie is\none of the first of those agrarian Socialists who, chiefly through\nSpence and Paine, are responsible for a special current of their own in\nthe great tide of protest against the unjust situation of labor. Like\nthem, he builds his system upon natural rights; though, unlike them, his\nnatural rights are defended by expediency and in a style that is always\nclear and logical. The book itself has rather a curious history. At its\nappearance, it seems to have excited no notice of any kind. Mackintosh\nknew of its authorship; for he warned its author against the amiable\ndelusion that its excellence would persuade the British government to\nforce a system of peasant proprietorship upon the East India Company.\nReprinted in 1838 as the work of John Ogilby, it was intended to\ninstruct the Chartists in the secret of their oppression; and therein it\nmay well have contributed to the tragicomic land-scheme of Feargus\nO'Connor. In 1891 the problem of the land was again eagerly debated\nunder the stimulus of Mr. Henry George; and a patriotic Scotchman\npublished the book with biographical notes that constitute one of the\nmost amazing curiosities in English political literature.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nAgainst the school of Rousseau's English disciples it is comparatively\neasy to multiply criticisms. They lacked any historic sense. Government,\nfor them, was simply an instrument which was made and unmade at the\nvolition of men. How complex were its psychological foundations they had\nno conception; with the single factor of consent they could explain the\nmost marvellous edifice of any time. They were buried beneath a mountain\nof metaphysical right which they never related to legal facts or to\npolitical possibility. They pursued relentlessly the logical conclusions\nof the doctrines they abhorred without being willing carefully to\ninvestigate the results to which their own doctrines in logic led. They\noverestimated the extent to which men are willing to occupy themselves\nwith political affairs. They made no proper allowance for the protective\narmour each social system must acquire by the mere force of\nprescription. Nor is there sufficient allowance in their attitude for\nthose limiting conditions of circumstance of which every statesman must\nof necessity take account. They occupy themselves, that is to say, so\ncompletely with _staatslehre_ that they do not admit the mollifying\ninfluence of _politik_. They search for principles of universal right,\nwithout the perception that a right which is to be universal must\nnecessarily be so general in character as to be useless in its\napplication.\n\nYet such defects must not blind us to the general rightness of their\ninsight. They were protesting against a system strongly upheld on\ngrounds which now appear to have been simply indefensible. The business\nof government had been made the private possession of a privileged\nclass; and eagerness for desirable change was, in the mass, absent from\nthe minds of most men engaged in its direction. The loss of America, the\nheartless treatment of Ireland, the unconstitutional practices in the\nWilkes affair, the heightening of corruption undertaken by Henry Fox and\nNorth at the direct instance of the king, had blinded the eyes of most\nto the fact that principle is a vital part of policy. The revolutionists\nrecalled men to the need of explaining, no less than carrying on, the\ngovernment of the Crown. They represented the new sense of power felt by\nelements of which the importance had been forgotten in the sordid\nintrigues of the previous half-century. Their emphasis upon government\nas in its nature a public trust was at least accompanied by a useful\nreminder that, after all, ultimate power must rest upon the side of the\ngoverned. For twenty years Whigs and Tories alike carried on political\ncontroversy as though no public opinion existed outside the small circle\nof the aristocracy. The mob which made Wilkes its idol was, in a blind\nand unconscious way, enforcing the lesson that Price and Priestley had\nin mind. For the moment, they were unsuccessful. Cartwright, with his\nConstitutional Societies, might capture the support of an eccentric peer\nlike the Duke of Richmond; but the vast majority remained, if irritated,\nunconvinced. It needed the realization that the new doctrines were part\nof a vaster synthesis which swept within its purview the fortunes of\nEurope and America before they would give serious heed; and even then\nthey met antagonism with nothing save oppression and hate. Yet the\ndoctrines remained; for thought, after all, is killed by reasoned answer\nalone. And when the first gusts of war and revolution had passed, the\ncause for which they stood was found to have permeated all classes save\nthat which had all to lose by learning.\n\nWe must not, however, commit the error of thinking of Price and\nPriestley as representing more than an important segment of opinion. The\nopposition to their theories was not less articulate than their own\ndefence of them. Some, like Burke, desired a purification of the\nexisting system; others, like Dr. Johnson, had no sort of sympathy with\nnew-fangled ideas. One thinker, at least, deserves some mention less for\nthe inherent value of what he had to say, than for the nature of the\nopinions he expounded. Josiah Tucker, the Dean of Gloucester, has a\nreputation alike in political and economic enquiry. He represents the\nsturdy nationalism of Arbuthnot's _John Bull_, the unreasoned prejudice\nagainst all foreigners, the hatred of all metaphysics as inconsistent\nwith common sense, the desire to let things be on the ground that the\neffort after change is worse than the evil of which men complain. His\n_Treatise on Civil Government_ (1781) is in many ways a delightful book,\nbluff, hardy, full of common sense, with, at times, a quaint humor that\nis all its own. He had really two objects in view; to deal, in the first\nplace, faithfully with the American problem, and, in the second, to\nexplode the new bubble of Rousseau's followers. The second point takes\nthe form of an examination of Locke, to whom, as Tucker shrewdly saw,\nthe theories of the school may trace their ancestry. He analyses the\ntheory of consent in such fashion as to show that if its adherents could\nbe persuaded to be logical, they would have to admit themselves\nanarchists. He has no sympathy with the state of nature; the noble\nsavage, on investigation, turns out to be a barbaric creature with a\nclub and scalping knife. Government, he does not doubt, is a trust, or,\nas he prefers, somewhat oddly, to call it, a quasi-contract; but that\ndoes not mean that the actual governors can be dismissed when any\neccentric happens to take exception to their views. He has no sympathy\nwith parliamentary reform. Give the mob an increase of power, he says,\nand nothing is to be expected but outrage and violence. He thinks the\nconstitution very well as it is, and those who preach the evils of\ncorruption ought to prove their charges instead of blasphemously\nasserting that the voice of the people is the voice of God.\n\nUpon America Tucker has doctrines all his own. He does not doubt that\nthe Americans deserve the worst epithets that can be showered upon them.\nTheir right to self-government he denied as stoutly as ever George III\nhimself could have desired. But not for one moment would he fight them\nto compel their return to British allegiance. If the American colonies\nwant to go, let them by all means cut adrift. They are only a useless\nsource of expenditure. The trade they represent does not depend upon\nallegiance but upon wants that England can supply if she keeps shop in\nthe proper way, if, that is, she makes it to their interest to buy in\nher market. Indeed, colonies of all kinds seem to him quite useless.\nThey ever are, he says, and ever were, \"a drain to and an incumbrance on\nthe Mother-country, requiring perpetual and expensive nursing in their\ninfancy, and becoming headstrong and ungovernable in proportion as they\ngrow up.\" All wise relations depend upon self-interest, and that needs\nno compulsion. If Gibraltar and Port Mahon and the rest were given up,\nthe result would be \"multitudes of places ... abolished, jobs and\ncontracts effectually prevented, millions of money saved, universal\nindustry encouraged, and the influence of the Crown reduced to that\nmediocrity it ought to have.\" Here is pure Manchesterism half-a-century\nbefore its time; and one can imagine the good Dean crustily explaining\nhis notions to the merchants of Bristol who had just rejected Edmund\nBurke for advocating free trade with Ireland.\n\nNo word on Toryism would be complete without mention of Dr. Johnson.\nHere, indeed, we meet less with opinion than with a set of gloomy\nprejudices, acceptable only because of the stout honesty of the source\nfrom which they come. He thought life a poor thing at the best and took\na low view of human nature. \"The notion of liberty,\" he told the\nfaithful Boswell, \"amuses the people of England and helps to keep off\nthe _tedium vitae_.\" The idea of a society properly organized into ranks\nand societies he always esteemed highly. \"I am a friend to\nsubordination,\" he said, \"as most conducive to the happiness of\nsociety.\" He was a Jacobite and Tory to the end. Whiggism was the\noffspring of the devil, the \"negation of all principle\"; and he seems to\nhave implied that it led to atheism, which he regarded as the worst of\nsins. He did not believe in the honesty of republicans; they levelled\ndown, but were never inclined to level up. Men, he felt, had a part to\nact in society, and their business was to fulfil their allotted station.\nRousseau was a very bad man: \"I would sooner sign a sentence for his\ntransportation than that of any fellow who has gone from the Old Bailey\nthese many years.\" Political liberty was worthless; the only thing worth\nwhile was freedom in private concerns. He blessed the government in the\ncase of general warrants and thought the power of the Crown too small.\nToleration he considered due to an inapt distinction between freedom to\nthink and freedom to talk, and any magistrate \"while he thinks himself\nright ... ought to enforce what he thinks.\" The American revolt he\nascribed to selfish faction; and in his _Taxation no Tyranny_ (1775) he\ndefended the British government root and branch upon his favorite ground\nof the necessity of subordination. He was willing, he said, to love all\nmankind except an American.\n\nYet Dr. Johnson was the friend of Burke, and he found pleasure in an\nacquaintance with Wilkes. Nor, in all his admiration for rank and\nfortune, is there a single element of meanness. The man who wrote the\nletter to Lord Chesterfield need never fear the charge of abasement. He\nknew that there was \"a remedy in human nature that will keep us safe\nunder every form of government.\" He defined a courtier in the _Idler_ as\none \"whose business it is to watch the looks of a being weak and foolish\nas himself.\" Much of what he felt was in part a revolt against the\nsentimental aspect of contemporary liberalism, in part a sturdy contempt\nfor the talk of degeneracy that men such as Brown had made popular.\nThere is, indeed, in all his political observations a strong sense of\nthe virtue of order, and a perception that the radicalism of the time\nwas too abstract to provide an adequate basis for government. Here, as\nelsewhere, Johnson hated all speculation which raised the fundamental\nquestions. What he did not see was the important truth that in no age\nare fundamental questions raised save where the body politic is\ndiseased. Rousseau and Voltaire, even Priestley and Price, require\nsomething more for answer than unreasoned prejudice. Johnson's attitude\nwould have been admirable where there were no questions to debate; but\nwhere Pelham ruled, or Grenville, or North, it had nothing to\ncontribute. Thought, after all, is the one certain weapon of utility in\na different and complex world; and it was because the age refused to\nlook it in the face that it invited the approach of revolution.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nBURKE\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIt is the special merit of the English constitutional system that the\nking stands outside the categories of political conflict. He is the\ndignified emollient of an organized quarrel which, at least in theory,\nis due to the clash of antagonistic principle. The merit, indeed, is\nlargely accidental; and we shall miss the real fashion in which it came\nto be established unless we remark the vicissitudes through which it has\npassed. The foreign birth of the first two Hanoverians, the insistent\nwidowhood of Queen Victoria, these rather than deliberate foresight have\nsecured the elevated nullification of the Crown. Yet the first\ntwenty-five years of George III's reign represent the deliberate effort\nof an obstinate man to stem the progress of fifty years and secure once\nmore the balance of power. Nor was the effort defeated without a\nstruggle which went to the root of constitutional principle.\n\nAnd George III attempted the realization of his ambition at a time\nhighly favorable to its success. Party government had lost much credit\nduring Walpole's administration. Men like Bolingbroke, Carteret and the\nelder Pitt were all of them dissatisfied with a system which depended\nfor its existence upon the exclusion of able men from power. A\ngeneration of corrupt practice and the final defeat of Stuart hopes had\nalready deprived the Whigs of any special hold on their past ideals.\nThey were divided already into factions the purpose of which was no more\nthan the avid pursuit of place and pension. Government by connection\nproved itself irreconcilable with good government. But it showed also\nthat once corruption was centralized there was no limit to its\ninfluence, granted only the absence of great questions. When George III\ntransferred that organization from the office of the minister to his own\ncourt, there was already a tolerable certainty of his success. For more\nthan forty years the Tories had been excluded from office; and they\nwere more than eager to sell their support. The Church had become the\ncreature of the State. The drift of opinion in continental Europe was\ntowards benevolent despotism. The narrow, obstinate and ungenerous mind\nof George had been fed on high notions of the power he might exert. He\nhad been taught the kingship of Bolingbroke's glowing picture; and a\nreading in manuscript of the seventh chapter of Blackstone's first book\ncan only have confirmed the ideals he found there. Nor was it obvious\nthat a genuine kingship would have been worse than the oligarchy of the\ngreat Whig families.\n\nWhat made it worse, and finally impossible, was the character of the\nking. The pathetic circumstances of his old age have combined somewhat\nto obscure the viciousness of his maturity. He was excessively ignorant\nand as obstinate as arbitrary. He trusted no one but himself, and he\ntotally misunderstood the true nature of his office. There is no\nquestion which arose in the first forty years of his reign in which he\nwas not upon the wrong side and proud of his error. He was wrong about\nWilkes, wrong about America, wrong about Ireland, wrong about France. He\ndemanded servants instead of ministers. He attacked every measure for\nthe purification of the political system. He supported the Slave trade\nand he opposed the repeal of the Test Act. He prevented the grant of\nCatholic emancipation at the one moment when it might have genuinely\nhealed the wounds of Ireland. He destroyed by his perverse creations the\nvalue of the House of Lords as a legislative assembly. He was clearly\ndetermined to make his will the criterion of policy; and his design\nmight have succeeded had his ability and temper been proportionate to\nits greatness. It was not likely that the mass of men would have seen\nwith regret the destruction of the aristocratic monopoly in politics.\nThe elder Pitt might well have based a ministry of the court upon a\nbroad bottom of popularity. The House of Commons, as the event proved,\ncould be as subservient to the king as to his minister.\n\nYet the design failed; and it failed because, with characteristic\nstupidity, the king did not know the proper instruments for his\npurpose. Whatever he touched he mismanaged. He aroused the suspicion of\nthe people by enforcing the resignation of the elder Pitt. In the Wilkes\naffair he threw the clearest light of the century upon the true nature\nof the House of Commons. His own system of proscription restored to the\nWhig party not a little of the idealism it had lost; and Burke came to\nsupply them with a philosophy. Chatham remained the idol of the people\ndespite his hatred. He raised Wilkes to be the champion of\nrepresentative government and of personal liberty. He lost America and\nit was not his fault that Ireland was retained. The early popularity he\nreceived he never recovered until increasing years and madness had made\nhim too pathetic for dislike. The real result of his attempt was to\ncompel attention once again to the foundations of politics; and George's\neffort, in the light of his immense failures, could not, in the nature\nof things, survive that analysis.\n\nNot, of course, that George ever lacked defenders. As early as 1761, the\nold rival of Walpole, Pulteney, whom a peerage had condemned to\nobsolescence, published his _Seasonable Hints from an Honest Man on the\nnew Reign_. Pulteney urged the sovereign no longer to be content with\nthe \"shadow of royalty.\" He should use his \"legal prerogatives\" to check\n\"the illegal claims of factious oligarchy.\" Government had become the\nprivate possession of a few powerful men. The king was but a puppet in\nleading strings. The basis of government should be widened, for every\nhonest man was aware that distinctions of party were now merely nominal.\nThe Tories should be admitted to place. They were now friendly to the\naccession and they no longer boasted their hostility to dissent. They\nknew that Toleration and the Establishment were of the essence of the\nConstitution. Were once the Whig oligarchy overthrown, corruption would\ncease and Parliament could no longer hope to dominate the kingdom. \"The\nministers,\" he said, \"will depend on the Crown not the Crown on\nministers\" if George but showed \"his resolution to break all factitious\nconnections and confederacies.\" The tone is Bolingbroke's, and it was\nthe lesson George had insistently heard from early youth. How sinister\nwas the advice, men did not see until the elder Pitt was in political\nexile, with Wilkes an outlaw, and general warrants threatening the whole\nbasis of past liberties.\n\nThe first writer who pointed out in unmistakable terms the meaning of\nthe new synthesis was Junius. That his anonymity concealed the malignant\ntalent of Sir Philip Francis seems now beyond denial. Junius, indeed,\ncan hardly claim a place in the history of political ideas. His genius\nlay not in the discussion of principle but the dissection of\npersonality. His power lay in his style and the knowledge that enabled\nhim to inform the general public of facts which were the private\npossession of the inner political circle. His mind was narrow and\npedantic. He stood with Grenville on American taxation; and he\nmaintained without perceiving what it meant that a nomination borough\nwas a freehold beyond the competence of the legislature to abolish. He\nwas never generous, always abusive, and truth did not enter into his\ncalculations. But he saw with unsurpassed clearness the nature of the\nissue and he was a powerful instrument in the discomfiture of the king.\nHe won a new audience for political conflict and that audience was the\nunenfranchised populace of England. His letters, moreover, appearing as\nthey did in the daily journals gave the press a significance in politics\nwhich it has never lost. He made the significance of George's effort\nknown to the mass of men at a time when no other means of information\nwas at hand. The opposition was divided; the king's friends were in a\nvast majority; the publication of debates was all but impossible.\nEnglish government was a secret conflict in which the entrance of\nspectators was forbidden even though they were the subjects of debate.\nIt was the glory of Junius that he destroyed that system. Not even the\ncombined influence of the Crown and Commons, not even Lord Mansfield's\ndoctrine of the law of libel, could break the power of his vituperation\nand Wilkes' courage. Bad men have sometimes been the instruments of\nnoble destiny; and there are few more curious episodes in English\nhistory than the result of this alliance between revengeful hate and\ninsolent ambition.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nYet, in the long run, the real weapon which defeated George was the\nideas of Edmund Burke; for he gave to the political conflict its real\nplace in philosophy. There is no immortality save in ideas; and it was\nBurke who gave a permanent form to the debate in which he was the\nliberal protagonist. His career is illustrative at once of the merits\nand defects of English politics in the eighteenth century. The son of an\nIrish Protestant lawyer and a Catholic mother, he served, after learning\nwhat Trinity College, Dublin, could offer him, a long apprenticeship to\npolitics in the upper part of Grub Street. The story that he applied,\nalong with Hume, for Adam Smith's chair at Glasgow seems apocryphal;\nthough the _Dissertation on the Sublime and the Beautiful_ (1756) shows\nhis singular fitness for the studies that Hutcheson had made the special\npossession of the Scottish school. It was in Grub Street that he appears\nto have attained that amazing amount of varied yet profound knowledge\nwhich made him without equal in the House of Commons. His earliest\nproduction was a _Vindication of Natural Society_ (1756), written in the\nmanner of Lord Bolingbroke, and successful enough in its imitative\nsatire not only to deceive its immediate public, but also to become the\nbasis of Godwin's _Political Justice_. After a vain attempt to serve in\nIreland with \"Single-Speech\" Hamilton, he became the private secretary\nto Lord Rockingham, the leader of the one section of the Whig party to\nwhich an honorable record still remained. That connection secured for\nhim a seat in Parliament at the comparatively late age of thirty-six;\nand henceforward, until his death in 1797, he was among its leading\nmembers. His intellectual pre-eminence, indeed, seems from the very\noutset to have been recognized on all hands; though he was still, in the\neyes of the system, enough of an outsider to be given, in the short\nmonths during which he held office, the minor office of\nPaymaster-General, without a seat in the Cabinet. The man of whom all\nEngland was the political pupil was denied without discussion a place at\nthe council board. Yet when Fox is little more than a memory of great\nlovableness and Pitt a marvellous youth of apt quotations, Burke has\nendured as the permanent manual of political wisdom without which\nstatesmen are as sailors on an uncharted sea.\n\nFor it has been the singular good fortune of Burke not merely to obtain\nacceptance as the apostle of philosophic conservatism, but to give deep\ncomfort to men of liberal temper. He is, indeed, a singularly lovable\nfigure. \"His stream of mind is perpetual,\" said Johnson; and Goldsmith\nhas told us how he wound his way into a subject like a serpent. Macaulay\nthought him the greatest man since Milton, Lord Morley the \"greatest\nmaster of civil wisdom in our tongue.\" \"No English writer,\" says Sir\nLeslie Stephen, \"has received or has deserved more splendid panegyrics.\"\nEven when the last criticism has been made, detraction from these\nestimates is impossible. It is easy to show how irritable and violent\nwas his temperament. There is evidence and to spare of the way in which\nhe allowed the spirit of party to cloud his judgment. His relations with\nLord Chatham give lamentable proof of the violence of his personal\nantipathies. As an orator, his speeches are often turgid, wanting in\nself-control, and full of those ample digressions in which Mr. Gladstone\ndelighted to obscure his principles. Yet the irritation did not conceal\na magnificent loyalty to his friends, and it was in his days of\ncomparative poverty that he shared his means with Barry and with Crabbe.\nHis alliance with Fox is the classic partnership in English politics,\nunmarried, even enriched, by the tragedy of its close. He was never\nguilty of mean ambition. He thought of nothing save the public welfare.\nNo man has ever more consistently devoted his energies to the service of\nthe nation with less regard for personal advancement. No English\nstatesman has ever more firmly moved amid a mass of details to the\nprinciple they involve.\n\nHe was a member of no school of thought, and there is no influence to\nwhom his outlook can be directly traced. His politics, indeed, bear upon\ntheir face the preoccupation with the immediate problems of the House of\nCommons. Yet through them all the principles that emerge form a\nconsistent whole. Nor is this all. He hated oppression with all the\npassion of a generous moral nature. He cared for the good as he saw it\nwith a steadfastness which Bright and Cobden only can claim to\nchallenge. What he had to say he said in sentences which form the maxims\nof administrative wisdom. His horizon reached from London out to India\nand America; and he cared as deeply for the Indian ryot's wrongs as for\nthe iniquities of English policy to Ireland. With less width of mind\nthan Hume and less intensity of gaze than Adam Smith, he yet had a width\nand intensity which, fused with his own imaginative sympathy, gave him\nmore insight than either. He had an unerring eye for the eternal\nprinciples of politics. He knew that ideals must be harnessed to an Act\nof Parliament if they are not to cease their influence. Admitting while\nhe did that politics must rest upon expediency, he never failed to find\ngood reason why expediency should be identified with what he saw as\nright. It is a stainless and a splendid record. There are men in English\npolitics to whom a greater immediate influence may be ascribed, just as\nin political philosophy he cannot claim the persistent inspiration of\nHobbes and Locke. But in that middle ground between the facts and\nspeculation his supremacy is unapproached. There had been nothing like\nhim before in English politics; and in continental politics Royer\nCollard alone has something of his moral fibre, though his practical\ninsight was far less profound. Hamilton had Burke's full grasp of\npolitical wisdom, but he lacked his moral elevation. So that he remains\na figure of uniqueness. He may, as Goldsmith said, have expended upon\nhis party talents that should have illuminated the universal aspect of\nthe State. Yet there is no question with which he dealt that he did not\nleave the richer for his enquiry.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe liberalism of Burke is most apparent in his handling of the\nimmediate issues of the age. Upon Ireland, America and India, he was at\nevery point upon the side of the future. Where constitutional reform was\nin debate no man saw more clearly than he the evils that needed remedy;\nthough, to a later generation, his own schemes bear the mark of timid\nconservatism. In the last decade of his life he encountered the greatest\ncataclysm unloosed upon Europe since the Reformation, and it is not too\nmuch to say that at every point he missed the essence of its meaning.\nYet even upon France and the English Constitution he was full of\npractical sagacity. Had his warning been uttered without the fury of\nhate that accompanied it, he might well have guided the forces of the\nRevolution into channels that would have left no space for the military\ndictatorship he so marvellously foresaw. Had he perceived the real evils\nof the aristocratic monopoly against which he so eloquently inveighed,\nforty barren years might well have been a fruitful epoch of wise and\ncontinuous reform. But Burke was not a democrat, and, at bottom, he had\nlittle regard for that popular sense of right which, upon occasion, he\nwas ready to praise. What impressed him was less the evils of the\nconstitution than its possibilities, could the defects quite alien from\nits nature but be pruned away. Moments, indeed, there are of a deeper\nvision, and it is not untrue to say that the best answer to Burke's\nconservatism is to be found in his own pages. But he was too much the\napostle of order to watch with calm the struggles involved in the\noverthrow of privilege. He had too much the sense of a Divine Providence\ntaking thought for the welfare of men to interfere with violence in his\nhandiwork. The tinge of caution is never absent, even from his most\nliberal moments; and he was willing to endure great evil if it seemed\ndangerous to estimate the cost of change.\n\nHis American speeches are the true text-book for colonial\nadministration. He put aside the empty plea of right which satisfied\nlegal pedants like George Grenville. What moved him was the tragic\nfashion in which men clung to the shadow of a power they could not\nmaintain instead of searching for the roots of freedom. He never\nconcealed from himself that the success of America was bound up with the\nmaintenance of English liberties. \"Armies,\" he said many years later,\n\"first victorious over Englishmen, in a conflict for English\nconstitutional rights and privileges, and afterwards habituated (though\nin America) to keep an English people in a state of abject subjection,\nwould prove fatal in the end to the liberties of England itself.\" He had\nfirm hold of that insidious danger which belittles freedom itself in the\ninterest of curtailing some special desire. \"In order to prove that the\nAmericans have no right to their liberties,\" he said in the famous\n_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (1775), \"we are every day\nendeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our\nown.\" The way for the later despotism of the younger Pitt, was, as Burke\nsaw, prepared by those who persuaded Englishmen of the paltry character\nof the American contest. His own receipt was sounder. In the _Speech on\nAmerican Taxation_ (1774) he had riddled the view that the fiscal\nmethods of Lord North were likely to succeed. The true method was to\nfind a way of peace. \"Nobody shall persuade me,\" he told a hostile House\nof Commons, \"when a whole people are concerned that acts of lenity are\nnot means of conciliation.\" \"Magnanimity in politics,\" he said in the\nnext year, \"is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and\nlittle minds go ill together.\" He did not know, in the most superb of\nall his maxims, how to draw up an indictment against a whole people. He\nwould win the colonies by binding them to England with the ties of\nfreedom. \"The question with me,\" he said, \"is not whether you have a\nright to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your\ninterest to make them happy.\" The problem, in fact, was one not of\nabstract right but of expediency; and nothing could be lost by\nsatisfying American desire. Save for Johnson and Gibbon, that was\napparent to every first-class mind in England. But the obstinate king\nprevailed; and Burke's great protest remained no more than material for\nthe legislation of the future. Yet it was something that ninety years\nafter his speech the British North America Act should have given his\ndreams full substance.\n\nIreland had always a place apart in Burke's affections, and when he\nfirst entered the House of Commons he admitted that uppermost in his\nthoughts was the desire to assist its freedom. He saw that here, as in\nAmerica, no man will be argued into slavery. A government which defied\nthe fundamental impulses of men was bound to court disaster. How could\nit seek security where it defied the desires of the vast majority of its\nsubjects? Why is the Irish Catholic to have less justice than the\nCatholic of Quebec or the Indian Mohammedan? The system of Protestant\ncontrol, he said in the _Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe_ (1792), was\n\"well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a\npeople, and the debasement in them of human nature itself.\" The\nCatholics paid their taxes; they served with glory in the army and navy.\nYet they were denied a share in the commonwealth. \"Common sense,\" he\nsaid, \"and common justice dictate ... some sort of compensation to a\npeople for their slavery.\" The British Constitution was not made \"for\ngreat, general and proscriptive exclusions; sooner or later it will\ndestroy them, or they will destroy the constitution.\" The argument that\nthe body of Catholics was prone to sedition was no reason to oppress\nthem. \"No man will assert seriously,\" he said, \"that when people are of\na turbulent spirit the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them\nwith something to complain of.\" The advantages of subjects were, as he\nurged, their right; and a wise government would regard \"all their\nreasonable wishes as so many claims.\" To neglect them was to have a\nnation full of uneasiness; and the end was bound to be disaster.\n\nThere is nothing more noble in Burke's career than his long attempt to\nmitigate the evils of Company rule in India. Research may well have\nshown that in some details he pressed the case too far; yet nothing has\nso far come to light to cast doubt upon the principles he there\nmaintained. He was the first English statesman fully to understand the\nmoral import of the problem of subject races; and if he did not make\nimpossible the Joseph Sedleys of the future, at least he flung an\neternal challenge to their malignant complacency. He did not ask the\nabandonment of British dominion in India, though he may have doubted the\nwisdom of its conquest. All that he insisted upon was this, that in\nimperial adventure the conquering race must abide by a moral code. A\nlie was a lie whether its victim be black or white. The European must\nrespect the powers and rights of the Hindu as he would be compelled by\nlaw to respect them in his own State. \"If we are not able,\" he said, \"to\ncontrive some method of governing India well which will not of necessity\nbecome the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for\ntheir eternal separation, but none for sacrificing the people of that\ncountry to our constitution.\" England must be in India for India's\nbenefit or not at all; political power and commercial monopoly such as\nthe East India Company enjoyed could be had only insofar as they are\ninstruments of right and not of violence. The Company's system was the\nantithesis of this. \"There is nothing,\" he said in a magnificent\npassage, \"before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless\nprospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites\ncontinually renewing for a food that is continually wasting.\" Sympathy\nwith the native, regard for his habits and wants, the Company's servants\nfailed to display. \"The English youth in India drink the intoxicating\ndraught of authority and dominion before their heads are able to bear\nit, and as they are full grown in fortune long before they are ripe in\nprinciple, neither nature nor reason have any opportunity to exert\nthemselves for the excesses of their premature power. The consequences\nof their conduct, which in good minds (and many of theirs are probably\nsuch) might produce penitence or amendment, are unable to pursue the\nrapidity of their flight. Their prey is lodged in England; and the cries\nof India are given to seas and winds to be blown about in every breaking\nup of the monsoon over a remote and unhearing ocean.\" More than a\ncentury was to pass before the wisest of Burke's interpreters attempted\nthe translation of his maxims into statute. But there has never, in any\nlanguage, been drawn a clearer picture of the danger implicit in\nimperial adventure. \"The situation of man,\" said Burke, \"is the\npreceptor of his duty.\" He saw how a nation might become corrupted by\nthe spoils of other lands. He knew that cruelty abroad is the parent of\na later cruelty at home. Men will complain of their wrongdoing in the\nremoter empire; and imperialism will employ the means Burke painted in\nunforgettable terms in his picture of Paul Benfield. He denied that the\ngovernment of subject races can be regarded as a commercial transaction.\nIts problem was not to secure dividends but to accomplish moral benefit.\nHe abhorred the politics of prestige. He knew the difficulties involved\nin administering distant territories, the ignorance and apathy of the\npublic, the consequent erosion of responsibility, the chance that wrong\nwill fail of discovery. But he did not shrink from his conclusion. \"Let\nus do what we please,\" he said, \"to put India from our thoughts, we can\ndo nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national\nreputation.\" That is a general truth not less in Africa and China than\nin India itself. The main thought in Burke's mind was the danger lest\ncolonial dominion become the breeding-ground of arbitrary ideas. That\nhis own safeguards were inadequate is clear enough at the present time.\nHe knew that the need was good government. He did not nor could he\nrealize how intimately that ideal was connected with self-government.\nYet the latest lesson is no more than the final outcome of his teaching.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nA background so consistent as this in the inflexible determination to\nmoralize political action resulted in a noble edifice. Yet, through it\nall, the principles of policy are rather implied than admitted. It was\nwhen he came to deal with domestic problems and the French Revolution\nthat Burke most clearly showed the real trend of his thought. That trend\nis unmistakable. Burke was a utilitarian who was convinced that what was\nold was valuable by the mere fact of its arrival at maturity. The State\nappeared to him an organic compound that came but slowly to its full\nsplendour. It was easy to destroy; creation was impossible. Political\nphilosophy was nothing for him but accurate generalization from\nexperience; and he held the presumption to be against novelty. While he\ndid not belittle the value of reason, he was always impressed by the\nimmense part played by prejudice in the determination of policy. He had\nno doubt that property was a rightful index to power; and to disturb\nprescription seemed to him the opening of the flood gates. Nor must we\nmiss the religious aspect of his philosophy. He never doubted that\nreligion was the foundation of the English State. \"Englishmen,\" he said\nin the _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790), \"know, and what is\nbetter, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society\nand the source of all good and of all comfort.\" The utterance is\ncharacteristic, not merely in its depreciation of reason, but in its\nultimate reliance upon a mystic explanation of social facts. Nothing was\nmore alien from Burke's temper than deductive thinking in politics. The\nonly safeguard he could find was in empiricism.\n\nThis hatred of abstraction is, of course, the basis of his earliest\npublication; but it remained with him to the end. He would not discuss\nAmerica in terms of right. \"I do not enter into these metaphysical\ndistinctions,\" he said in the _Speech on American Taxation_, \"I hate the\nvery sound of them.\" \"One sure symptom of an ill-conducted state,\" he\nwrote in the _Reflections_, \"is the propensity of the people to resort\nto theories.\" \"It is always to be lamented,\" he said in a _Speech on the\nDuration of Parliament_, \"when men are driven to search into the\nfoundations of the commonwealth.\" The theory of a social contract he\ndeclared \"at best a confusion of judicial with civil principles,\" and he\nfound no sense in the doctrine of popular sovereignty. \"The lines of\nmorality,\" he said in the _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_ (1791),\n\"are not like ideal lines of mathematics. They are broad and deep as\nwell as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These\nexceptions and modifications are made, not by the process of logic but\nby the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only first in rank of the\nvirtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the\nstandard of them all.\" Nor did he hesitate to draw the obvious\nconclusion. \"This,\" he said, \"is the true touchstone of all theories\nwhich regard man and the affairs of men--does it suit his nature in\ngeneral, does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?\"\n\nOf the truth of this general attitude it is difficult to make denial.\nBut when Burke came to apply it to the British Constitution the \"rules\nof prudence\" he was willing to admit are narrow enough to cause\nsurprised enquiry. He did not doubt that the true end of a legislature\nwas \"to give a direction, a form, a technical dress ... to the general\nsense of the community\"; he admitted that popular revolt is so much the\noutcome of suffering that in any dispute between government and people,\nthe presumption is at least equal in the latter's favor. He urged the\nacceptance of Grenville's bill for improving the method of decision upon\ndisputed elections. He made a magnificent defence of the popular cause\nin the Middlesex election. He was in favor of the publication of\nparliamentary debates and of the voting lists in divisions. He supported\nalmost with passion the ending of that iniquitous system by which the\nenfranchisement of revenue officers gave government a corrupt reservoir\nof electoral support. His _Speech on Economical Reform_ (1780) was the\nprelude to a nobly-planned and successful attack upon the waste of the\nCivil list.\n\nYet beyond these measures Burke could never be persuaded to go. He was\nagainst the demand for shorter Parliaments on the excellent ground that\nthe elections would be more corrupt and the Commons less responsible. He\nopposed the remedy of a Place Bill for the good and sufficient reason\nthat it gave the executive an interest against the legislature. He would\nnot, as in the great speech at Bristol (1774), accept the doctrine that\na member of Parliament was a mere delegate of his constituents rather\nthan a representative of his own convictions. \"Government and\nlegislation,\" he said, \"are matters of reason and of judgment\"; and once\nthe private member had honorably arrived at a decision which he thought\nwas for the interest of the whole community, his duty was done. All\nthis, in itself, is unexceptionable; and it shows Burke's admirable\ngrasp of the practical application of attractive theories to the event.\nBut it is to be read in conjunction with a general hostility to basic\nconstitutional change which is more dubious. He had no sympathy with the\nRadicals. \"The bane of the Whigs,\" he said, \"has been the admission\namong them of the corps of schemers ... who do us infinite mischief by\npersuading many sober and well-meaning people that we have designs\ninconsistent with the Constitution left us by our forefathers.\" \"If the\nnation at large,\" he wrote in another letter, \"has disposition enough to\noppose all bad principles and all bad men, its form of government is, in\nmy opinion, fully sufficient for it; but if the general disposition be\nagainst a virtuous and manly line of public conduct, there is no form\ninto which it can be thrown that will improve its nature or add to its\nenergy\"; and in the same letter he foreshadows a possible retirement\nfrom the House of Commons as a protest against the growth of radical\nopinion in his party. He resisted every effort to reduce the suffrage\nqualification. He had no sympathy with the effort either to add to the\ncounty representation or to abolish the rotten boroughs. The framework\nof the parliamentary system seemed to him excellent. He deplored all\ncriticism of Parliament, and even the discussion of its essentials. \"Our\nrepresentation,\" he said, \"is as nearly perfect as the necessary\nimperfections of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to\nbe.\" It was in the same temper that he resisted all effort at the\npolitical relief of the Protestant dissenters. \"The machine itself,\" he\nhad said, \"is well enough to answer any good purpose, provided the\nmaterials were sound\"; and he never moved from that opinion.\n\nBurke's attitude was obsolete even while he wrote; yet the\nsuggestiveness of his very errors makes examination of their ground\nimportant. Broadly, he was protesting against natural right in the name\nof expediency. His opponents argued that, since men are by nature equal,\nit must follow that they have an equal right to self-government. To\nBurke, the admission of this principle would have meant the overthrow of\nthe British constitution. Its implication was that every institution not\nof immediate popular origin should be destroyed. To secure their ends,\nhe thought, the radicals were compelled to preach the injustice of those\ninstitutions and thus to injure that affection for government upon which\npeace and security depend. Here was an effort to bring all institutions\nto the test of logic which he thought highly dangerous. \"No rational man\never did govern himself,\" he said, \"by abstractions and universals.\" The\nquestion for him was not the abstract rightness of the system upon some\nset of _a priori_ principles but whether, on the whole, that system\nworked for the happiness of the community. He did not doubt that it did;\nand to overthrow a structure so nobly tested by the pressure of events\nin favor of some theories outside historic experience seemed to him\nruinous to society. Government, for him, was the general harmony of\ndiverse interests; and the continual adjustments and exquisite\nmodifications of which it stood in need were admirably discovered in the\nexisting system. Principles were thus unimportant compared to the\nproblem of their application. \"The major,\" he said of all political\npremises, \"makes a pompous figure in the battle, but the victory depends\nupon the little minor of circumstances.\"\n\nTo abstract natural right he therefore opposed prescription. The\npresumption of wisdom is on the side of the past, and when we change,\nwe act at our peril. \"Prescription,\" he said in 1782, \"is the most solid\nof all titles, not only to property, but to what is to secure that\nproperty, to government.\" Because he saw the State organically he was\nimpressed by the smallness both of the present moment and the\nindividual's thought. It is built upon the wisdom of the past for \"the\nspecies is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it almost\nalways acts right.\" And since it is the past alone which has had the\nopportunity to accumulate this rightness our disposition should be to\npreserve all ancient things. They could not be without a reason; and\nthat reason is grounded upon ancestral experience. So the prescriptive\ntitle becomes \"not the creature, but the master, of positive law ... the\nsoundest, the most general and the most recognized title between man and\nman that is known in municipal or public jurisprudence.\" It is by\nprescription that he defends the existence of Catholicism in Ireland not\nless than the supposed deformities of the British Constitution. So, too,\nhis main attack on atheism is its implication that \"everything is to be\ndiscussed.\" He does not say that all which is has rightness in it; but\nat least he urges that to doubt it is to doubt the construction of a\npast experience which built according to the general need. Nor does he\ndoubt the chance that what he urges may be wrong. Rather does he insist\nthat at least it gives us security, for him the highest good. \"Truth,\"\nhe said, \"may be far better ... but as we have scarcely ever that\ncertainty in the one that we have in the other, I would, unless the\ntruth were evident indeed, hold fast to peace, which has in her company\ncharity, the highest of the virtues.\"\n\nSuch a philosophy, indeed, so barely stated, would seem a defence of\npolitical immobility; but Burke attempted safeguards against that\ndanger. His insistence upon the superior value of past experience was\nbalanced by a general admission that particular circumstances must\nalways govern the immediate decision. \"When the reason of old\nestablishments is gone,\" he said in his _Speech on Economical Reform_,\n\"it is absurd to preserve nothing but the burden of them.\" \"A\ndisposition to preserve and an ability to improve,\" he wrote in the\n_Reflections on the French Revolution_, \"taken together would be my\nstandard of a statesman.\" But that \"ability to improve\" conceals two\nprinciples of which Burke never relaxed his hold. \"All the reformations\nwe have hitherto made,\" he said, \"have proceeded upon the principle of\nreference to antiquity\"; and the _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_,\nwhich is the most elaborate exposition of his general attitude, proceeds\nupon the general basis that 1688 is a perpetual model for the future.\nNor is this all. \"If I cannot reform with equity,\" said Burke, \"I will\nnot reform at all\"; and equity seems here to mean a sacrifice of the\npresent and its passionate demands to the selfish errors of past policy.\n\nBurke, indeed, was never a democrat, and that is the real root of his\nphilosophy. He saw the value of the party-system, and he admitted the\nnecessity of some degree of popular representation. But he was entirely\nsatisfied with current Whig principles, could they but be purged of\ntheir grosser deformities. He knew too well how little reason is wont to\nenter into the formation of political opinion to make the sacrifice of\ninnovation to its power. He saw so much of virtue in the old order, that\nhe insisted upon the equation of virtue with quintessence. Men of great\nproperty and position using their influence as a public trust, delicate\nin their sense of honor, and acting only from motives of right--these\nseemed to him the men who should with justice exercise political power.\nHe did not doubt that \"there is no qualification for government but\nvirtue and wisdom ... wherever they are actually found, they have, in\nwhatever state, condition, profession or trade, the passport to heaven\";\nbut he is careful to dissociate the possibility that they can be found\nin those who practice the mechanical arts. He did not mean that his\naristocracy should govern without response to popular demand. He had no\nobjection to criticism, nor to the public exercise of government. There\nwas no reason even for agreement, so long as each party was guided by an\nhonorable sense of the public good. This, so he urged, was the system\nwhich underlay the temporary evils of the British Constitution. An\naristocracy delegated to do its work by the mass of men was the best\nform of government his imagination could conceive. It meant that\nproperty must be dominant in the system of government, that, while\noffice should be open to all, it should be out of the reach of most.\n\"The characteristic essence of property,\" he wrote in the _Reflections_,\n\"... is to be unequal\"; and he thought the perpetuation of that\ninequality by inheritance \"that which tends most to the perpetuation of\nsociety itself.\" The system was difficult to maintain, and it must be\nput out of the reach of popular temptation. \"Our constitution,\" he said\nin the _Present Discontents_, \"stands on a nice equipoise, with sharp\nprecipices and deep waters on all sides of it. In removing it from a\ndangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a danger towards\noversething it on the other.\" In straining, that is to say, after too\nlarge a purification, we may end with destruction. And Burke, of course,\nwas emphatic upon the need that property should be undisturbed. It was\nalways, he thought, at a great disadvantage in any struggle with\nability; and there are many passages in which he urges the consequent\nspecial representation which the adequate defence of property requires.\n\nThe argument, at bottom, is common to all thinkers over-impressed by the\nsanctity of past experience. Hegel and Savigny in Germany, Taine and\nRenan in France, Sir Henry Maine and Lecky in England, have all urged\nwhat is in effect a similar plea. We must not break what Bagehot called\nthe cake of custom, for men have been trained to its digestion, and new\nfood breeds trouble. Laws are the offspring of the original genius of a\npeople, and while we may renovate, we must not unduly reform. The true\nidea of national development is always latent in the past experience of\nthe race and it is from that perpetual spring alone that wisdom can be\ndrawn. We render obedience to what is with effortless unconsciousness;\nand without this loyalty to inherited institutions the fabric of society\nwould be dissolved. Civilization, in fact, depends upon the performance\nof actions defined in preconceived channels; and if we obeyed those novel\nimpulses of right which seem, at times, to contradict our inheritance,\nwe should disturb beyond repair the intricate equilibrium of countless\nages. The experience of the past rather than the desires of the present\nis thus the true guide to our policy. \"We ought,\" he said in a famous\nsentence, \"to venerate where we are unable presently to comprehend.\"\n\nIt is easy to see why a mind so attuned recoiled from horror at the\nFrench Revolution. There is something almost sinister in the destiny\nwhich confronted Burke with the one great spectacle of the eighteenth\ncentury which he was certain not merely to misunderstand but also to\nhate. He could not endure the most fragmentary change in tests of\nreligious belief; and the Revolution swept overboard the whole religious\nedifice. He would not support the abolition even of the most flagrant\nabuses in the system of representation; and he was to see in France an\noverthrow of a monarchy even more august in its prescriptive rights than\nthe English Parliament. Privileges were scattered to the winds in a\nsingle night. Peace was sacrificed to exactly those metaphysical\ntheories of equality and justice which he most deeply abhorred. The\ndoctrine of progress found an eloquent defender in that last and\nnoblest utterance of Condorcet which is still perhaps its most perfect\njustification. On all hands there was the sense of a new world built by\nthe immediate thought of man upon the wholehearted rejection of past\nhistory. Politics was emphatically declared to be a system of which the\ntruths could be stated in terms of mathematical certainty. The religious\nspirit which Burke was convinced lay at the root of good gave way before\na general scepticism which, from the outset of his life, he had declared\nincompatible with social order. Justice was asserted to be the centre of\nsocial right; and it was defined as the overthrow of those prescriptive\nprivileges which Burke regarded as the protective armour of the body\npolitic. Above all, the men who seized the reins of power became\nconvinced that theirs was a specific of universal application. Their\ndisciples in England seemed in the same diabolic frenzy with themselves.\nIn a moment of time, the England which had been the example to Europe of\nordered popular liberty became, for these enthusiasts, only less\nbarbaric than the despotic princes of the continent. That Price and\nPriestley should suffer the infection was, even for Burke, a not\nunnatural thing. But when Charles Fox cast aside the teaching of twenty\nyears for its antithesis, Burke must have felt that no price was too\ngreat to pay for the overthrow of the Revolution.\n\nCertainly his pamphlets on events in France are at every point\nconsistent with his earlier doctrine. The charge that he supported the\nRevolution in America and deserted it in France is without meaning; for\nin the one there is no word that can honorably be twisted to support the\nother. And when we make allowances for the grave errors of personal\ntaste, the gross exaggeration, the inability to see the Revolution as\nsomething more than a single point in time, it becomes obvious enough\nthat his criticism, de Maistre's apart, is by far the soundest we\npossess from the generation which knew the movement as a living thing.\nThe attempt to produce an artificial equality upon which he seized as\nthe essence of the Revolution was, as Mirabeau was urging in private to\nthe king, the inevitable precursor of dictatorship. He realized that\nfreedom is born of a certain spontaneity for which the rigid lines of\ndoctrinaire thinkers left no room. That worship of symmetrical form\nwhich underlies the constitutional experiments of the next few years he\nexposed in a sentence which has in it the essence of political wisdom.\n\"The nature of man is intricate\"; he wrote in the _Reflections_, \"the\nobjects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and\ntherefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable\neither to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs.\" The note\nrecurs in substance throughout his criticism. Much of its application,\nindeed, will not stand for one moment the test of inquiry; as when, for\ninstance, he correlates the monarchical government of France with the\nEnglish constitutional system and extols the perpetual virtues of 1688.\nThe French made every effort to find the secret of English principles,\nbut the roots were absent from their national experience.\n\nA year after the publication of the _Reflections_ he himself perceived\nthe narrowness of that judgment. In the _Thoughts on French Affairs_\n(1791) he saw that the essence of the Revolution was its foundation in\ntheoretic dogma. It was like nothing else in the history of the world\nexcept the Reformation; which last event it especially resembles in its\ngenius for self-propagation. Herein he has already envisaged the\nimportance of that \"_patrie intellectuelle_\" which Tocqueville\nemphasized as born of the Revolution. That led Burke once again to\ninsist upon the peculiar genius of each separate state, the difficulties\nof a change, the danger of grafting novelties upon an ancient fabric. He\nsaw the certainty that in adhering to an abstract metaphysical scheme\nthe French were in truth omitting human nature from their political\nequation; for general ideas can find embodiment in institutional forms\nonly after they have been moulded by a thousand varieties of\ncircumstance. The French created an universal man not less destructive\nof their practical sagacity than the Frankenstein of the economists.\nThey omitted, as Burke saw, the elements which objective experience must\ndemand; with the result that, despite themselves, they came rather to\ndestroy than to fulfil. Napoleon, as Burke prophesied, reaped the\nharvest of their failure.\n\nNor was he less right in his denunciation of that distrust of the past\nwhich played so large a part in the revolutionary consciousness. \"We are\nafraid,\" he wrote in the _Reflections_, \"to put men to live and trade\neach on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this\nstock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to\navail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of\nages.\" Of Si\u00e9y\u00e8s' building constitutions overnight, this is no unfair\npicture; but it points a more general truth never long absent from\nBurke's mind. Man is for him so much the creature of prejudice, so much\na mosaic of ancestral tradition, that the chance of novel thought\nfinding a peaceful place among his institutions is always small. For\nBurke, thought is always at the service of the instincts, and these lie\nburied in the remote experience of the state. So that men like\nRobespierre were asking from their subjects an impossible task. That\nwhich they had conceived in the gray abstractness of their speculations\nwas too little related to what the average Frenchman knew and desired to\nbe enduring. Burke looks with sober admiration at the way in which the\nEnglish revolution related itself at every point to ideas and theories\nwith which the average man was as familiar as with the physical\nlandmarks of his own neighborhood. For the motives which underlie all\nhuman effort are, he thought, sufficiently constant to compel regard.\nThat upon which they feed submits to change; but the effort is slow and\nthe disappointments many. The Revolution taught the populace the thirst\nfor power. But it failed to remember that sense of continuity in human\neffort without which new constructions are built on sand. The power it\nexercised lacked that horizon of the past through which alone it suffers\nlimitation to right ends.\n\nThe later part of Burke's attack upon the Revolution does not belong to\npolitical philosophy. No man is more responsible than he for the temper\nwhich drew England into war. He came to write rather with the zeal of a\nfanatic waging a holy war than in the temper of a statesman confronted\nwith new ideas. Yet even the _Letters on a Regicide Peace_ (1796) have\nflashes of the old, incomparable insight; and they show that even in the\nmidst of his excesses he did not war for love of it. So that it is\npermissible to think he did not lightly pen those sentences on peace\nwhich stand as oases of wisdom in a desert of extravagant rhetoric. \"War\nnever leaves where it found a nation,\" he wrote, \"it is never to be\nentered upon without mature deliberation.\" That was a lesson his\ngeneration had still to learn; nor did it take to heart the even nobler\npassage that follows. \"The blood of man,\" he said, \"should never be shed\nbut to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our\nfriends, for our God, for our country, for mankind. The rest is vanity;\nthe rest is crime.\" It is perhaps the most tragic wrong in that\ncentury's history that these words were written to justify an effort of\nwhich they supply an irrefutable condemnation.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nCriticism of Burke's theories can be made from at least two angles. It\nis easy to show that his picture of the British Constitution was remote\nfrom the facts even when he wrote. Every change that he opposed was\nessential to the security of the next generation; and there followed\nnone of the disastrous consequences he had foreshadowed. Such criticism\nwould be at almost every point just; and yet it would fail to touch the\nheart of Burke's position. What is mainly needed is analysis at once of\nhis omissions and of the underlying assumptions of what he wrote. Burke\ncame to his maturity upon the eve of the Industrial Revolution; and we\nhave it upon the authority of Adam Smith himself that no one had so\nclearly apprehended his own economic principles. Yet there is no word in\nwhat Burke had to say of their significance. The vast agrarian changes\nof the time contained, as it appears, no special moment even for him who\nburdened himself unduly to restore the Beaconsfield estate. No man was\nmore eager than he that the public should be admitted to the mysteries\nof political debate; yet he steadfastly refused to draw the obvious\ninference that once the means of government were made known those who\npossessed the knowledge would demand their share in its application. He\ndid not see that the metaphysics he so profoundly distrusted was itself\nthe offspring of that contemptible worship of expediency which\nBlackstone generalized into a legalistic jargon. Men never move to the\nadumbration of general right until the conquest of political rights has\nbeen proved inadequate. That Burke himself may be said in a sense to\nhave seen when he insisted upon the danger of examining the foundations\nof the State. Yet a man who refuses to admit that the constant\ndissatisfaction with those foundations his age expressed is the\nexpression of serious ill in the body politic is wilfully blind to the\nfacts at issue. No one had more faithfully than Burke himself explained\nwhy the Whig oligarchy was obsolete; yet nothing would induce him ever\nto realize that the alternative to aristocratic government is democracy\nand that its absence was the cause of that disquiet of which he realized\nthat Wilkes was but the symptom.\n\nBroadly, that is to say, Burke would not realize that the reign of\npolitical privilege was drawing to its close. That is the real meaning\nof the French Revolution and therein it represents a stream of tendency\nnot less active in England than abroad. In France, indeed, the lines\nwere more sharply drawn than elsewhere. The rights men craved were not,\nas Burke insisted, the immediate offspring of metaphysic fancy, but the\nresult of a determination to end the malignant wrong of centuries. A\npower that knew no responsibility, war and intolerance that derived only\nfrom the accidental caprice of the court, arrest that bore no relation\nto offence, taxation inversely proportionate to the ability to pay,\nthese were the prescriptive privileges that Burke invited his generation\nto accept as part of the accumulated wisdom of the past. It is not\ndifficult to see why those who swore their oath in the tennis-court at\nVersailles should have felt such wisdom worthy to be condemned. Burke's\ncaution was for them the timidity of one who embraces existent evils\nrather than fly to the refuge of an accessible good. In a less degree,\nthe same is true of England. The constitution that Burke called upon\nmen to worship was the constitution which made the Duke of Bedford\npowerful, that gave no representation to Manchester and a member to Old\nSarum, which enacted the game laws and left upon the statute-book a\npenal code which hardly yielded to the noble attack of Romilly. These,\nwhich were for Burke merely the accidental excrescences of a noble\nideal, were for them its inner essence; and where they could not reform\nthey were willing to destroy.\n\nThe revolutionary spirit, in fact, was as much the product of the past\nas the very institutions it came to condemn. The innovations were the\ninevitable outcome of past oppression. Burke refused to see that aspect\nof the picture. He ascribed to the crime of the present what was due to\nthe half-wilful errors of the past. The man who grounded his faith in\nhistoric experience refused to admit as history the elements alien from\nhis special outlook. He took that liberty not to venerate where he was\nunable to comprehend which he denied to his opponents. Nor did he admit\nthe uses to which his doctrine of prescription was bound to be put in\nthe hands of selfish and unscrupulous men. No one will object to\nprivilege for a Chatham; but privilege for the Duke of Grafton is a\ndifferent thing, and Burke's doctrine safeguards the innumerable men of\nwhom Grafton is the type in the hope that by happy accident some Chatham\nwill one day emerge. He justifies the privileges of the English Church\nin the name of religious well-being; but it is difficult to see what men\nlike Watson or Archbishop Cornwallis have got to do with religion. The\ndoctrine of prescription might be admirable if all statesmen were so\nwise as Burke; but in the hands of lesser men it becomes no more than\nthe protective armour of vested interests into the ethics of which it\nrefuses us leave to examine.\n\nThat suspicion of thought is integral to Burke's philosophy, and it\ndeserves more examination than it has received. In part it is a\nrejection of the Benthamite position that man is a reasoning animal. It\nputs its trust in habit as the chief source of human action; and it\nthus is distrustful of thought as leading into channels to which the\nnature of man is not adapted. Novelty, which is assumed to be the\noutcome of thought, it regards as subversive of the routine upon which\ncivilization depends. Thought is destructive of peace; and it is argued\nthat we know too little of political phenomena to make us venture into\nthe untried places to which thought invites us. Yet the first of many\nanswers is surely the most obvious fact that if man is so much the\ncreature of his custom no reason would prevail save where they proved\ninadequate. If thought is simply a reserve power in society, its\nstrength must obviously depend upon common acceptance; and that can only\ncome when some routine has failed to satisfy the impulses of men. But we\nmay urge a difficulty that is even more decisive. No system of habits\ncan ever hope to endure long in a world where the cumulative power of\nmemory enables change to be so swift; and no system of habits can endure\nat all unless its underlying idea represents the satisfaction of a\ngeneral desire. It must, that is to say, make rational appeal; and,\nindeed, as Aristotle said, it can have virtue only to the point where it\nis conscious of itself. The uncritical routine of which Burke is the\nsponsor would here deprive the mass of men of virtue. Yet in modern\ncivilization the whole strength of any custom depends upon exactly that\nconsciousness of right which Burke restricted to his aristocracy. Our\nreal need is less the automatic response to ancient stimulus than power\nto know what stimulus has social value. We need, that is to say, the\ngift of criticism rather than the gift of inert acceptance. Not, of\ncourse, that the habits which Burke so earnestly admired are at all part\nof our nervous endowment in any integral sense. The short space of the\nFrench Revolution made the habit of thinking in terms of progress an\nessential part of our intellectual inheritance; and where the Burkian\nschool proclaims how exceptional progress has been in history, we take\nthat as proof of the ease with which essential habit may be acquired.\nHabit, in fact, without philosophy destroys the finer side of civilized\nlife. It may leave a stratum to whom its riches have been discovered;\nbut it leaves the mass of men soulless automata without spontaneous\nresponse to the chords struck by another hand.\n\nBurke's answer would, of course, have been that he was not a democrat.\nHe did not trust the people and he rated their capacity as low. He\nthought of the people--it was obviously a generalization from his\ntime--as consistently prone to disorder and checked only by the force of\nancient habit. Yet he has himself supplied the answer to that attitude.\n\"My observation,\" he said in his _Speech on the East India Bill_, \"has\nfurnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or\neducation which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of\ngovernment.\" We can go further than that sober caution. We know that\nthere is one technique only capable of securing good government and that\nis the training of the mass of men to interest in it. We know that no\nState can hope for peace in which large types of experience are without\nrepresentation. Indeed, if proof were here wanting, an examination of\nthe eighteenth century would supply it. Few would deny that statesmen\nare capable of disinterested sacrifice for classes of whose inner life\nthey are ignorant; yet the relation between law and the interest of the\ndominant class is too intimate to permit with safety the exclusion of a\npart of the State from sharing in its guidance. Nor did Burke remember\nhis own wise saying that \"in all disputes between the people and their\nrulers the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people\";\nand he quotes with agreement that great sentence of Sully's which traces\npopular violence to popular suffering. No one can watch the economic\nstruggles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or calculate the\npain they have involved to humble men, without admitting that they\nrepresent the final protest of an outraged mind against oppression too\nintolerable to be borne. Burke himself, as his own speeches show, knew\nlittle or nothing of the pain involved in the agrarian changes of his\nage. The one way to avoid violent outbreak is not exclusion of the\npeople from power but their participation in it. The popular sense of\nright may often, as Aristotle saw, be wiser than the opinion of\nstatesmen. It is not necessary to equate the worth of untrained\ncommonsense with experienced wisdom to suggest that, in the long run,\nneglect of common sense will make the effort of that wisdom fruitless.\n\nThis, indeed, is to take the lowest ground. For the case against Burke's\naristocracy has a moral aspect with which he did not deal. He did not\ninquire by what right a handful of men were to be hereditary governors\nof a whole people. Expediency is no answer to the question, for Bentham\nwas presently to show how shallow was that basis of consent. Once it is\nadmitted that the personality of men is entitled to respect\ninstitutional room must be found for its expression. The State is\nmorally stunted where their powers go undeveloped. There is something\ncurious here in Burke's inability to suspect deformity in a system which\ngave his talents but partial place. He must have known that no one in\nthe House of Commons was his equal. He must have known how few of those\nhe called upon to recognize the splendor of their function were capable\nof playing the part he pictured for them. The answer to a morally\nbankrupt aristocracy is surely not the overwhelming effort required in\nits purification when the plaintiff is the people; for the mere fact\nthat the people is the plaintiff is already evidence of its fitness for\npower. Burke gave no hint of how the level of his governing class could\nbe maintained. He said nothing of what education might accomplish for\nthe people. He did not examine the obvious consequences of their\neconomic status. Had his eyes not been obscured by passion the work of\nthat States-General the names in which appeared to him so astonishing in\ntheir inexperience, might have given him pause. The \"obscure provincial\nadvocates ... stewards of petty local jurisdictions ... the fomenters\nand conductors of the petty war of village vexation\" legislated, out of\ntheir inexperience, for the world. Their resolution, their constancy,\ntheir high sense of the national need, were precisely the qualities\nBurke demanded in his governing class; and the States-General did not\nmove from the straight path he laid down until they met with intrigue\nfrom those of whom Burke became the licensed champion.\n\nNor is it in the least clear that his emphasis upon expediency is, in\nany real way, a release from metaphysical inquiry. Rather may it be\nurged that what was needed in Burke's philosophy was the clear avowal\nof the metaphysic it implied. Nothing is more greatly wanted in\npolitical inquiry than discovery of that \"intuition more subtle than any\narticulate major premise\" which, as Mr. Justice Holmes has said, is the\ntrue foundation of so many of our political judgments. The theory of\nnatural rights upon which Burke heaped such contempt was wrong rather in\nits form than in its substance. It clearly suffered from its mistaken\neffort to trace to an imaginary state of nature what was due to a\ncomplex experience. It suffered also from its desire to lay down\nuniversal formul\u00e6. It needed to state the rights demanded in terms of\nthe social interests they involved rather than in the abstract ethic\nthey implied. But the demands which underlay the thought of men like\nPrice and Priestley was as much the offspring of experience as Burke's\nown doctrine. They made, indeed, the tactical mistake of seeking to give\nan unripe philosophic form to a political strategy wherein, clearly\nenough, Burke was their master. But no one can read the answers of Paine\nand Mackintosh, who both were careful to avoid the panoply of\nmetaphysics, to the _Reflections_, without feeling that Burke failed\nto move them from their main position. Expediency may be admirable in\ntelling the statesmen what to do; but it does not explain the sources of\nhis ultimate act, nor justify the thing finally done. The unconscious\ndeeps which lie beneath the surface of the mind are rarely less urgent\nthan the motives that are avowed. Action is less their elimination than\ntheir index; and we must penetrate within their recesses before we have\nthe full materials for judgment.\n\nConsidered in this fashion, the case for natural rights is surely\nunanswerable. The things that men desire correspond, in some rough\nfashion, to the things they need. Natural rights are nothing more than\nthe armour evolved to protect their vital interests. Upon the narrow\nbasis of legal history it is, of course, impossible to protect them.\nHistory is rather the record of the thwarting of human desire than of\nits achievement. But upon the value of certain things there is a\nsufficient and constant opinion to give us assurance that repression\nwill ultimately involve disorder. Nor is there any difference between\nthe classes of men in this regard. Forms, indeed, will vary; and the\npower we have of answering demand will always wait upon the discoveries\nof science. Our natural rights, that is to say, will have a changing\ncontent simply because this is not a static world. But that does not\nmean, as Burke insisted, that they are empty of experience. They come,\nof course, mainly from men who have been excluded from intimate contact\nwith the fruits of power. Nonconformists in religion, workers without\nland or capital save the power of their own hands, it is from the\ndisinherited that they draw, as demands, their strength. Yet it is\ndifficult to see, as Burke would undoubtedly have insisted, that they\nare the worse from the source whence they derive. Rather do they point\nto grave inadequacy in the substance of the state, inadequacy neglect of\nwhich has led to the cataclysms of historic experience. The\nunwillingness of Burke to examine into their foundation reveals his lack\nof moral insight into the problem he confronted.\n\nThat lack of insight must, of course, be given some explanation; and its\ncause seems rooted in Burke's metaphysic outlook. He was profoundly\nreligious; and he did not doubt that the order of the universe was the\ncommand of God. It was, as a consequence, beneficent; and to deny its\nvalidity was, for him, to doubt the wisdom of God. \"Having disposed,\" he\nwrote, \"and marshalled us by a divine tactic, not according to our will,\nbut to His, He had, in and by that disposition, vitally subjected us to\nact the part which belongs to the place assigned us.\" The State, in\nfact, it is to be built upon the sacrifice of men; and this they must\naccept as of the will of God. We are to do our duty in our allotted\nstation without repining, in anticipation, doubtless, of a later reward.\nWhat we are is thus the expression of his goodness; and there is a real\nsense in which Burke may be said to have maintained the inherent\nrightness of the existing order. Certainly he throws a cloak of\nreligious veneration about the purely metaphysical concept of property;\nand his insistence upon the value of peace as opposed to truth is surely\npart of the same attitude. Nor is it erroneous to connect this\nbackground with his antagonism to the French Revolution. What there was\nmost distressing to him was the overthrowal of the Church, and he did\nnot hesitate, in very striking fashion, to connect revolutionary opinion\nwith infidelity. Indeed Burke, like Locke, seems to have been convinced\nthat a social sense was impossible in an atheist; and his _Letters on a\nRegicide Peace_ have a good deal of that relentless illogic which made\nde Maistre connect the first sign of dissent from ultramontanism with\nthe road to a denial of all faith. Nothing is more difficult than to\ndeal with a thinker who has had a revelation; and this sense that the\nuniverse was a divine mystery not to be too nearly scrutinized by man\ngrew greatly upon Burke in his later years. It was not an attitude which\nreason could overthrow; for its first principle was an awe in the\npresence of facts to which reason is a stranger.\n\nThere is, moreover, in Burke a Platonic idealism which made him, like\nlater thinkers of the school, regard existing difficulties with\nsomething akin to complacent benevolence. What interested him was the\nidea of the English State; and whatever, as he thought, deformed it,\nwas not of the essence of its nature. He denied, that is to say, that\nthe degree to which a purpose is fulfilled is as important as the\npurpose itself. A thing becomes good by the end it has in view; and the\ndeformities of time and place ought not to lead us to deny the beauty of\nthe end. It is the great defect of all idealistic philosophy that it\nshould come to the examination of facts in so optimistic a temper. It\nnever sufficiently realizes that in the transition from theoretic\npurpose to practical realization a significant transformation may occur.\nWe do not come to grips with the facts. What we are bidden to remember\nis the splendor of what the facts are trying to be. The existing order\nis beatified as a necessary stage in a beneficent process. We are not to\nseparate out the constituent elements therein, and judge them as facts\nin time and space. Society is one and indivisible; and the defects do\nnot at any point impair the ultimate integrity of the social bond.\n\nYet it is surely evident that in the heat and stress of social life, we\ncannot afford so long a period as the basis for our judgment. We may\nwell enough regard the corruption of the monarchy under the later\nHanoverians as the necessary prelude to its purification under Victoria;\nbut that does not make it any the less corrupt. We may even see how a\nmonistic view of society is possible to one who, like Burke, is uniquely\noccupied with the public good. But the men who, like Muir and Hardy in\nthe treason trials of the Revolution, think rather in terms of the\nexisting disharmonies than the beauty of the purpose upon which they\nrest, are only human if they think those disharmonies more real than the\npurpose they do not meet. They were surely to be pardoned if, reading\nthe _Reflections_ of Burke, they regarded class distinctions as more\nvital than their harmony of interest, when they saw the tenacity with\nwhich privileges they did not share were defended. It is even possible\nto understand why some insisted that if those privileges were, as Burke\nhad argued, essential to the construction of the whole, it was against\nthat whole, alike in purpose and in realization, that they were in\nrevolt. For them the fact of discontinuity was vital. They could not but\nask for happiness in their own individual lives no less than in the\nState of which they were part. They came to see that without\nself-government in the sense of their own active participation in power,\nsuch happiness must go unfulfilled. The State, in fact, may have the\nnoblest purpose; but its object is attempted by agents who are also\nmortal men. The basis of their scrutiny became at once pragmatic. The\ntest of allegiance to established institutions became immediately the\nachievement for which they were responsible. The achievement, as they\nurged, was hardly written with adequacy in terms of the lives of humble\nmen. That was why they judged no attitude of worth which sought the\nequation of the real and the ideal. The first lesson of their own\nexperience of power was the need for its limitation by the instructed\njudgment of free minds.[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: Cf. my _Authority in the Modern State_, pp. 65-9.]\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nNo man was more deeply hostile to the early politics of the romantic\nmovement, to the _Contrat Social_ of Rousseau and the _Political\nJustice_ of Godwin, than was Burke; yet, on the whole, it is with the\nromantics that Burke's fundamental influence remains. His attitude to\nreason, his exaltation of passion and imagination over the conscious\nlogic of men, were of the inmost stuff of which they were made. In that\nsense, at least, his kinship is with the great conservative revolution\nof the generation which followed him. Hegel and Savigny in Germany, de\nMaistre and Bonald in France, Coleridge and the later Wordsworth in\nEngland, are in a true sense his disciples. That does not mean that any\nof them were directly conscious of his work but that the movement he\ndirected had its necessary outcome in their defence of his ideals. The\npath of history is strewn with undistributed middles; and it is possible\nthat in the clash between his attitude and that of Bentham there were\nthe materials for a fuller synthesis in a later time. Certainly there is\nno more admirable corrective in historical politics that the contrast\nthey afford.\n\nIt is easy to praise Burke and easier still to miss the greatness of his\neffort. Perspective apart, he is destined doubtless to live rather as\nthe author of some maxims that few statesmen will dare to forget than\nas the creator of a system which, even in its unfinished implications,\nis hardly less gigantic than that of Hobbes or Bentham. His very defects\nare lessons in themselves. His unhesitating inability to see how\ndangerous is the concentration of property is standing proof that men\nare over-prone to judge the rightness of a State by their own wishes.\nHis own contempt for the results of reasonable inquiry is a ceaseless\nlesson in the virtue of consistent scrutiny of our inheritance. His\ndisregard of popular desire suggests the fatal ease with which we\nneglect the opinion of those who stand outside the active centre of\npolitical conflict. Above all, his hostility to the Revolution should at\nleast make later generations beware lest novelty of outlook be unduly\nconfounded with erroneous doctrine.\n\nYet even when such deduction has been made, there is hardly a greater\nfigure in the history of political thought in England. Without the\nrelentless logic of Hobbes, the acuteness of Hume, the moral insight of\nT.H. Green, he has a large part of the faculties of each. He brought to\nthe political philosophy of his generation a sense of its direction, a\nlofty vigour of purpose, and a full knowledge of its complexity, such as\nno other statesman has ever possessed. His flashes of insight are things\nthat go, as few men have ever gone, into the hidden deeps of political\ncomplexity. Unquestionably, his speculation is rather that of the orator\nin the tribune than of the thinker in his study. He never forgot his\nparty, and he wrote always in that House of Commons atmosphere which\nmakes a man unjust to the argument and motives of his opponent. Yet,\nwhen the last word of criticism has been made, the balance of\nillumination is immense. He illustrates at its best the value of that\nparty-system the worth of which made so deep an impression on all he\nwrote. He showed that government by discussion can be made to illuminate\ngreat principles. He showed also that allegiance to party is never\ninconsistent with the deeper allegiance to the demand of conscience.\nWhen he came to the House of Commons, the prospects of representative\ngovernment were very dark; and it is mainly to his emphasis upon its\nvirtues that its victory must be attributed. Institutional change is\nlikely to be more rapid than in his generation; for we seem to have\nreached that moment when, as he foresaw, \"they who persist in opposing\nthat mighty current will appear rather to resist the decrees of\nProvidence itself than the mere designs of men.\" The principles upon\nwhich we proceed are doubtless different from those that he commended;\nyet his very challenge to their wisdom only gives to his warning a\ndeeper inspiration for our effort.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe Industrial Revolution is hardly less a fundamental change in the\nhabits of English thought than in the technique of commercial\nproduction. Alongside the discoveries of Hargreaves and Crompton, the\nideas of Hume and Adam Smith shifted the whole perspective of men's\nminds. The Revolution, indeed, like all great movements, did not\noriginate at any given moment. There was no sudden invention which made\nthe hampering system of government-control seem incompatible with\nindustrial advance. The mercantilism against which the work of Adam\nSmith was so magistral a protest was already rather a matter of external\nthan internal commerce when he wrote. He triumphed less because he\nsuddenly opened men's eyes to a truth hitherto concealed than because he\nrepresented the culmination of certain principles which, under various\naspects, were common to his time. The movement for religious toleration\nis not only paralleled in the next century by the movement for economic\nfreedom, but is itself in a real sense the parent of the latter. For it\nis not without significance that the pre-Adamite economists were almost\nwithout exception the urgent defenders of religious toleration. The\nlandowners were churchmen, the men of commerce largely Nonconformist;\nand religious proscription interfered with the balance of trade. When\nthe roots of religious freedom had been secured, it was easy for them to\ntransfer their argument to the secular sphere.\n\nNothing, indeed, is more important in the history of English political\nphilosophy than to realize that from Stuart times the Nonconformists\nwere deeply bitten with distrust of government. Its courts of special\ninstance hampered industrial life at every turn in the interest of\nreligious conformity. Their heavy fines and irritating restrictions upon\nforeign workmen were nothing so much as a tax upon industrial progress.\nWhat the Nonconformists wanted was to be left alone; and Davenant\nexplained the root of their desire when he tells of the gaols crowded\nwith substantial tradesmen whose imprisonment spelt unemployment for\nthousands of workmen. Sir William Temple, in his description of Holland,\nrepresents economic prosperity as the child of toleration. The movement\nfor ecclesiastical freedom in England, moreover, became causally linked\nwith that protest against the system of monopolies with which it was the\nhabit of the court to reward its favorites. Freedom in economic matters,\nlike freedom in religion, came rapidly to mean permission that diversity\nshall exist; and economic diversity soon came to mean free competition.\nThe latter easily became imbued with religious significance. English\npuritanism, as Troeltsch has shown us, insisted that work was the will\nof God and its performance the test of grace. The greater the energy of\nits performance, the greater the likelihood of prosperity; and thence it\nis but a step to argue that the free development of a man's industrial\nworth is the law of God. Success in business, indeed, became for many a\ntest of religious grace, and poverty the proof of God's disfavor. Books\nlike Steele's _Religious Tradesman_ (1684) show clearly how close is the\nconnection. The hostility of the English landowners to the commercial\nclasses in the eighteenth century is at bottom the inheritance of\nreligious antagonism. The typical qualities of dissent became a certain\npushful exertion by which the external criteria of salvation could be\nsecured.\n\nMuch of the contemporary philosophy, moreover, fits in with this\nattitude. From the time of Bacon, the main object of speculation was to\ndisrupt the scholastic teleology. In the result the State becomes\ndissolved into a discrete mass of individuals, and the self-interest of\neach is the starting-point of all inquiry. Hobbes built his state upon\nthe selfishness of men; even Locke makes the individual enter political\nlife for the benefits that accrue therefrom. The cynicism of Mandeville,\nthe utilitarianism of Hume, are only bypaths of the same tradition. The\norganic society of the middle ages gives place to an individual who\nbuilds the State out of his own desires. Liberty becomes their\nrealization; and the object of the State is to enable men in the\nfullest sense to secure the satisfaction of their private wants. How far\nis that conception from the Anglican outlook of the seventeenth century,\na sermon of Laud's makes clear. \"If any man,\" he said,[19] \"be so\naddicted to his private interest that he neglects the common State, he\nis void of the sense of piety, and wishes peace and happiness for\nhimself in vain. For, whoever he be, he must live in the body of the\ncommonwealth and in the body of the Church.\" So Platonic an outlook was\nutterly alien from the temper of puritanism. They had no thought of\nsacrificing themselves to an institution which they had much ground for\nthinking existed only for their torment. The development of the\nreligious instinct to the level of salvation found its philosophic\nanalogue in the development of the economic sense of fitness. The State\nbecame the servant of the individual from being his master; and service\nbecame equated with an internal policy of _laissez-faire_.\n\n[Footnote 19: Sermon of June 19, 1621. Works (ed. of 1847), p. 28.]\n\nSuch summary, indeed, abridges the long process of release from which\nthe eighteenth century had still to suffer; nor does it sufficiently\ninsist upon the degree to which the old idea of state control still held\nsway in external policies of trade. Mercantilism was still in the\nascendant when Adam Smith came to write. Few statesmen of importance\nbefore the younger Pitt had learned the secret of its fallacies; and,\nindeed, the chief ground for difference between Chatham and Burke was\nthe former's suspicion that Burke had embraced the noxious doctrine of\nfree trade. Mercantilism, by the time of Locke, is not the simple error\nthat wealth consists in bullion but the insistence that the balance of\ntrade must be preserved. Partly it was doubtless derived from the\nmethods of the old political arithmetic of men like Petty and Davenant;\nthe individual seeks a balance at the end of his year's accounting and\nso, too, the State must have a balance. \"A Kingdom,\" said Locke, \"grows\nrich or poor just as a farmer does, and no other way\"; and while there\nis a sense in which this is wholly true, the meaning attached to it by\nthe mercantilists was that foreign competition meant national weakness.\nThey could not conceive a commercial bargain which was profitable to\nboth sides. Nations grow prosperous at each other's expense; wherefore a\nwoolen trade in Ireland necessarily spells English unemployment. Even\nDavenant, who was in many respects on the high road to free trade, was\nin this problem adamant. Protection was essential in the colonial\nmarket; for unless the trade of the colonies was directed through\nEngland they might be dangerous rivals. So Ireland and America were\nsacrificed to the fear of British merchants, with the inevitable result\nthat repression brought from both the obvious search for remedy.\n\nHerein it might appear that Adam Smith had novelty to contribute; yet\nnothing is more certain than that his full sense of the world as the\nonly true unit of marketing was fully grasped before him. In 1691 Sir\nDudley North published his _Discourses upon Trade_. Therein he clearly\nsees that commercial barriers between Great Britain and France are\nbasically as senseless as would be commercial barriers between Yorkshire\nand Middlesex. Indeed, in one sense, North goes even further than Adam\nSmith, for he argues against the usury laws in terms Bentham would\nhardly have disowned. Ten years later an anonymous writer in a tract\nentitled _Considerations on the East India Trade_ (1701) has no\nillusions about the evil of monopoly. He sees with striking clarity that\nthe real problem is not at any cost to maintain the industries a nation\nactually possesses, but to have the national capital applied in the most\nefficient channels. So, too, Hume dismissed the Mercantile theory with\nthe contemptuous remark that it was trying to keep water beyond its\nproper level. Tucker, as has been pointed out, was a free trader, and\nhis opinion of the American war was that it was as mad as those who\nfought \"under the peaceful Cross to recover the Holy Land\"; and he\nurged, indeed, prophesied, the union with Ireland in the interest of\ncommercial amity. Nor must the emphasis of the Physiocrats upon free\ntrade be forgotten. There is no evidence now that Adam Smith owed this\nperception to his acquaintance with Quesnay and Turgot; but they may\nwell have confirmed him in it, and they show that the older philosophy\nwas attacked on every side.\n\nNor must we miss the general atmosphere of the time. On the whole his\nage was a conservative one, convinced, without due reason, that\nhappiness was independent of birth or wealth and that natural law\nsomehow could be made to justify existing institutions. The poets, like\nPope, were singing of the small part of life which kings and laws may\nhope to cure; and that attitude is written in the general absence of\neconomic legislation during the period. Religiously, the Church exalted\nthe _status quo_; and where, as with Wesley, there was revolt, its\nimpetus directed the mind to the source of salvation in the individual\nact. It may, indeed, be generally argued that the religious teachers\nacted as a social soporific. Where riches accumulated, they could be\nregarded as the blessing of God; where they were absent their\nunimportance for eternal happiness could be emphasized. Burke's early\nattack on a system which condemned \"two hundred thousand innocent\npersons ... to so intolerable slavery\" was, in truth, a justification of\nthe existing order. The social question which, in the previous century,\nmen like Bellers and Winstanley had brought into view, dropped out of\nnotice until the last quarter of the century. There was, that is to say,\nno organized resistance possible to the power of individualism; and\nresistance was unlikely to make itself heard once the resources of the\nIndustrial Revolution were brought into play. Men discovered with\nsomething akin to ecstasy the possibilities of the new inventions; and\nwhen the protest came against the misery they effected, it was answered\nthat they represented the working of that natural law by which the\nenergies of men may raise them to success. And discontent could easily,\nas with the saintly Wilberforce, be countered by the assertion that it\nwas revolt against the will of God.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nFew lives represent more splendidly than that of Adam Smith the\nspeculative ideal of a dispassionate study of philosophy. He was\nfortunate in his teachers and his friends. At Glasgow he was the pupil\nof Francis Hutcheson; and even if he was taught nothing at Oxford, at\nleast six years of leisure gave him ample opportunity to learn. His\nprofessorship at Glasgow not only brought him into contact with men like\nHume, but also admitted him to intercourse with a group of business men\nwhose liberal sentiments on commerce undoubtedly strengthened, if they\ndid not originate, his own liberal views. At Glasgow, too, in 1759, he\npublished his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, written with sufficient\npower of style to obscure its inner poverty of thought. The book brought\nhim immediately a distinguished reputation from a public which exalted\nelegance of diction beyond all literary virtues. The volatile Charles\nTownshend made him tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, through whom Smith\nnot only secured comparative affluence for the rest of his days, but\nalso a French tour in which he met at its best the most brilliant\nsociety in Europe. The germ of his _Wealth of Nations_ already lay\nhidden in those Glasgow lectures which Mr. Cannan has so happily\nrecovered for us; and it was in a moment of leisure in France that he\nset to work to put them together in systematic fashion. Not, indeed,\nthat the Frenchmen whom he met, Turgot, Quesnay and Dupont de Nemours,\ncan be said to have done more than confirm the truths he had already\nbeen teaching. When he returned to Scotland and a competence ten years\nof constant labor were necessary before the _Wealth of Nations_ was\ncomplete. After its publication, in 1776, Adam Smith did little save\nattend to the administrative duties of a minor, but lucrative office in\nthe Customs. Until the end, indeed, he never quite gave up the hope,\nforeshadowed first in the _Moral Sentiments_ of completing a gigantic\nsurvey of civilized institutions. But he was a slow worker, and his\nhealth was never robust. It was enough that he should have written his\nbook and cherished friendships such as it is given to few men to\npossess. Hume and Burke, Millar the jurist, James Watt, Foulis the\nprinter, Black the chemist and Hutton of geological fame--it is an\nenviable circle. He had known Turgot on intimate terms and visited\nVoltaire on Lake Geneva. Hume had told him that his book had \"depth and\nsolidity and acuteness\"; the younger Pitt had consulted him on public\naffairs. Few men have moved amid such happy peace within the very centre\nof what was most illustrious in their age.\n\nWe are less concerned here with the specific economic details of the\n_Wealth of Nations_ than with its general attitude to the State. But\nhere a limitation upon criticism must be noted. The man of whom Smith\nwrites is man in search of wealth; by definition the economic motive\ndominates his actions. Such abuse, therefore, as Ruskin poured upon him\nis really beside the point when his objective is borne in mind. What\nvirtually he does is to assume the existence of a natural economic order\nwhich tends, when unrestrained by counter-tendencies, to secure the\nhappiness of men. \"That order of things which necessity imposes in\ngeneral,\" he writes, \"... is, in every particular country promoted by\nthe natural inclinations of man\"; and he goes on to explain what would\nhave resulted \"if human institutions had never thwarted those natural\ninclinations.\" \"All systems either of preference or of restraint,\ntherefore, being thus completely taken away,\" he writes again, \"the\nobvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its\nown accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of\njustice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own\nway.... The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty in the\nattempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable\ndelusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or\nknowledge would ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the\nindustry of private people and of directing it towards the employments\nmost suitable to the interests of the society.\"\n\nThe State, in this conception has but three functions--defence, justice\nand \"the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and\ncertain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of\nany individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain.\"\nThe State, in fact, is simply to provide the atmosphere in which\nproduction is possible. Nor does Smith conceal his thought that the main\nfunction of justice is the protection of property. \"The affluence of\nthe rich,\" he wrote, \"excites the indignation of the poor, who are often\nboth driven by want and prompted by envy to invade their possessions. It\nis only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that\nvaluable property, acquired by the labor of many years, or perhaps many\nsuccessive generations, can sleep a single night in security.\" The\nattitude, indeed, is intensified by his constant sense that the capital\nwhich makes possible new productivity is the outcome of men's sacrifice;\nto protect it is thus to safeguard the sources of wealth itself. And\neven if the State is entrusted with education and the prevention of\ndisease, this is rather for the general benefit they confer and the\ndoubt that private enterprise would find them profitable than as the\nexpression of a general rule. Collective effort of every kind awakened\nin him a deep distrust. Trade regulations such as the limitation of\napprenticeship he condemned as \"manifest encroachment upon the just\nliberty of the workman and of those who may be disposed to employ him.\"\nEven educational establishments are suspect on the ground--not\nunnatural after his own experience of Oxford--that their possibilities\nof comfort may enervate the natural energies of men.\n\nThe key to this attitude is clear enough. The improvement of society is\ndue, he thinks not to the calculations of government but to the natural\ninstincts of economic man. We cannot avoid the impulse to better our\ncondition; and the less its effort is restrained the more certain it is\nthat happiness will result. We gain, in fact, some sense of its inherent\npower when we bear in mind the magnitude of its accomplishment despite\nthe folly and extravagance of princes. Therein we have some index of\nwhat it would achieve if left unhindered to work out its own destinies.\nHuman institutions continually thwart its power; for those who build\nthose institutions are moved rather \"by the momentary fluctuations of\naffairs\" than their true nature. \"That insidious and crafty animal,\nvulgarly called a politician or statesman\" meets little mercy for his\neffort compared to the magic power of the natural order. \"In all\ncountries where there is a tolerable security,\" he writes, \"every man\nof common understanding will endeavor to employ whatever stock he can\ncommand in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit.\"\nIndividual spontaneity is thus the root of economic good; and the real\njustification of the state is the protection it affords to this impulse.\nMan, in fact, is by nature a trader and he is bound by nature to\ndiscover the means most apt to progress.\n\nNor was he greatly troubled by differences of fortune. Like most of the\nScottish school, especially Hutcheson and Hume, he thought that men are\nmuch alike in happiness, whatever their station or endowments. For there\nis a \"never-failing certainty\" that \"all men sooner or later accommodate\nthemselves to whatever becomes their permanent situation\"; though he\nadmits that there is a certain level below which poverty and misery go\nhand in hand. But, for the most part, happiness is simply a state of\nmind; and he seems to have had but little suspicion that differences of\nwealth might issue in dangerous social consequence. Men, moreover, he\nregarded as largely equal in their original powers; and differences of\ncharacter he ascribes to the various occupations implied in the\ndivision of labor. Each man, therefore, as he follows his self-interest\npromotes the general happiness of society. That principle is inherent in\nthe social order. \"Every man,\" he wrote in the _Moral Sentiments_, \"is\nby nature first and principally recommended to his own care\" and therein\nhe is \"led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of\nhis intention.\" The State, that is to say, is the sum of individual\ngoods; whereby to better ourselves is clearly to its benefit. And that\ndesire \"which comes with us from the womb and never leaves us till we go\nto the grave\" is the more efficacious the less it is restrained by\ngovernmental artifice. For we know so well what makes us happy that none\ncan hope to help us so much as we help ourselves.\n\nEnlightened selfishness is thus the root of prosperity; but we must not\nfall into the easy fallacy which makes Smith deaf to the plaint of the\npoor. He urged the employer to have regard to the health and welfare of\nthe worker, a regard which was the voice of reason and humanity. Where\nthere was conflict between love of the _status quo_ and a social good\nwhich Revolution alone could achieve, he did not, at least in the _Moral\nSentiments_, hesitate to choose the latter. Order was, for the most\npart, indispensable; but \"the greatest and noblest of all characters\" he\nmade the reformer of the State. Yet he is too impressed by the working\nof natural economic laws to belittle their influence. Employers, in his\npicture, are little capable of benevolence or charity. Their rule is the\nlaw of supply and demand and not the Sermon on the Mount. They combine\nwithout hesitation to depress wages to the lowest point of subsistence.\nThey seize every occasion of commercial misfortune to make better terms\nfor themselves; and the greater the poverty the more submissive do\nservants become so that scarcity is naturally regarded as more favorable\nto industry.\n\nObviously enough, the inner hinge of all this argument is Smith's\nconception of nature. Nor can there be much doubt of what he thought its\ninner substance. Facile distinctions such as the effort of Buckle to\nshow that while in the _Moral Sentiments_ Adam Smith was dealing with\nthe unselfish side of man's nature, in the _Wealth of Nations_ he was\ndealing with a group of facts which required the abstraction of such\naltruistic elements, are really beside the point. Nature for Smith is\nsimply the spontaneous action of human character unchecked by hindrances\nof State. It is, as Bonar has aptly said, \"a vindication of the\nunconscious law present in the separate actions of men when these\nactions are directed by a certain strong personal motive.\" Adam Smith's\nargument is an assumption that the facts can be made to show the\nrelative powerlessness of institutions in the face of economic laws\ngrounded in human psychology. The psychology itself is relatively\nsimple, and, at least in the _Wealth of Nations_ not greatly different\nfrom the avowed assumptions of utilitarianism. He emphasizes the\nstrength of reason in the economic field, and his sense that it enables\nmen to judge much better of their best interests than an external\nauthority can hope to do. And therefore the practices accomplished by\nthis reason are those in which the impulses of men are to be found. The\norder they represent is the natural order; and whatever hinders its full\noperation is an unwise check upon the things for which men strive.\n\nObviously enough, this attitude runs the grave risk of seeming to\nabstract a single motive--the desire for wealth--from the confused\nwelter of human impulses and to make it dominant at the expense of human\nnature itself. A hasty reading of Adam Smith would, indeed, confirm that\nimpression; and that is perhaps why he seemed to Ruskin to blaspheme\nhuman nature. But a more careful survey, particularly when the _Moral\nSentiments_ is borne in mind suggests a different conclusion. His\nattitude is implicit in the general medium in which he worked. What he\nwas trying to do was less to emphasize that men care above all things\nfor the pursuit of wealth than that no institutional modifications are\nable to destroy the power of that motive to labor. There is too much\nhistory in the _Wealth of Nations_ to make tenable the hypothesis of\ncomplete abstraction. And there is even clear a sense of a nature behind\nhis custom when he speaks of a \"sacred regard\" for life, and urges that\nevery man has property in his own labor. The truth here surely is that\nSmith was living in a time of commercial expansion. What was evident to\nhim was the potential wealth to be made available if the obsolete system\nof restraint could be destroyed. Liberty to him meant absence of\nrestraint not because its more positive aspect was concealed from him\nbut rather because the kind of freedom wanted in the environment in\nwhich he moved was exactly that for which he made his plea. There is a\nhint that freedom as a positive thing was known to him from the fact\nthat he relied upon education to relieve the evils of the division of\nlabor. But the general context of his book required less emphasis upon\nthe virtues of state-interference than upon its defects. His cue was to\nshow that all the benefits of regulation had been achieved despite its\ninterference; from which, of course, it followed that restraint was a\nmatter of supererogation.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIt would be tedious to praise the _Wealth of Nations_. It may be\ndoubtful whether Buckle's ecstatic judgment that it has had more\ninfluence than any other book in the world was justified even when he\nwrote; but certainly it is one of the seminal books of the modern time.\nWhat is more important is to note the perspective in which its main\nteaching was set. He wrote in the midst of the first significant\nbeginnings of the Industrial Revolution; and his emphatic approval of\nWatt's experiments suggests that he was not unalive to its importance.\nYet it cannot in any full sense be said that the Industrial Revolution\nhas a large part in his book. The picture of industrial organization and\nits possibilities is too simple to suggest that he had caught any far\nreaching glimpse into the future. Industry, for him, is still in the\nlast stage of handicraft; it is a matter of skillful workmanship and not\nof mechanical appliance. Capital is still the laborious result of\nparsimony. Credit is spoken of rather in the tones of one who sees it\nless as a new instrument of finance than a dangerous attempt by the\naspiring needy to scale the heights of wealth. Profits are always a\njustified return for productive labor; interest the payment for the use\nof the owner's past parsimony. Business is still the middleman\ndistributing to the consumer on a small scale. He did not, or could not,\nconceive of an industry either so vast or so depersonalized as at\npresent. He was rather writing of a system which, like the politics of\nthe eighteenth century, had reached an equilibrium of passable comfort.\nHis natural order was, at bottom, the beatification of that to which\nthis equilibrium tended. Its benefits might be improved by free trade\nand free workmanship; but, upon the whole, he saw no reason to call in\nquestion its fundamental dogmas.\n\nTherein, of course, may be found the main secret of his omissions. The\nproblem of labor finds no place in his book. The things that the poor\nhave absent from their lives, that concept of a national minimum below\nwhich no State can hope to fulfil even the meanest of its aims, of these\nhe has no conception. Rather the note of the book is a quiet optimism,\nimpressed by the possibilities of constant improvement which lie\nimbedded in the human impulse to better itself. What he did not see is\nthe way in which the logical outcome of the system he describes may\nwell be the attainment of great wealth at a price in human cost that is\nbeyond its worth. Therein, it is clear, all individualistic theories of\nthe state miss the true essence of the social bond. Those who came after\nAdam Smith saw only half his problem. He wrote a consumer's theory of\nvalue. But whereas he had in mind a happy and contented people, the\neconomics of Ricardo and Malthus seized upon a single element in human\nnature as that which alone the State must serve. Freedom from restraint\ncame ultimately to mean a judgment upon national well-being in terms of\nthe volume of trade. \"It is not with happiness,\" said Nassau Senior,\n\"but with wealth that I am concerned as a political economist; and I am\nnot only justified in omitting, but am perhaps bound to omit, all\nconsiderations which have no influence upon wealth.\"\n\nIn such an aspect, it was natural for the balance of investigation to\nswing towards the study of the technique of production; and with the\ngrowing importance of capital, as machinery was introduced, the worker,\nwithout difficulty, became an adjunct, easily replaced, to the machine.\nWhat was remembered then was the side of Adam Smith which looked upon\nenlightened selfishness as the key to social good. Regulation became\nanathema even when the evils it attempted to restrain were those which\nmade the mass of the people incapable of citizenship. Even national\neducation was regarded as likely to destroy initiative; or, as a\npauper's dole which men of self-respect would regard with due\nabhorrence. The State, in short, ceased to concern itself with justice\nsave insofar as the administration of a judicial code spelled the\nprotection of the new industrial system. Nothing is more striking in the\nhalf-century after Adam Smith than the optimism of the economist and the\nbusiness man in contrast to the hopeless despair of labor. That men can\norganize to improve their lot was denied with emphasis, so that until\nFrancis Place even the workers themselves were half-convinced. The\nmanufacturers were the State; and the whole intellectual strength of\neconomics was massed to prove the rightness of the equation. The\nliterature of protest, men like Hall and Thompson, Hodgskin and Bray,\nexerted no influence upon the legislation of the time; and Robert Owen\nwas deemed an amiable eccentric rather than the prophet of a new hope.\nThe men who succeeded, as Wilberforce, carried out to the letter the\nunstated assumptions of Puritan economics. The poor were consigned to a\nGod whose dictates were by definition beneficent; and if they failed to\nunderstand the curious incidence of his rewards that was because his\nways were inscrutable. No one who reads the tracts of writers like\nHarriet Martineau can fail to see how pitiless was the operation of this\nattitude. Life is made a struggle beneficent, indeed, but deriving its\nultimate meaning from the misery incident to it. The tragedy is excused\nbecause the export-trade increases in its volume. The iron law of wages,\nthe assumed transition of every energetic worker to the ranks of wealth,\nthe danger lest the natural ability of the worker to better his\ncondition be sapped by giving to him that which his self-respect can\nbetter win--these became the unconscious assumptions of all economic\ndiscussion.\n\nIn all this, as in the foundation with which Adam Smith provided it, we\nmust not miss the element of truth that it contains. No poison is more\nsubtly destructive of the democratic State than paternalism; and the\nrelease of the creative impulses of men must always be the coping-stone\nof public policy. Adam Smith is the supreme representative of a\ntradition which saw that release effected by individual effort. Where\neach man cautiously pursued the good as he saw it, the realization was\nbound, in his view, to be splendid. A population each element of which\nwas active and alert to its economic problems could not escape the\nachievement of greatness. All that is true; but it evades the obvious\nconditions we have inherited. For even when the psychological\ninadequacies of Smith's attitude are put aside, we can judge his theory\nin the light of the experience it summarizes. Once it is admitted that\nthe object of the State is the achievement of the good life, the final\ncanon of politics is bound to be a moral one. We have to inquire into\nthe dominant conception of the good life, the number of those upon whom\nit is intended that good shall be conferred.\n\nIn the light of this conception it is obvious enough that Smith's view\nis impossible. No mere conflict of private interests, however pure in\nmotive, seems able to achieve a harmony of interest between the members\nof the State. Liberty, in the sense of a positive and equal opportunity\nfor self-realization, is impossible save upon the basis of the\nacceptance of certain minimal standards which can get accepted only\nthrough collective effort. Smith did not see that in the processes of\npolitics what gets accepted is not the will that is at every moment a\npart of the state-purpose, but the will of those who in fact operate the\nmachinery of government. In the half-century after he wrote the men who\ndominated political life were, with the best intentions, moved by\nmotives at most points unrelated to the national well-being. The\nfellow-servant doctrine would never have obtained acceptance in a state\nwhere, as he thought, employer and workman stood upon an equal footing.\nOpposition to the Factory Acts would never have developed in a community\nwhere it was realized that below certain standards of subsistence the\nvery concept of humanity is impossible. Modern achievement implies a\ntraining in the tools of life; and that, for most, is denied even in our\nown day to the vast majority of men. In the absence of legislation, it\nis certain that those who employ the services of men will be their\npolitical masters; and it will follow that their Acts of Parliament will\nbe adapted to the needs of property. That shrinkage of the purpose of\nthe State will mean for most not merely hardship but degradation of all\nthat makes life worthy. Upon those stunted existences, indeed, a wealthy\ncivilization may easily be builded. Yet it will be a civilization of\nslaves rather than of men.\n\nThe individualism, that is to say, for which Adam Smith was zealous\ndemands a different institutional expression from that which he gave it.\nWe must not assume an _a priori_ justification for the forces of the\npast. The customs of men may represent the thwarting of the impulses of\nthe many at the expense of the few not less easily than they may embody\na general desire; and it is surely a mistaken usage to dignify as\nnatural whatever may happen to have occurred. A man may find\nself-realization not less in working for the common good than in the\nlimited satisfaction of his narrow desire for material advancement. And\nthat, indeed, is the starting-point of modern effort. Our liberty means\nthe consistent expression of our personality in media where we find\npeople like-minded with ourselves in their conception of social life.\nThe very scale of civilization implies collective plans and common\neffort. The constant revision of our basic notions was inevitable\nimmediately science was applied to industry. There was thus no reason to\nbelieve that the system of individual interests for which Smith stood\nsponsor was more likely to fit requirements of a new time than one which\nimplied the national regulation of business enterprise. The danger in\nevery period of history is lest we take our own age as the term in\ninstitutional evolution. Private enterprise has the sanction of\nprescription; but since the Industrial Revolution the chief lesson we\nhave had to learn is the unsatisfactory character of that title. History\nis an unenviable record of bad metaphysics used to defend obsolete\nsystems. It took almost a century after the publication of the _Wealth\nof Nations_ for men to realize that its axioms represented the\nexperience of a definite time. Smith thought of freedom in the terms\nmost suitable to his generation and stated them with a largeness of view\nwhich remains impressive even at a century's distance.\n\nBut nothing is more certain in the history of political philosophy than\nthat the problem of freedom changes with each age. The nineteenth\ncentury sought release from political privilege; and it built its\nsuccess upon the system prepared by its predecessor. It can never be too\ngreatly emphasized that in each age the substance of liberty will be\nfound in what the dominating forces of that age most greatly want. With\nLocke, with Smith, with Hegel and with Marx, the ultimate hypothesis is\nalways the summary of some special experience universalized. That does\nnot mean that the past is worthless. Politics, as Seeley said, are\nvulgar unless they are liberalized by history; and a state which failed\nto see itself as a mosaic of ancestral institutions would build its\nnovelties upon foundations of sand. Suspicions of collective effort in\nthe eighteenth century ought not to mean suspicion in the twentieth; to\nthink in such fashion is to fall into the error for which Lassalle so\nfinely criticized Hegel. It is as though one were to confound the\naccidental phases of the history of property with the philosophic basis\nof property itself. From such an error it is the task of history above\nall to free us. For it records the ideals and doubts of earlier ages as\na perennial challenge to the coming time.\n\nThe rightness of this attitude admits of proof in terms of the double\ntradition to which Adam Smith gave birth. On the one hand he is the\nfounder of the classic political economy. With Ricardo, the elder Mill\nand Nassau Senior, the main preoccupation is the production of wealth\nwithout regard to its moral environment; and the state for them is\nmerely an engine to protect the atmosphere in which business men achieve\ntheir labors. There is nothing in them of that fine despair which made\nStuart Mill welcome socialism itself rather than allow the continuance\nof the new capitalist system. Herein the State is purged of moral\npurpose; and the utilitarian method achieves the greatest happiness by\ninsisting that the technique of production must dominate all other\ncircumstances. Until the Reform Act of 1867, the orthodox economists\nremained unchallenged. The use of the franchise was only beginning to be\nunderstood. The \"new model\" of trade unionism had not yet been tested in\nthe political field. But it was discovered impossible to act any longer\nupon the assumptions of the abstract economic man. The infallible sense\nof his own interest was discovered to be without basis in the facts for\nthe simple reason that the instruments of his perception obviously\nrequired training if they were to be applied to a complex world.\nIndividualism, in the old, utilitarian sense, passed away because it\nfailed to build a State wherein a channel of expression might be found\nfor the creative energies of humble men.\n\nIt is only within the last two decades that we have begun to understand\nthe inner significance of the protest against this economic liberalism.\nAdam Smith had declared the source of value to lie in labor; and, at\nthe moment of its deepest agony, there were men willing to point the\nmoral of his tale. That it represented an incautious analysis was, for\nthem, unimportant beside the fact that it opened once more a path\nwhereby economics could be reclaimed for moral science. For if labor was\nthe source of value, as Bray and Thompson pointed out, it seemed as\nthough degradation was the sole payment for its services. They did not\nask whether the organization they envisaged was economically profitable,\nbut whether it was ethically right. No one can read the history of these\nyears and fail to understand their uncompromising denial of its\nrightness. Their negation fell upon unheeding ears; but twenty years\nlater, the tradition for which they stood came into Marx's hands and was\nfashioned by him into an interpretation of history. With all its faults\nof statement and of emphasis, the doctrine of the English socialists has\nbeen, in later hands, the most fruitful hypothesis of modern politics.\nIt was a deliberate effort, upon the basis of Adam Smith's ideas, to\ncreate a commonwealth in the interests of the masses. Wealth, in its\nview, was less the mere production of goods than the accumulated\nhappiness of humble men. The impulses it praised and sought through\nstate-action to express were, indeed, different from those upon which\nSmith laid emphasis; and he would doubtless have stood aghast at the way\nin which his thought was turned to ends of which he did not dream. Yet\nhe can hardly have desired a greater glory. He thus made possible not\nonly knowledge of a State untrammelled in its economic life by moral\nconsiderations; but also the road to those categories wherein the old\nconception of co-operative effort might find a new expression. Those who\ntrod in his footsteps may have repudiated the ideal for which he stood,\nbut they made possible a larger hope in which he would have been proud\nand glad to share.\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nThis bibliography makes no pretence to completeness. It attempts only to\nenumerate the more obvious sources that an interested reader would care\nto examine.\n\n\n\nGENERAL\n\n\nLESLIE STEPHEN. _History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_.\n1876. Vol. II, Chapters IX and X.\n\nW.E.H. LECKY. _History of England in the Eighteenth Century._\n\nA.L. SMITH. _Political Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth and\nEighteenth Centuries_ in the _Cambridge Modern History_. Vol. VI,\nChapter XXIII.\n\nJ. BONAR. _Philosophy and Political Economy_. Chapters V-IX.\n\nF.W. MAITLAND. _An Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality_ in\n_Collected Papers_. Vol. I.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nJOHN LOCKE. _Works_ (Eleventh Edition), 10 volumes. London, 1812.\n\nH.R. FOX-BOURNE. _Life of John Locke_. London, 1876.\n\nT.H. GREEN. _The Principles of Political Obligation_ in _Collected\nWorks_. Vol. II. London, 1908.\n\nPETER. LORD KING. _The Life and Letters of John Locke_. London, 1858.\n\nSIR F. POLLOCK. _Locke's Theory of the State_ in _Proc. Brit. Acad._.\nVol. I. London, 1904.\n\nS.P. LAMPRECHT. _The Moral and Political Philosophy of Locke_. New York,\n1918.\n\nA.A. SEATON. _The Theory of Toleration under the Later Stuarts_.\nCambridge, 1911.\n\nJ.N. FIGGIS. _The Divine Right of Kings_. Cambridge, 1914.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nJEREMY COLLIER. _The History of Passive Obedience_. London, 1689.\n\nWILLIAM SHERLOCK. _The Case of Resistance_. London, 1684.\n\nCHARLES LESLIE. _The Case of the Regale_ (Collected Works). Vol. III,\n                   p. 291.\n                _The Rehearsal_.\n                _The New Association_.\n                _Cassandra_.\n                _The Finishing Stroke_.\n                _Obedience to Civil Government Clearly Stated_.\n                _The Best Answer_.\n                _The Best of All_.\n\nSAMUEL GRASCOM. _A Brief Answer_.\n\nE. SHELLINGFLEET. _A Vindication of their Majesties Authoritie_.\n\nB. SHOWER. _A Letter to a Convocation Man._\n\nW. WAKE. _The Authority of Christian Princes_. _The State of the Church_\n(1703).\n\nFRANCIS ATTERBURY. _Rights, Powers and Privileges of an English\nConvocation_ (1701).\n\nBENJAMIN HOADLY. _Origins of Civil Government_ (1710).\n                 _Preservative Against Nonjurors_ (1716).\n                 _Works_, 3 vols. London (1773).\n\nWILLIAM LAW. _A Defence of Church Principles_ (ed. Gore). Edinburgh,\n1904.\n\nW. WARBURTON. _Alliance between Church and State_ (1736).\n\nJ.H. OVERTON. _The Nonjurors._ New York, 1903.\n\nT. LATHEBURY. _History of Convocation._ London, 1842.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nBERKELEY. _Essay Towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain_ (1721).\n\nH. ST. JOHN (Viscount Bolingbroke). _Works._ 5 vols. London, 1754.\n\nLORD EGMONT. _Faction detected by the Evidence of Facts_ (1742).\n\nDAVID HUME. _Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_ (1752).\n            _Essays_. (1742-1752) ed. Green & Grose. London, 1876.\n\nW. SICHEL. _Life of Bolingbroke_. 2 vols. 1900-4.\n\nJ. CHURTON COLLINS. _Bolingbroke and Voltaire in England_.\n\nJ. HILL BURTON. _Life of Hume_.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nMONTESQUIEU. _L'Esprit des Lois_ (1748).\n\nJ.J. ROUSSEAU. _Du Contrat Social_ (1762). See ed. by Vaughan, 1918.\n\nJOHN BROWN. _Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_\n(1757).\n\nADAM FERGUSON. _Essay on the History of Civil Society_ (1767).\n\nWILLIAM BLACKSTONE. _Commentaries_ (1765-9).\n\nJEREMY BENTHAM. _A Fragment on Government_ (1776). Ed. F.C. Montague,\n1891.\n\nJ. DE LOLME. _The Constitution of England_ (1775).\n\nROBERT WALLACE. _Various Prospects_ (1761).\n\nJOSEPH PRIESTLEY. _Essay on the First Principles of Government_ (1768).\n\nRICHARD PRICE. _Observations on Civil Liberty_ (1776). _Additional\nObservations_ (1777).\n\nWILLIAM OGILVIE. _The Right of Property in Land_ (1781). Ed. Macdonald,\n1891.\n\nJOSIAH TUCKER. _Treatise on Civil Government_ (1781).\n\nSAMUEL JOHNSON. _Taxation No Tyranny_ (1775).\n\nM. BEER. _History of British Socialism_ (1919).\n\nJAMES BOSWELL. _Life of Samuel Johnson_ (1791).\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nEDMUND BURKE. _Collected Works_. London, 1808.\n\nJOHN MORLEY. _Edmund Burke_ (1867). _Life of Burke_ (1887).\n\nJ. MACCUNN. _The Political Philosophy of Burke_ (1908).\n\nJUNIUS. _Letters_ (1769-72). London, 1812.\n\nTHOMAS PAINE. _The Rights of Man_ (1791-2).\n\nJAMES MACKINTOSH. _Vendici\u00e6 Gallic\u00e6_ (1791).\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nCHARLES DAVENANT. _Works_. London, 1771.\n\nSIR DUDLEY NORTH. _A Discourse upon Trade_ (1691).\n\nADAM SMITH. _Theory of Moral Sentiments_ (1759).\n            _Wealth of Nations_ (1776).\n            _Lectures on Justice and Police_. (Ed. Cannan, 1896).\n\nW.R. SCOTT. _Life of Francis Hutcheson_ (1900).\n\nJOHN RAE. _Life of Adam Smith_ (1895).\n\nW. BAGEHOT. _Adam Smith as a Person_ in _Coll. Works_. Vol. VII.\n\nF.W. HIRST. _Adam Smith_ (1904).\n\nW. HASBACH. _Untersuchungen \u00fcber Adam Smith_ (1891).\n\nJ. BONAR. _A Catalogue of Adam Smith's Library_ (1894).\n\nT. CLIFFE LESLIE. _Adam Smith_ in _Essays in Moral and Political\nPhilosophy_ (1879).\n\nE. TROELTSCH. _Die Sociallehren der Christlichen Kirchen_ (1912).\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\nAddison, 69\nAndrewes, 83\nAshley, 33-4\nAtterbury, 102\nAustin, 62\n\nBagehot, 9, 249\nBarbeyrac, 68\nBarrow, 84\nBellarmine, 83, 121\nBentham, 23, 62, 72, 151, 157, 175, 194\nBerkeley, 10, 129\nBlackstone, 163-4, 174f\nBolingbroke, 69, 131f\nBonald, 277\nBonar, 300\nBonwicke, 82\nBoswell, 209\nBray, 307, 315\nBrown (J.), 168\nBrown (R.), 52\nBurke, 7, 8, 16, 30, 157, 159, 166, 221f, 286\nBurnet, 80, 87, 93\nBusher, 52\n\nCartwright, 97\nChatham, 132, 167, 188, 262\nChillingworth, 52\nChubb, 128\nColeridge, 277\nCollier, 84n\nCowper, 20\nCrabbe, 20\n\nDalrymple, 8\nDarwin, 67\nDavenant, 283, 287\nDefoe, 8, 128, 132\nDicey, 175, 179\nDisraeli, 132\nDivine Right, 7, 30\nDodwell, 82\nDupont de Nemours, 292\n\nEgmont, 142\nEldon, 159\n\nFerguson, 172-4\nFielding, 160\nFilmer, 7, 38\n\nGalsworthy, 171-2\nGeorge III, 13, 15, 158, 188, 213f\nGodwin, 10, 163, 222, 276\nGoldsmith, 19, 223\nGoodman, 57\nGrascom, 86\nGray, 160\nGreen (T.H.), 61, 279\n\nHaldane, 126\nHales, 52\nHalifax, 8, 27\nHall, 17, 307\nHamilton (J.L. & B.), 19\nHarrington, 147\nHegel, 249, 277, 212-3\nHickes, 83\nHoadly, 9, 22, 69, 107f\nHobbes, 8, 16, 30, 40f, 72, 91, 278, 284\nHodgskin, 17, 307\nHolmes (O.W.), 63n, 269\nHolt, 14,\nHooker, 44\nHotman, 57, 68\nHume, 8, 11, 71, 92, 143f, 278, 284, 297\nHutcheson, 11, 153, 155, 291, 297\n\nIndependents, 40\n\nJackson, 84\nJames II, 24f, 35\nJohnson (Dr.), 18, 210f, 223, 230\nJunius, 21, 219\n\nKeble, 82\nKerr, 82\nKnox, 57, 83, 97\n\nLassalle, 313\nLaud, 285\nLaw, 22, 108f\nLeslie, 80, 85, 88, 90, 97, 104, 132\nLocke, 7, 11, 21, 29-76, 79, 197, 207, 273, 287\nde Lolme, 10, 183f\n\nMackintosh, 269\nMadison, 63\nMaine, 66, 249\nMaistre, 91, 252, 273\nMalthus, 305\nMandeville, 129, 284\nMariana, 57\nMartin, 69\nMarx, 312, 315\nMelville, 121\nMill, 157\nMilton, 52\nMolyneux, 68\nMontesquieu, 12, 63, 160f, 173, 183\nMorley, 132, 223\n\nNewton, 37\nNewman, 81, 122, 125\nNorth, 287\n\nOgilvie, 199f\nOwen, 17, 307\nOxford Movement, 81\n\nPaine, 202, 269\nPaley, 157\nPattison, 10\nPenn, 58\nPlace, 306\nPope, 69, 128, 132\nPrice, 196f\nPriestley, 72, 190f\nProast, 64\nPrynne, 8, 55\nPufendorf, 68\nPulteney, 217\n\nQuesnay, 288, 292\n\nRenan, 249\nRicardo, 305\nRichardson, 160\nRichardson (S.), 52\nRousseau, 8, 74, 162f, 188, 197, 276\nRoyer-Collard, 226\nRuskin, 293, 301\n\nSanderson, 84\nSavigny, 249, 277\nSeeley, 312\nSelden, 9\nSenior, 304\nSeparation of Powers, 63f\nShaftesbury, 11, 128, 155\nSherlock (T.), 108\nSherlock (W.), 87\nShower, 99\nSidney, 7, 57\nSmith (Adam), 9, 16, 152, 195, 258, 281f\nSmith (A.L.), 140\nSnape, 108\nSocial Contract, 57\nSpelman, 9\nSpence, 202\nStammler, 60\nSteele, 284\nStephen (F.), 65\nStephen (L.), 108, 223\nStillingfleet, 37, 87, 93\nSuarez, 57\n\nTaylor, 52, 57\nTemple, 283\nThompson, 307, 215\nTindal, 123\nTocqueville, 254\nToleration, 52, 64\nTucker, 71, 206f, 288\nTurgot, 288, 292\n\nVoltaire, 12, 132, 160\n\nWake, 80, 100f\nWallace, 188\nWalpole, 13, 21, 128-30\nWarburton, 69, 118f, 192\nWilberforce, 290\nWilkes, 167, 188, 220\nWilliam III, 25f\nWilliams (Roger), 52\nWoolston, 128\nWordsworth, 277","title":"Political thought in England from Locke to Bentham","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":59311}