THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ^6
 
 POLITICAL 
 IDEALS 
 
 THEIR NATURE AND 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 C. DELISLE BURNS 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW 
 
 NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 
 
 1915
 
 
 ^'13p 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The thesis I propose to maintain is that modern 
 politics is governed by the conceptions men have 
 of a state of things which would be better than the 
 present. It is my first purpose, therefore, to dis- 
 cover the meaning of some of those conceptions. 
 I shall call them ' Ideals '. These only among the 
 many facts of politics I propose to study, acknow- 
 ledging at the same time that they cannot be 
 studied in isolation from other facts. And secondly 
 I propose to show of each such ideal that it is an 
 inheritance the value of which we cannot estimate 
 unless we know its early development. As we use 
 the mechanical inventions of the past so we are 
 influenced by what the past thought desirable. 
 
 As we have inherited the use of forks, so we have 
 inherited the use of such words as Liberty and 
 Nationalism. The material resources which we 
 find round us are not any more definite, although 
 to the unseeing eye they may be more obvious, 
 than the intangible ideals we accept. 
 
 Two things are implied in the study of politics — 
 first the statement of facts, and secondly the judge- 
 ment as to whether such facts are to be approved 
 A 2
 
 4 PEEFACE 
 
 or not. The facts I shall only indicate as a basis 
 for the judgements which imply that they might 
 be developed or abolished with advantage : for my 
 interest here is only in the ethical or moral standard 
 which embodies itself in a political ideal ; and of 
 the past living in the present I shall notice only 
 that element which provoked desire and has left 
 us either achievement (the realized ideal) or a 
 powerful motive force for making the present into 
 a better future. 
 
 This is not, then, a history of political theory. 
 Had it been. I should have given a greater space 
 to Plato and Bodin, and I should at least have 
 mentioned Kant. I propose to confine attention 
 to what we may call more popular conceptions 
 and to such popular conceptions only as were 
 active in movements of reform. 
 
 I owe an apology to historians and to philoso- 
 phers : to historians, first, because of the long period 
 over which it has been necessary to pass. It is so 
 obviously impossible to describe adequately a long 
 development of ideas in a short space that I need 
 hardly say I am not attempting it. But I hope 
 that I have not lost historical proportion. The 
 reason for dealing with so many different historical 
 periods is simply that I could not explain otherwise 
 what I take to be the meaning and value of an ideal. 
 Such a reality must be watched in many different 
 phases if its nature is to be understood, and one is
 
 PREFACE 5 
 
 compelled, therefore, to touch upon the careers of 
 many different nations in many different periods. 
 
 To philosophers I owe an apology for not stating 
 more clearly my own conception of the nature of 
 society. My debt to Sidgwick will be obvious ; but 
 because I disagree almost entirely with his govern- 
 ing conception, my debt to Mr. Bosanquet will not 
 be so obvious, although it is no less real. It is 
 difficult to label the attitude I have adopted. It is 
 Individualism if that only implies the denial of the 
 existence of any Social Soul or Higher Unity in the 
 form of a Super-person : but it is not Individualism 
 if that implies that there could be an Individual 
 without a Society. I do not suppose that human 
 Individuals are distinct in the same -way as are 
 bodies in space ; but their union does not seem to 
 me to be that of subordination to anything higher 
 or nobler or more real. 
 
 The limits of my subject, however, make it 
 impossible to establish any philosophical theory ; 
 and I have confined attention to what is only one 
 of the facts to which I should look as evidence for 
 the nature of society. 
 
 The subject is apposite in view of the present 
 war ; but it was not studied with any controversial 
 purpose or any ephemeral interest. As Burke said 
 long aeo, so now, ' It is with an armed doctrine that 
 we are at war ' : and undoubtedly this is the time 
 to examine the ideals of our opponents and of our
 
 6 PREFACE 
 
 own tradition. I have, therefore, made some refer- 
 ences to books which are unimportant as political 
 philosophy because they throw light upon present 
 tendencies. 
 
 As for the practical use of what follows. I can 
 only say that when the problems are complex it is 
 all the more necessary for fundamentals to be 
 considered. An artificial and misleading simplicity 
 is often given to practical problems because they 
 are considered in isolation ; but problems solved 
 by such rule of thumb are likely to need solving 
 again very soon, and it may in the end be the 
 simplest and the most practical plan to consider 
 general principles as a ground for solving particular 
 difficulties. 
 
 C. D. B.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The History op Ideals . .11 
 
 Date-and-fact history, heroic, democratic aud 
 naturalistic history and, finally, the history of 
 Ideals. This explains present political situations 
 and also indicates how change takes place. 
 
 II. Athenian Liberty . . . .28 
 
 Liberty involves personal independence and 
 group autonomy. First consciously appreciated 
 in Athens. Athenian Liberty was productive. 
 Criticism. 
 
 III. Roman Order ..... 51 
 
 Order the complement of Liberty as a basis for 
 civilization. In the European tradition first 
 established by Rome. Roman Order in place of 
 confusion. Its final failure. 
 
 IV. Cosmopolitan Equality . . . 70 
 
 Relation of individuals limited by (a) race pre- 
 judice and (b) rank or caste. Protest of Stoicism 
 and Christianity against race exclusivencss and 
 Slavery. 
 
 AVcakness of the protest. A sentiment not 
 a programme of reform,
 
 8 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. Mediaeval Unity . . , 92 
 
 Concept of a European Unity of Civilization 
 inherited from the Middle Ages. The Empiie. 
 The Theorists. The failure to maintain or develop 
 Unity. 
 
 VI. Renaissance Sovereignty . . 122 
 
 Sovereign States and the balance of power ; 
 inherited from the Renaissance. Effective as 
 securing central government ; evil as oppressing 
 national aspirations. 
 
 VII. Revolutionary Rights . . . 149 
 
 The minimum of needs for human life. Attack 
 on privilege and caste. The inalienable sovereignty 
 of the peojile. Intellectualism and failure of the 
 ideal. 
 
 VIII. Modern Nationalism . . . 174 
 
 The distinct character of groups. Their inde- 
 pendence. The demand for recognition of nation- 
 ality in political divisions. 
 
 Violence of Nationalism when the nation is 
 strong. 
 
 IX. Modern Imperialism . . .197 
 
 Interdependence of vast territories. The gain 
 from common law and government. The anti- 
 provincial sentiment. 
 
 Criticism of insolent claims to predominance. 
 
 X. Individualism ..... 225 
 
 Every individual to develop fully. The State to 
 hinder hindrances. The origin of this in the fear 
 of interference by government. 
 
 Exaggeration of the independence of citizens.
 
 CONTENTS 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XI. Socialism ..... 254 
 
 Increase of social sentiment. The tendency to 
 class opposition leading to close allegiance between 
 members of the same class. The ideal a more 
 socialized society. 
 
 Criticism of exaggerated ambitions. 
 
 XII. Conclusion 276 
 
 Ideals not immortal. Politics concerns ' What 
 is wrong ? ' and ' What is the remedy ? ' The 
 place of specialism and party, and the vote of the 
 majority. 
 
 Appendix I. Limits of the Subject . 292 
 
 Appendix II. Reasoning in Political 
 
 Development ..... 304 
 
 Index 309
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 A. Purpose of History. 
 
 The past is so entangled with the present that 
 we cannot understand the political situation in 
 civilized countries without continual reference to 
 situations no longer in existence. To speak plati- 
 tude then — History is an explanation of how we 
 come to be doing what we usually do. We are 
 interested in what has occurred chiefly because we 
 want to understand what is occurring ; and we 
 want this again chiefly in order to influence what 
 Avill occur. Thus unless history gives us some 
 practical knowledge it is useless. It must show 
 us how to change the present into a better future, 
 by showing how the past became the present. 
 
 But this chief task of the historian, to keep his 
 interest in the future in spite of his knowledge of 
 the past, is the chief difficulty in the study of his- 
 tory. For as the past may absorb one's attention 
 and take one's eyes away from the future, the mind 
 may be entangled in the jungle of dead ages. The 
 historian may lose his way out of it, and even 
 delight in the roots and undergrowth which keep 
 him from the open. He may become a pamph- 
 leteer for some form of political ' restoration '.^ 
 And perhaps the only method of avoiding this and 
 of keeping the purpose of history clear is to regard 
 
 * Like Chateaubriand or de Maistro or various eeelesias- 
 tical historians of the Mediaeval period.
 
 12 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 the past as what it once was^ a future, and to 
 think of the change as moving in front of us rather 
 than as all over. 
 
 This, then, must be the meaning we give to the 
 idea of development with respect to political con- 
 ceptions of what is worth having. The present 
 i situation must be our central interest ; and if 
 I there is any century of more interest to us than 
 i the twentieth it is the twenty-first. We look back 
 ' in order to look forward. We must discover the 
 nature of the material with which we have to deal 
 and the method by which it is modified, by tracing 
 its earlier modifications. A certain amount of 
 good, along with evil, exists in the present relations 
 of men and states : that good is in part an old ideal 
 realized, in part a basis for further progress. And 
 arising out of present evils are certain conceptions 
 of what would be better, which have had perhaps 
 a recent origin. All these we must understand in 
 order to direct the forces involved in political life 
 in the channels of which we approve. But the 
 history of such conceptions has not been separately 
 treated. 
 
 B. Kinds of History. 
 
 There have been many methods of studying the 
 past development of the race. Summarily we may 
 count them as four : there are (1) Date-and-Fact 
 History, (2) Heroic History, (3) Democratic His- 
 tory, and (4) Naturalistic History. 
 
 (1) As to Date-and-Fact Histonj, the recording 
 of events by reference to their date has a certain 
 value. It marks the uniqueness of each event and 
 conclusively proves that history never repeats 
 itself. It is a mausoleum of dead issues.
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 13 
 
 The bare list of dates and events, however, which 
 used to be called history is no explanation of the 
 present and no guide to the future. It is no guide 
 for understanding our present habits to discover 
 whom the kings married or how many battles 
 were fought. The old-fashioned history was a 
 mere list of exceptions, and for that reason cou.ld 
 be no explanation of the common life of the present, 
 and no suggestion cotild come from it as to a better 
 future. 
 
 As a list of exceptions history may have a certain 
 romantic interest such as attaches to the ' facts ' 
 in a newspaper ; but it is quite clear that date-and- 
 fact history is a sort of journalism. Now the 
 peculiarity of a newspaper is that whereas it 
 professes to give us an account of current events, 
 it confines its attention to what is exceptional. 
 Murder, divorce, and party-politics are discussed 
 in detail ; but every one knows that human life 
 does not usually consist of such facts. If it did, 
 they would have no interest. The more common 
 the event the less interesting it is ; so that we 
 cannot complain if our newspapers do not remark 
 on the fact that the sun rises, or that the vast 
 majority live happily and do not commit murder, 
 and are singularly untroubled by political crises. 
 And yet it is upon such commonplaces that progress 
 depends, and by such uninteresting generalities 
 that we may best explain our present situation. 
 I am not complaining against journalism, but only 
 against that kind of journalism whicli pretends 
 to be a history of the past. Still more ludicrous is 
 the supposition that newspapers will make it 
 easier to write history ; since the only advantage 
 to be derived from them will probably be that
 
 14 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 future historians will feel certain that nothing 
 mentioned in a newspaper has much value as a 
 record of the current life of the time. The savage 
 notices a thunderstorm and trembles at the power 
 it implies ; but he is ignorant of the electrical 
 currents which are always passing over the surface 
 of the earth, modifying history profoundly, and 
 evincing much more power than a mere flash of 
 lightning The newspaper reader remains a savage 
 in mistaking the exceptional for the important. 
 
 I do not, of course, deny that men are much 
 influenced by exceptional events. It may make an 
 immense difference that a murderer is caught and 
 punished ; but too great a prominence is given 
 to the exceptional in date-and-fact history. Men 
 are far more influenced, although less obviously, by 
 the commonplaces of their time, since most of the 
 events of to-day are what they are because of 
 most of the events of yesterday. And even in 
 that most precious fragment of history which is 
 contained in our own personal memory of what has 
 happened to us, we recognize that we are what we 
 are now because of the common things and the 
 ordinary events of our childhood. So also in the 
 record of human progress it may be uninteresting 
 to notice that parents loved their children even 
 in the fourth century or that some men became 
 wiser by being taught even in the twelfth ; but, 
 indeed, such facts have had more influence in pro- 
 ducing the present situation than the sack of Rome 
 by the barbarians or the misfortunes of the scholar 
 Abelard. 
 
 A history of the commonplace would probably 
 be impossible ; but the real history of the past,, if 
 it is to be an explanation of how the present came
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 15 
 
 to be what it is, must contain far more of the general 
 atmosphere of dead ages than of the exceptional 
 events of those times. 
 
 History is peculiar in being at once a science, 
 aiming at a general knowledge of similar facts in 
 all times, and a romance or a record of what cannot 
 possibly occur again. Thus it is true to say both 
 that 'history repeats itself and that no event can 
 ever be repeated. The scientific historians lose 
 sight of the individual instance in dealing with the 
 general law ; and the romantic or literary historians 
 forget that there is a law expressed in every unique 
 event. 1 Dates and facts have their places in the 
 record, but not the chief places. And speaking 
 generally of the greater historians, date-and-fact 
 history is now most properly subordinated. ^ 
 
 (2) Now there have been since the days of 
 date-and-fact history three distinct methods for 
 expressing the inner force of development in 
 what has occurred. One is Carlyle's method— that 
 of recording the adventures of Great Men. We 
 may call this Heroic History. The Great Man is 
 regarded as an ultimate, inexplicable ground for 
 understanding what happened in his day. But 
 clearly the Great Man is often the voice of his 
 time ; he is what he is because of the people among 
 whom he lives. And although there is reason in 
 Heroic History — for the appearance of a Great Man 
 
 ' Cf. Trevelyan's Clio. The plea there made for vivid 
 writing may easily be misused as a denial of ' law ' in 
 history. This is not the place for a philosophical discus- 
 sion, but clearly every event is at once (a) unique and 
 (h) like some other, i. e. an instance of a law. 
 
 - Buckle (I. V.) speaks of 'the most trifling and miserable 
 details : personal anecdotes ' with which men ' inadequate 
 to the task ' of writing history have filled their works.
 
 16 THE HLSTOKY OF IDEALS 
 
 at a certain date cannot be explained — yet it does 
 not render all the force of development. There 
 was introduced, therefore, another method of his- 
 torical reasoning, which referred chiefly to the 
 habits and customs of the mass of men. We may 
 call this 
 
 (3) Democratic History. The ' people ' of the 
 past were studied as the ultimate explanation of 
 the ' people ' as they are to-day, ' Social life ' 
 became the leading interest in the discovery of 
 the past, and we were taught how our forefathers 
 ate and spoke, and even what clothes they wore. 
 Here again, however, there was something omitted ; 
 the bare description of what men did in the past 
 does not quite explain why men do differently now. 
 The explanation of the likeness of past and present 
 was to be found in Democratic History, but not 
 any explanation of the difference between them, 
 
 (4) A fourth method, that of Naturalistic History, 
 has been to treat of what may be called ' natural ' 
 causes, and undoubtedly much of the change in 
 civilization has been due to the influence of country, 
 climate, or race.^ To these causes must be added 
 the equally ' natural ' forces studied in at least the 
 older forms of economics. Laws of supply and 
 demand, of market value and the rest, operate 
 upon society quite inevitably, and much of the 
 explanation of the present may be found in them. 
 The discovery of the operation of nature on man 
 and of economic law led to the exaggeration of the 
 value in this method of history ; but it has since 
 become clear that it is inadequate to explain the 
 whole situation : for man is not altogether con- 
 
 * Buckle may be taken as an example, and, in the 
 economic sphere, Karl Marx.
 
 THE HISTOKY OF IDEALS 17 
 
 ceined with food and clothing. The practical man 
 indeed knows ' the price of everything and the value 
 of nothing', but no man is altogether practical. 
 
 (5) There is a fifth method. It is the study of 
 what men hoped to do, and may be labelled the 
 History of Ideals.^ I do not mean to imply that 
 any one of these methods excludes the others ; but 
 I do assert that, if you want to understand the 
 present in order to direct the future, you will have 
 to grasp not only what great men did and how 
 common men lived, but also what all men hoped 
 for. Some of what they hoped for they actually 
 achieved ; but even then their hope was the life 
 and soul of their achievement : and one cannot 
 understand the meaning of what actually happened 
 unless one appreciates what men wanted to happen. 
 In so far as the events of the past were influenced 
 by the wills of our forefathers, great and small, in 
 that far it is necessary to understand the ideals 
 which guided their wills. Not all the present will 
 be understood by reference to the ideals of the past, 
 since the course of human history is not altogether 
 governed by the force of human will ; but in part 
 it is so governed, and in that part we shall under- 
 stand it by the study of ideals. 
 
 Still further, there were many things which men 
 in the past hoped to do and never did. That hope 
 is an explanation of the difference in what we now 
 do, often because what our forefathers dreamed of 
 has come true after they have passed away. It is 
 in this sense that the History of Ideals explains 
 the difference between past and present. The 
 present was in the past as a hope, a longing, an 
 ideal : and the dream which never came true may 
 * See Appendix I for a closer definition of the woid ' Ideal .' 
 1782 B
 
 18 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 be just as important an influence in the present as 
 tlie plan which was actually successful.^ 
 
 For the same reason the History of Ideals is the 
 best guide for understanding how the present may 
 be changed into a better future : for the future is 
 in the present as the present was once in the past, 
 as a hope or an ideal. To shorten the vision of 
 histoiical prophecy, we know what our individual 
 future will probably be, at least in part, by con- 
 sidering what we want it to be. Thus we say that 
 if we are to have any future at all it shall be one of 
 financial affluence or of intelligent enjoyment. 
 Our desire may be ineffective if our ideal is not 
 based upon a reasoned consideration of the con- 
 ditions in which we live ; but in some sense we may 
 truly say that our plans influence our future. 
 
 Now just as our present wishes influence our 
 individual futures, so the wishes of the past have 
 moulded the present. And as far back as we 
 choose to look we shall find this same influence at 
 work. There are laws to be discovered too. The 
 desire of the Athenians for liberty made the Athens 
 of Socrates : that again civilized Rome and the 
 Roman admiration for oi'der made Europe one. 
 To understand such influences is a help in under- 
 standing how our plans of reform will probably be 
 most effective. For, to give one instance of a 
 general conclusion which may be drawn, no ideal 
 has ever been achieved in the exact form in which 
 it was at first conceived. 
 
 ^ An example may be found in the effort to form work- 
 men's unions in the fourteenth century, an effort continu- 
 ally resisted by Parliament and King, cf. 34 Edward III. 
 c. 9, ' totes alliances & covignes des Maceons & Carpenters 
 & congregacions Chapitres ordinances & sermentz entre cux 
 faite ou affaires soient desore anientiz & anullez de tout'.
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 19 
 
 Method of History of Ideals. 
 
 But how can we study an ideal ? It seems 
 intangible — as beautiful perhaps as a rainbow, 
 but as difficult to grasp, always moving away 
 from us as we approach the place where it 
 seemed to be. Again, an ideal is the subject- 
 matter for so much rhetoric that nearly every ideal 
 is obscured by the praise which has been bestowed 
 upon it. And yet I think we may be able so to 
 concentrate our attention upon the effects of an 
 ideal that we may in the end appreciate what it 
 meant to those whom first it moved. We can 
 discover what extinct animals once existed on the 
 earth by the study of fossils, and there are fossils 
 left by past ideals in the midst of the common earth 
 of present custom. These fossils are to be found in 
 language. Many a word which was once the body 
 of an enthusiasm, the shell of a passion, has become 
 only a commonplace. Take, for example, words like 
 Liberty or Fraternity : one is still almost living, 
 the other has become rather vague and stilted. 
 But even Liberty has not that vigorous life in it 
 which it once had, except perhaps in the mouth of 
 some enthusiast who has not yet become petrified 
 into a politician. 'Liberty ' in the majority of 
 public speeches has become a commonplace which 
 has to be brought in, which may be given a con- 
 ventional reverence, but which is in most cases 
 only an empty sound. Every one says ' Liberty ' : 
 and when every one says it, no one means any- 
 thing very definite by it. Words were invented to 
 express disagreement, and their best days are over 
 when no one hates them ; for when no one hates 
 a word, no one loves it passionately. Men in the 
 B2
 
 20 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 past have died for this Liberty which has become 
 a conventional sound. To use it then was to feel 
 deeply : to use it now is to be merely polite. Yet 
 taking the word as we find it now we may discover 
 in it one at least of the forces that have brought 
 our present out of the past. 
 
 Here, then, the word is the concrete object which 
 we may study as indicating the past still alive in 
 the present. The life it has may be attenuated or 
 we may think that it is as strong as ever it was. It 
 may be that it seems less living because it is more 
 hidden by later growth. In that sense the study 
 of a great word is not the study of a fossil but of 
 a living organism : but no one can deny that the 
 life of this organism is less splendid than when the 
 word was a signal for revolution : for now the word 
 ' Liberty ' provokes hardly any annoyance even in 
 the breast of those who are satisfied. 
 
 I mean to indicate, of course, that the starting- 
 point for the study of ideals is the meanitu}, not the 
 sound, of the great word. The mere sound is only 
 the body of the meaning, which is its soul. When 
 I say that we must learn what men meant by using 
 the word Liberty, or Nationalism, or Empire, I intend 
 to refer to the passion which first formed the word. 
 By understanding that we shall understand the 
 force which went to make the present different from 
 what the past was : and then, if the meaning of 
 Liberty or Nationalism is not quite gone, we shall 
 in the end discover what makes the present change 
 into a future which is better. For I am supposing 
 also that if the meaning has not quite gone out of 
 such words they may be still effective as forces in 
 politics . We see them shaping history, less powerfully 
 perhaps, but not less truly than they did long ago.
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 21 
 
 This sort of history is very different from that of 
 date-and-fact because the meaning of a great word 
 is best understood hy feeling it, not by remember- 
 ing its definition, and no one can test feeling by 
 asking questions. But in proportion as this 
 history is impossible for the mere memory, so it is 
 useful in the common life of the world. Memory 
 may be cultivated when one is young, but feeling 
 is more important in mature life : for if a man feels 
 what once moved his forefathers he is the more 
 likely to be filled with the sort of feeling which 
 destroys the evil of the present and creates the 
 good of the future. Thus, once again, the purpose 
 of the history of ideals is not to impress facts upon 
 the mind, but to express the movement of desires 
 so that these desires shall be felt. If the subject- 
 matter is a passion, only passion (however small, so 
 it be genuine) will be the means of appreciating it. 
 If we would discover what moved men and what 
 still moves them, we must ourselves be moved : 
 and by way of avoiding an empty and facile emotion 
 we may assert that ' being moved ' in this sense 
 must indicate 'being excited to action '. I do not 
 suppose that the emotion, if we can call it so, which 
 is only a passive admiration, or even a wordy 
 enthusiasm, is any guide ; for those who made the 
 present by using such a word as liberty, were not 
 those who sentimentalized about liberty, but those 
 who acted. So also the word must move one to 
 some action before one can appreciate its real 
 force. 
 
 So much for the method in general, now as to the 
 plan to be adopted : we shall have to take the 
 present as our starting-point in order to avoid 
 speaking of dead bones. We shall have to find the
 
 22 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 past which is in the present living, not that which 
 lis dead and buried. The study of the dead past 
 has its place, of course, since it is by no means quite 
 certain that any atom of it is quite dead. It is the 
 office of some scholars to dig up even the buried 
 past and make the dead bones live, or rather to 
 show that even they have some spark of immor- 
 tality in them. But our purpose here is simply to 
 take what is living in every one's mouth, the great 
 word, or that which appeals to every one's feeling, 
 the great idea. We shall take this and say of it 
 how it comes to have the value or importance it 
 now has. We shall take the words recognized even 
 by the self-seeking politician as sacred, and say of 
 them how they hold that strange aroma which 
 spreads from them even into the vulgar phrases of 
 a demagogue's rhetoric. 
 
 Ever since Darwin wrote it has been granted 
 that one can understand an object very well by 
 discovering its origin. ^ Even the parents of a great 
 man nowadays are given more than a few lines in 
 the great man's biography. In old days the bio- 
 grapher dismissed them with a curt remark, such 
 as that they were ' poor but respectable ' ; now, 
 however, we seem to understand even the excep- 
 tional genius better by hearing of his parentage in 
 detail. So of the great ideal — the great word and 
 its inner meaning : we shall take it as used at 
 present and attempt to express what it meant 
 when it first became a motive force. Our starting- 
 point will be the present, which calls for explana- 
 
 1 Aristotle knew that, but Darwin is more popular as 
 an authority nowadays. ' He who considers things in 
 their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything 
 else, will obtain the clcarost view of them.' Pol. i. 2. 1.
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 23 
 
 tion ; and we shall next discover the birth-place of 
 each ideal and follow its history thence. 
 
 Thus, looking back, we shall find that Liberty 
 reminds us of Athens, Order of Rome, that the 
 Unity of Mankind was the ideal of the Middle Ages, 
 -and the Independence of States that of the Re- 
 naissance. But according to our plan it is not 
 ancient Athens that attracts our chief attention : 
 it is that element of Athenian Liberty existing in 
 present life which will be studied. Not ancient 
 Rome, but the Roman Order which lies behind our 
 modern system of government, will be our interest : 
 and so also of Mediaeval Unity and Renaissance 
 Sovereignty. The nouns, not the adjectives, are 
 to be our chief concern : for the adjectives are 
 merely descriptive of the origin of the great Ideal. 
 They are, as it were, the family names of the Ideal ; 
 and the individuals of these families, which we are 
 to study, are at present alive. 
 
 The purpose must be remembered also, or we 
 shall be misled into detail. We are to find what 
 Liberty now means by finding what it first meant, 
 but this is only in order to discover what more it 
 may yet mean. And so also of Order, Unity, or 
 Nationalism — they have meant in the past what has 
 made them mean what they do mean in the present. 
 But we do not intend to define the words, we intend 
 to use them ; and if they are still of use their mean- 
 ings will change. We must therefore have our eye 
 upon what more we can make of Order, Unity, and 
 Nationalism. To express it in metaphor, the age 
 of a tree can be seen by the rings, the marks of 
 years, in the section of its trunk. So each ideal 
 marks a stage in the development of our present 
 civilization : and it is as we find them now that we
 
 24 THE HISTOEY OF IDEALS 
 
 must first considei- the marks. But if the tree is 
 still living, these rings themselves change some- 
 what, for the tree grows in height as well as in bulk. 
 The achievement of the past, formed by the desires 
 of the past, make first the stability of the present 
 and next the force of its future growth. 
 
 I suppose it to be admitted that 'politics and 
 history are only different as parts of the same 
 study ', and that ' politics are vulgar when they 
 are not liberalized by history, and history fades 
 into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation 
 to politics ' ^ — much as we must all disagree with 
 the implied slight to literature : or again, as Sidg- 
 wick says, ' history is past politics and politics 
 present history '.^ Thus the central interest in 
 what is to follow must be not the record of facts 
 but the statement of problems ; and no issue that 
 is stated will be supposed to be altogether obsolete, 
 for we still hardly know what Order and Liberty and 
 Nationalism and Imperialism maybe made to mean. 
 
 The History of Ideals is the History of Civilization. 
 
 It is implied in what has been so far said that 
 although history at large may be so conceived, it is 
 with the history of Western Civilization that I pro- 
 pose to deal.^ The problem which needs explana- 
 tion is the political situation in the nations which 
 
 1 Seeley, Exf. of England, p. 193. This is, of course, 
 only true in a very vague sense ; for obviously a knowledge 
 of past fact does not really give any ground for ethical 
 judgement. 
 
 ^ Devd. of European Polity, p. 4. 
 
 ^ I am inclined to agree that ' Western ' is not different 
 from ' Eastern ' in fundamental nature, but only in that 
 the principles (universal and human) discovered by the 
 Greelis have been applied in Europe and not, in the past.
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 25 
 
 belong to the European tradition — that is to say, 
 in Western Europe and its dependencies, and in 
 North and South America. With respect to this 
 I do not propose to speak of the many subjects of 
 disagreement in this political life, for what seems 
 to be no less remarkable are the things which are 
 taken for granted. Free Trade may be opposed to 
 Protection or there may be disagreement as to the 
 utility of State ownership of land ; but no one 
 disputes that Liberty or Order is desirable. And 
 further, although I shall have to speak in the later 
 chapters of desires that seem to be by no means 
 generally felt, such desires as are implied in the 
 words 'Imperialism' or 'Socialism', it seems to 
 me that even in those cases there is an underhdng 
 agreement among the majority of thinking men. 
 The actual programmes of parties calling them- 
 selves Imperial or Socialistic are indeed contro- 
 verted ; but Mth those I shall not deal. Rather 
 I propose to speak of the desire underlying and 
 sometimes misrepresented, or at least very crudely 
 expressed, in the programme of the party. Thus 
 many may be understood to be moved by what 
 moves ' Imperialists ' and yet they may by no 
 means agree to ' Imperial policy ' : and many by no 
 means ' Socialists ' may desire very much the same 
 sort of situation hoped for in professed Socialism. 
 But if I restrict my subject-matter to European 
 I do not restrict it to English or even to Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization.! For it seems to me an un- 
 
 outside. The change in Japan and China shows how 
 Aristotelian and even Platonic conceptions of politics 
 fit ' Eastern ' facts. Cf. E. R. Bevan, House of Selencus, 
 quoted below. 
 
 1 Buckle is half dissatisfied with the narrowness of his own
 
 26 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 
 
 warrantable abstraction to divide the ideals of 
 England from those of France or Germany. We 
 may have our local difficulties and our local 
 solutions, but our civilization is genuinely one, 
 whether we live in London, Berlin, Paris, or New 
 York. The conception we have of civilized life is 
 almost the same, and we are certainly moved by 
 the same inheritance. Even if oar fathers were 
 different, our teachers were the same. The thought 
 of all European countries, even since the develop- 
 ment of different national literatures, has travelled 
 in the same channel. The distinction of languages, 
 indeed, has never obliterated the identity of 
 political terms or even that of the names for ideals. 
 Thus it is as well to regard the larger political issues 
 as 'international'. 
 
 We tend to think of politics in a provincial 
 manner. We speak as though the British Con- 
 stitution were a mysterious creation, the credit for 
 which rests with us because our grandfathers are 
 dead and cannot claim it. We seldom recognize 
 how much we owe to the labour and genius of other 
 races than our own in ages when the inhabitants 
 of these islands were savages : and yet, to any one 
 who knows the evidence, it is clear that we owe 
 much more to Athens of the fifth century before 
 Christ than to the barons of Magna Charta. The 
 average politician thinks that other nations are 
 adopting our admirable Constitution when they 
 are simply applying the discoveries of Athens and 
 Rome : ^ and since the rhetoric is generally more 
 untrammelled the more ignorant the rhetorician, 
 
 subject-matter (i. 232). He is fantastically provincial in his 
 
 idea of English civilization being 'worked out by ourselves'. 
 
 * Of course I do not mean that there is no imitation :
 
 THE HISTORY OF IDEALS 27 
 
 there is much waste of breath over the excellences 
 of our political gifts. 
 
 Our histor)^ is as provincial as our politics. We 
 can hardly see the great men who are not our 
 immediate relatives^ because we look at them 
 through the eyes of our grandfathers and count 
 them just so great as they seemed to our local 
 wiseacres. We know Boethius because Alfred 
 translated him : we know Hildebrand because 
 William, our local Conqueror, was rude to him. 
 Thus all perspective is lost, and the development 
 of our village street seems more interesting than the 
 greater forces which, almost unseen, transformed 
 it. I do not say that all men will find interest in 
 a wider interpretation of history. There are some 
 who cannot even count as real what they ' cannot 
 measure with a two-foot rule ' : and I should be 
 the last to decry local patriotism. But when local 
 patriotism becomes provincialized history and vil- 
 lage politics, it seems pure comedy. 
 
 To conceive politics more greatly and to depro- 
 vincialize history is to give some sort of new mean- 
 ing and value to our own lives. For history is not 
 over and in politics we are making it : and even if 
 all human history is only a tragedy of good inten- 
 tions, the fifth act still remains unwritten. So 
 conceived history will be made something more 
 than the luxury of a scholar. It will be the in- 
 spiration of the honest politician : it will be the 
 real basis for criticism of the present and modifi- 
 cation of the future. It will be then recognized to 
 be what it really is — the biography of ideals. 
 
 for imitation is one of the motive forces in history. Cf. 
 the classical treatment in Tarde and in McDoiigall.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 The Athenian Ideal. 
 
 Having given an account of the expulsion of 
 tyrants from Athens, Herodotus continues : ' It 
 is plain enough, not only from this instance, but 
 from many every where, that equality is an excellent 
 thing ; since even the Athenians, who while they 
 continued under the rule of tyrants were not 
 a whit more valiant than any of their neighbours, 
 no sooner shook off the yoke than they became 
 decidedly the first of all. This shows that while 
 they were oppressed they allowed themselves to 
 be beaten, because they worked for a master : 
 but so soon as they won their liberty, each man 
 was eager to do the best he could for himself.' ^ 
 
 It is a far cry from these words of Herodotus 
 to Mill on ' Liberty ', but the ideal implied is 
 the same. Not only is liberty the basis of civilized 
 life, but the progress of civilization depends on 
 a development of personal independence and 
 local autonomy. So that the Athenian ideal is 
 not a thing achieved once for all, which we may 
 accept and rejoice in : it is still an ideal because, 
 although we have much more than even the 
 
 ■* Herod, v. 78 5t]\oi Si ov kut' (v /j.owov, dWa vavraxri, 
 J7 larjyopir] aiy eari xP^A*" crrrovSarov . . . then follows the ex- 
 planation of the 'equality' — iXtvOtpuOivTcuv 5t avro? i'/fnaTos 
 (wvtIv TTpoOvfxieTO KaTfpyd^faOai.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 29 
 
 Athenians had, there is .still more to be attained. 
 Thus liberty remains a word of power, and all 
 parties agree that we must preserve and develop 
 whatever amount of it we have acquired. 
 
 Since our purpose is to study, not the details 
 of archaeology, but that element of the past 
 which lives in the present, we must begin by 
 looking about us in this much older world for the 
 reality which was once called Athenian liberty. 
 We shall find it no doubt somewhat transformed, 
 as the grown man is the child transformed, but 
 we shall be able to recognize it none the less. 
 In the current use of the word liberty, both as 
 a valuable possession to be defended and as 
 something to be increased and developed, we 
 shall find the political fact which must be explained 
 by going back to Athens of the fifth century 
 before our era. But we must begin by a summary 
 statement of what the word now means ; and for 
 this purpose it is best to put aside any rhetorical 
 distinctions between true and false liberty. I take 
 it that ' false ' liberty is not liberty at all. 
 
 Two Sorts of Political Liberty. 
 
 Political liberty has two phases. It involves, 
 first, the independence of the group to which we 
 belong and is opposed to w'hat is popularly known 
 as foreign domination ; and in the second place 
 it implies that each individual is able to do what 
 seems best to him. In the first place it implies 
 the mutual independence of groups, at least, in 
 the decision of political issues. We have this, 
 independence in England, France, and Germany ; 
 we regard it as desirable and as something to be 
 maintained and developed.
 
 30 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 Autonomy or Liberty of the Group. 
 
 Liberty of the group is regarded as the basis for 
 all natural development of the country or the race. 
 We take this for granted. For no civilized race 
 will endure foreign domination, however admirable 
 its governors may be ; and even uncivilized races 
 have usually to be persuaded by force of superior 
 arms to accept guidance from those who are eager 
 to govern them for their own good. There is 
 a natural and primitive prejudice against foreign 
 domination which in a civilized race becomes 
 the conscious desire for political independence. 
 The gi'oup regards itself as a developing organism 
 which must have free play for its own abilities 
 and untrammelled opportunity for expressing its 
 own characteristics. I am speaking, as it were, 
 from the inside of any group, for not seldom 
 a group which demands liberty for itself denies 
 it to others. The outside view of a group may 
 induce a more powerful group, not only to conquer 
 the smaller, but even to believe that such conquest 
 is good for the smaller. I am not now speaking 
 of that issue. The fact remains that every group 
 regards political independence as good for itself. 
 
 Liberty of the Individual. 
 
 As regards liberty of the individual I need not 
 repeat what Mill has said. We take it for granted 
 that a fully developed human being knows best 
 what is good for him. We all agree that the 
 adult individual should not be treated as a child, 
 and that he should not be governed against his 
 own will even for his OAvn good. Thus, liberty 
 is still opposed to tyranny or caste-go vernment.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 31 
 
 It implies: (1) 'absence of physical coercion or 
 confinement,' and (2) ' absence of moral restraint 
 placed on inclination by the fear of painful 
 consequences resulting from the action of other 
 human beings'.^ 
 
 8uch, in summary form, is the political liberty 
 which we now regard as valuable. What we have 
 of it we desire to keep, and we still hope to have 
 more of it : that is to say, that liberty is an ideal 
 in the sense I have explained above. 
 
 Athenian Origin of Political Ideals of Liberty. 
 
 The source of this conception is to be found 
 in Athens. Other cities before had resisted con- 
 querors, but none had risen to a clear idea of what 
 they were doing. Other cities had contrived to 
 exist by allowing independence to the individual • 
 citizen, but none took a pride in it or developed ' 
 it into so elaborate a system. Liberty of this sort 
 is clearly another name for democracy,^ and we 
 know how little that word was held in honour at 
 the end of the Athenian greatness. Yet in the ^ 
 days of her decadence Pausanias, the average man t- ^ 
 surveying the ruins of a greater past, remarks ^l^j^ 
 that ' no people yet has flourished under democracy 
 except only Athens. They certainly flourished, 
 for they had much intelligence.' ^ Long ago, 
 therefore, it was held that the liberty to which 
 Athens attained was an exceptional state, which 
 it was difficult to reach or to maintain. 
 
 We must, therefore, discover as far as possible 
 
 * Sidgwick, Elements, p. 41. 
 
 ^ Thus in Aristotle's Politics ' liberty ' is the basis of 
 democracy as 'wealth' is of oligarchy (iii. 8. 7). The same 
 is implied in many other passages (iv. 8. 7 ; v. 1. 3, &c.). 
 
 * Pausanias, iv. 35. 5.
 
 32 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 the characteristic features of this liberty, since, 
 although other nations had attained independence 
 before and many have attained it since, Athenian 
 liberty was of quite a unique kind. In great 
 part the evidence for it is to be found in trite 
 passages of Aeschylus, Thucydides, or Isocrates, 
 and I shall not attempt to bring forward any new 
 evidence in this regard ; but the historians who 
 have interpreted Athenian political life have often 
 failed to set out clearly what seems to divide that 
 life from almost all others. On this peculiar 
 feature, then, I shall rely for the main interest in 
 the present argument, and I shall repeat only in 
 summary form what has already many times 
 been said as to the local autonomy and the indi- 
 vidual independence in Athens. These usual 
 features of political liberty are to be found there ; 
 but far more important is the fact that Athenian 
 liberty was productive. It was a freedom of the 
 ^mind from the trivial cares of food and clothing, 
 ^a turning of many if not of most Athenians to- 
 wards art and science, and it had a result which 
 has not yet been surpassed even among those more 
 wealthy or powerful nations which have prided 
 themselves on their liberty. That liberty of this 
 kind should be called political may be unusual ; 
 but it is justified by a non-economic idea of 
 the nature of politics. I turn, however, first to 
 the features of Athenian liberty that are ordinarily 
 acknowledged. 
 
 Athenian Autonomy. 
 
 As against foreign domination what Athens 
 stood for may be judged, first, from the position 
 that Herodotus assigns to her. His history is
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 33 
 
 largely concerned with the struggle of Hellas 
 against Eastern despotism ; and in that struggle 
 he is forced by facts to acknowledge that Athens 
 was pre-eminent. He recognizes that to say so 
 at the date of his writing would seem audacious, 
 for Athens had already many foes among the 
 peoples whose freedom she had originally secured. 
 Yet he says, ' If a man should say that Athens I 
 was the saviour of Hellas, he would not exceed | 
 the truth : for they, next to the gods, repulsed ^ 
 the invader '.^ Thus also the ' games of Liberty ' '■ 
 {Eleutheria) were instituted at Plataea to com- 
 memorate the Liberty of Greece on the sugges- 
 tion of the Athenian statesman Aristides.^ And 
 Aristotle, teaching in the Lyceum, held that i 
 * Hellenes do not like to call themselves slaves, j 
 but confine the term to barbarians ', so that ' 
 freedom became to the Greeks the most essential 
 characteristic of their race.^ 
 
 To her own citizens Athens was pre-eminent as 
 the city without a master. Thus Aeschylus, in The 
 Persians, makes the Chorus astonish Atossa by say- 
 ing that the Athenians 'call no man their master','* . 
 and indeed the whole of the play is one song 
 of triumph over the repulse of foreign despotism. 
 The feeling of the time was one of general rejoic- 
 ing at a victory the full meaning of which no 
 Athenian could have realized ; and yet the city was 
 conscious of being almost identified with Liberty. 
 
 Thus also after the Peloponnesian War, which 
 
 ^ Herod, vii. 139 'KOrfvaiovs (Twrrjpai rfjs 'EAAdSos. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Aristides, 21 ; cf. Paus. ix. 12. 6 : ' They 
 still (a. d. 170) celebrate the games of freedom every 
 fourth year.' 
 
 ^iJArist. Pol. i. 6. 6. * Aesch. Persae, 244. 
 
 1782 C
 
 34 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 rent the Greek world, the conception of Athens as 
 the bulwark of Greece against foreign domination 
 remained. To this conception Demosthenes could 
 refer, and to the ancient enthusiasm he could look 
 for at least a transient resistance to Macedon.^ 
 
 Indeed, even before the Macedonian kingdom 
 had become a real danger to Greek independence, 
 Isocrates had sought to re-establish Athens in 
 the minds of his contemporaries as the guardian 
 and champion of liberty. His ' Panegyric ' was 
 written about the year 380 B. c, some twenty 
 years after Athens had been humbled by Sparta, 
 and in it he recites the qualities of his city. Not 
 only, he says, did she secure bare life, but she 
 achieved what makes life worth living. ' After 
 aiding in the accomplishment of the most press- 
 ing duties, Athens did not neglect the rest, but 
 deemed it the first step only in a career of 
 beneficence to find food for those in want, a step 
 which is incumbent on a people which aims at 
 good government. And thinking that life which 
 is limited to mere subsistence is not enough to 
 make men desire to live, she devoted such close 
 attention to the other interests of men that of 
 ; all the benefits which men enjoy, not derived from 
 ■; the gods, but which we owe to our fellow men^ none 
 I have arisen without the help of Athens, and most of 
 i them have been brought about by her agency.' - 
 
 Liberty of the Individual at Athens. 
 
 As for the freedom of the individual with respect 
 to his fellows in the same group, Athens had more 
 difficulty in showing how the State could exist 
 
 ^ The evidence is, of course, in the Philippics. 
 2 Isoc. Pan. 38.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 35 
 
 on such a basis than in replacing by her democratic 
 system the oligarchy or the tyranny. We must 
 remember that the Athenians had to experiment 
 in a form of government which had hardly been 
 attempted before, and that it is because of their 
 experiment, fatal as it was to themselves, that 
 modern nations have been able to erect a more 
 permanent administration than theirs upon what 
 seems the unstable basis of individual liberty. 
 It is the necessity of any originality in politics 
 that an original-minded people should experiment 
 on themselves ; it may turn out to give results 
 beneficial even to them ; but even if their origin- 
 ality is fatal to their permanent happiness, others 
 may owe them an incalculable debt. Such is the 
 case with Athens. 
 
 The first principle of individual liberty was 
 supposed to be the right of each to mind his own 
 business. Thus the supervision of a caste or an 
 individual was abhorrent to the Athenian mind. 
 Tyranny or oligarchy involved spies ; and the • 
 more intelligent or well-intentioned the tyranny, 
 the more universal and annoying was the watch 
 kept over the individual citizen. But the only 
 possibility, it was found, for preserving the right 
 of each to mind his own business was in claiming 
 the right of all to mind the public business. For 
 even if we are governed for our own good, the 
 rational man prefers to risk evil if he can be 
 certain that whatever he suffers is his own fault. 
 A beneficent tyranny is not to be compared even \ 
 with an unsuccessful government that is in our 1 
 own hands. We prefer the risk of suffering evil 
 at our own hands to the continual receipt of 
 benefit at the hands of others, for ' to have 
 C2
 
 36 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 received from one, to whom we think ourselves 
 equal, greater benefits than there is hope to 
 requite, disposeth to counterfeit love ; but really 
 secret hatred. For benefits oblige, and obligation 
 is thraldom ; and unrequitable obligation per- 
 petual thraldom, which is to one's equal hateful.' ^ 
 And this is true if tyranny or oligarchy is successful 
 and beneficent. But in fact neither was ever 
 found to be both competent and unselfish. No 
 one has ever been much concerned about the 
 abstract right which may be supposed to be 
 violated by tyranny or oligarchy : it was because 
 in fact these forms of government were found 
 to lead to positive discomfort that they were 
 opposed. They were destroyed, not because 'man 
 must be free ', or for any such vague interest, 
 but because they were selfish and incompetent 
 methods of government. 
 
 Athenian Liberty was, however, by no means 
 a loosening of the social bonds : for no civilization 
 has ever allowed the individual less power of 
 standing aloof. Liberty involved both the obli- 
 gation of each to mind the public business and 
 the absolute supremacy of state over individual 
 interests. Freedom was never thought to destroy 
 all obedience of the individual, or the superin- 
 tendence of some other power over the individual. 
 Only one kind of obedience is repudiated: that is 
 the obedience to one man (tyranny) or to a group 
 of men (oligarchy). Obedience to the Laws is an 
 essential element in Athenian Liberty, and, with 
 the usual concreteness or definiteness of the Greek 
 imagination, the Laws are continually spoken of 
 as though they were a sort of Super-person. Thus, 
 
 1 Hobbes, Leviathan, i, 2.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 37 
 
 Socrates is addressed by the Laws as a son and 
 a pupil, 1 and in nearly all the speeches of Demos- 
 thenes the Laws are continually brought into court. 
 Undoubtedly the Athenian understood that 
 such reverence for the Laws was an obedience 
 of the lower interests within him to the superior 
 reason in him. ' The diminution of liberty caused 
 by fear of legal penalties may be more than 
 balanced by the simultaneous diminution of 
 private coercion. It may be fairly said that the 
 end of government (and of law) is to promote 
 liberty, so far as governmental coercion prevents 
 worse coercion by private individuals.' ^ These 
 words are in full accord with the spirit of Athenian 
 liberty ; and it is in this sense that Plato says that 
 a man is enslaved if he follow his vices, and is 
 only free when he is absolutely bound by reason.^ 
 So also Aristotle has it : ' Men should not think 
 it slavery to live according to the rule of the 
 constitution ; for it is their salvation.' * 
 
 Liberty of the Mind at Athens. 
 
 But the Liberty of the Athenians was not merely 
 opposed to foreign oppression and the interference 
 of one citizen with another. It involved a certain 
 more subtle liberty which we may call a liberty for 
 non-material interests. To be free of trivial cares, 
 of the mere need for food and shelter, has been pos- 
 sible in many cities ; but few cities have contrived 
 
 ^ Cf. Plato, Crito, p. 51 et seq. 
 
 ■^ Sidgwick, Elements, p. 42. 
 
 ^ Re'p. 511 T) and e. Thus we speak of being enslaved by 
 vice, but not of being enslaved by virtue. 77 rvpavvovixivii 
 dpa ipv^T) TJKiara rroirjaii a av ^ovKt^Ot). 
 
 * Arist, Pol. V. 9. 15.
 
 38 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 to use such freedom. The peculiar quality of 
 Athenian Liberty is that it was productive.^ 
 
 As Matthew Arnold pointed out long ago, it is 
 of little importance to have liberty if we do not 
 know what to do with it.^ That every man should 
 be free to go his own way is no gain to any one 
 , if no one knows which way to go. Thus, it is 
 ; quite clear that liberty is a means and not an end. 
 ' The trouble generally begins when the individual 
 has freedom ; his struggle for freedom is com- 
 paratively simple. And many minds which are 
 competent to understand the evil of compulsion 
 are not competent to use liberty. For to attain 
 liberty requires goodwill, but to use it one needs 
 intelligence ; and good intentions are considerably 
 more common than knowledge. 
 
 We must notice, then, that the liberty of Athens 
 resulted : (1) in a general interest in art and 
 science ; and (2) in actual productions. The 
 interest in such subjects is not to be neglected 
 when we are considering the productions of 
 genius ; for the majority make the intellectual 
 atmosphere, although the few only are able to 
 show results. One does not like to make unkind 
 comparisons, but was the interest of England 
 after Trafalgar and Waterloo in the direction of 
 art or science ? It seems it was more concerned 
 with the comforts of the home and the size of 
 individual incomes. Perhaps, however, the con- 
 trast is unfair, for, I admit, the issues are more 
 
 ^ Of. E. Barker, Pol. Thought of Plato and Arist.,-p. 11, &c. 
 The State was a ' moral ' (aesthetic and intellectual) 
 association. The purpose of the State was not different 
 from the highest purpose of the individual, hence no 
 contrast of rights. 
 
 ^ Culture and Anarchy, ch. ii, ' Doing as one likes'.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 39 
 
 complex than such a comparison would imply. 
 And yet we must not suppose that military 
 success always results in intelligent interests 
 among a people, or worthy productions of genius. 
 It is, therefore, of immense importance that 
 Athenian Liberty was productive ; and the 
 Athenians themselves knew that this was its 
 chief quality. Thus the speech of Pericles 
 represents, in a sublimated form, but quite truly 
 in the main, the accepted grounds for the pride 
 of the Athenian in his city. 'We support art,' | 
 he says, 'but with a certain restraint, and we ^ 
 support science without becoming unmanly.' ^ 
 That was written many years before our present 
 advanced civilization ; but we still barbarously 
 test the greatness of nations by the size of their 
 armaments. Athens was to her citizens something 
 more than a military power, and the best among 
 them at least could see how much more had been 
 won than the mere freedom from foreign domina- 
 tion and internal oppression. Indeed, the history i 
 of Athens is more concerned with artists, poets, | 
 and philosophers than has been the history of i 
 any other city ; and that in spite of the very 
 short period in which she had real political 
 liberty. Within that short period nearly all the 
 Athenian interest was turned in the direction of 
 art and science. At Salamis the Athenians se- 
 cured their final victory against foreign domina- 
 tion ; and it is interesting to connect with that 
 battle the names of the three great dramatists 
 who made Athenian Liberty productive. Aeschylus 
 of Eleusis, thirty-five years old when he fought 
 at Marathon, was probably on the ship of his 
 1 Thuc. ii. 42.
 
 40 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 brother Aminias who led the fleet against the 
 Persians.^ Out of what he saw and felt he made 
 the great Epic drama The Persians. Sophocles, 
 of Colonus, was chosen for his personal beauty to 
 lead the chorus of public thanksgiving for the 
 victory. Euripides was born in Salamis itself, in 
 the year and, some said, on the very day of the 
 great battle. The closeness of the connection be- 
 tween the three great dramatists and the crown- 
 ing victory may be a mere coincidence ; but it 
 is an indication of the sort of men who had free 
 play for their genius in free Athens. Other cities 
 have won such victories over foreign invaders, but 
 none have used their victory so well. And this 
 is not simply rhetorical praise by a person living 
 after the evils of Athens have disappeared. I do 
 not pretend that the years which followed Salamis 
 were a golden age ; but I say that, in spite of 
 many evils, Athens had won something of the 
 value of which her own citizens were conscious. 
 
 Socrates is prosecuted and condemned by his 
 fellows, and yet he makes the Laws of Athens say 
 to him, 'You had seventy years in which you 
 might have gone away, if you had been dissatisfied. 
 But you preferred neither Lacedaemon nor Crete, 
 though you were fond of saying that they are 
 well governed, nor any other state, either of the 
 Hellenes or the Barbarians. You went away 
 from Athens less than the lame and the bhnd 
 and the crippled. Clearly you, more than other 
 Athenians, were satisfied with the city.'^ He 
 prefers to die in Athens rather than Uve an exile 
 elsewhere ; with the voice of Athens in his ears 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 84. Aeschylus refers to it in Persae, 411, 
 "^ Crito, p. 52.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY. 41 
 
 he cannot escape from her enchanting presence 
 even with death to startle him.^ Such was 
 Athens to the most uncompromising of all her 
 citizens : and to him the life that was not reasoned 
 was not worthy to be lived by man. 
 
 Not only was Athenian liberty a continual in- 
 terest and effort in the direction of art and thought, 
 but no other people has ever produced in so 
 short a time such great achievements in archi- 
 tecture, sculpture, drama, and philosophy. This 
 was attained, not by a favom-ed few, but by 
 a large proportion of the inhabitants. 'This is 
 why the spectacle of ancient Athens has such 
 profound interest for a rational man, that it is 
 the spectacle of the culture of a people. It is 
 not an aristocracy leavening with its own high 
 spirit the multitude which it wields, but leaving 
 it the unformed multitude still ; it is not a demo- 
 cracy, acute and energetic, but tasteless, narrow- 
 minded and ignoble ; it is the lower and middle 
 classes in the highest development of their 
 humanity that these classes have yet revealed. 
 It was the many who relished those arts, who 
 were not satisfied with less than those monuments. 
 In the conversations recorded by Plato, or even 
 by the matter-of-fact Xenophon, which for the 
 free yet refined discussion of ideas have set the 
 tone of the whole cultivated world, shopkeepers 
 and tradesmen of Athens mingle as speakers. 
 For any one but a pedant, this is why a handful 
 of Athenians of two thousand years ago are more 
 interesting than the millions of most nations our 
 contemporaries.'^ 'So far', wrote Isocrates two 
 
 * Ibid., p. 54 ; cf. ApoL, p. 37. 
 ^ Matthew Arnold, Democracy,
 
 42 ATHENIAN LIBEETY 
 
 tlioiLsand years ago, 'has Athens left behind her 
 the rest of mankind in thought and expression 
 that her pupils have become the teachers of the 
 ■ world, and she has made the name of Hellas dis- 
 ] tinctive no longer of a race, but of intellect, and 
 I the title of Hellene a badge of education rather 
 *; than of common descent.' ^ I need not count the 
 many results which Athens has left us in archi- 
 tecture, sculpture, drama, philosophy, and political 
 theory. Indeed, a book on ideals in politics must 
 naturally begin with the work done in Athens by 
 Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 The Athenian Philosophers on Liberty. 
 
 Such a guiding ideal must be found reflected 
 in the great political philosophy of Athens. But 
 although Plato and Aristotle belong to their 
 time as much as Rousseau to his, their interests 
 are more universal, and therefore their rendering 
 of the ideal is combined with the expression of 
 many different principles of political science. We 
 must therefore confine oiir attention to the single 
 conception of liberty, and avoid the discussion 
 of the whole political philosophy of Plato or of 
 Aristotle. Athens was under the ej^es of these 
 two, and each in his own way reacted to the 
 popularly received view of what was valuable 
 in political life.^ I take them now as coming after, 
 not as shaping, the ideal. 
 
 Plato was hardly likely to reflect the Athenian 
 ideal of liberty, since he was impressed chiefly 
 by the abuse of individualism in the democracy .^ 
 
 ^ Iso. PaiL, p. 50. 
 
 - Barker, loc. cit., p. 13. Of course, Sparta by contrast, 
 but Athens they really knew. ^ Barker, loc. cit., p. 117.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 43 
 
 He desires to subordinate the individual to an 
 organic whole, the State, and to detach the citizen 
 from allegiance to any other organization. But 
 he is, nevertheless, much concerned to show that 
 according to his scheme the citizen enjoys 'true' 
 liberty ; and indeed, from one point of view, the 
 purpose of Plato in the Republic is not so much 
 to secure Order as to secure that liberty by which 
 every citizen may perform the function for which 
 he is best fitted. Liberty is no longer, then, the 
 bare ability to do as one likes, such as the popular 
 Athenian view implied. It is now the doing of 
 what one can do best. Thus ' it is right for a man 
 whom nature intended for a shoemaker to confine 
 himself to shoemaking, and so on ' ; ^ and again, 
 ' every individual ought to have some one occupa- 
 tion in the State, which should be that to which 
 his natural capacity is best adapted'.^ To limit 
 yom'self by your special ability is not, says Plato, 
 bondage, but liberty of function ; as opposed to 
 the democratic man's assertion ' that all appetites 
 are alike and ought to be equally respected '.^ 
 
 The liberty of the Platonic ideal State, then, is 
 not Athenian Liberty in so far as this was undi- 
 rected or inconsistently maintained by popular 
 opinion ; but it would not be a paradox to say 
 that only in Athens could the conception have 
 arisen of 'freedom to exercise function'. In one 
 sense, therefore, it is Athenian Liberty which is 
 reflected in Plato's mind ; but the tangled and 
 noisome jungle of fact is in that clear water 
 reflected as an intricate and perfect design, 
 Sparta may have seemed to him better ordered ; 
 but he could not avoid the Athenian tendency 
 
 ' Rep. 443 b. - Ibid. 433 a. ' Ibid. G61a.
 
 U ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 to diversification. His intention was military 
 arrangement to secm:e civic individuality, an im- 
 possible combination. But the purpose always 
 kept him Athenian in spite of the Spartan means 
 he suggested. 
 
 Aristotle, on the other hand, being less moved 
 by the evils which Plato observed, in the fate of 
 his Master and in the incompetence of unspecialized 
 government, is more able to see the advantage 
 of even that crude liberty which was attained in 
 Athens. He is more critical of Spartan order and 
 is clear that a State is not an army precisely in 
 that a State has the greatest diversification of 
 individual functions. 
 
 Liberty in Aristotle is a recorded fact rather 
 than a pure ideal. It is opposed to slavery.^ It 
 means to the ordinary man ' doing as one likes ' : 
 but that is wrong. ^ And we must notice that 
 Aristotle does not put a philosophic view in contrast 
 with this popular view, but rather shows that the 
 popular view does not in fact render the actual 
 conception of what liberty is as judged from 
 actions — even popular actions. That is, he says, 
 Hberty is what you do, not what you say you do ; 
 but you do not do as you Uke : you obey the 
 constitution. ' Many practices which appear to 
 be democratical are really the ruin of democracies.'^ 
 The liberty which keeps the State going is in 
 
 * Cf. Barker, op. cit., p. 354. I do not see why the author 
 always speaks as though ' to the modern mind ' liberty 
 must mean ' non-interference by the State '. That is 
 the ' Individualist ' mind only and it is not peculiarly 
 modern. Socialism is more modem and much more 
 widespread outside of academic circles. But here is an 
 example of how political theory is different from political 
 idealism. - Arist. Po^. 1310 a. 'Ibid. 1309 6.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 45 
 
 obedience to the laws. But this is obviously that 
 Athenian Liberty so much praised by rhetoricians. 
 And next the peculiar quality of such a liberty 
 is in the proportional equality of every citizen as 
 against every other : and this, too, takes a promi- 
 nent place in Aristotle's conception of the State. 
 ' When men are equal they are contented.' ^ That is 
 to say, preponderant power of one or a small clique 
 is a political evil and the ideal which supplies the 
 felt want is equality. But this is simply a state- 
 ment at the end of its history of that Athenian 
 Liberty which Herodotus praised in its beginning. 
 
 Critical Estimate of Athenian Liberty. 
 
 But there has never been a golden age. History 
 is not a mere rhapsody on the good old times, and 
 men have never in any age achieved all that was 
 implied even in the ideal they accepted and the 
 end for which they worked. Always there has 
 been much evil along with the good. 
 
 The Athenian Liberty which reached its fullest 
 development in the fifth century before our era 
 was preserved in its finest flower for only about 
 fifty years. Athens at her best was full of slaves.^ 
 There was no political freedom for women. ^ 
 
 1 Arist. Pol. 1306 6.. 
 
 * But it is proved that the great works of art were not 
 the result of slave labour ; cf. Zimmern, Greek Common- 
 wealth, p. 393. It is calculated (p. 170) that about 35,000 
 inhabitants had complete freedom and managed the State, 
 and that there were about 100,000 slaves and 250,000 free 
 men in Attica, counting the whole population as between 
 425,000 and 310,000 (ibid., p. 173). As for treatment of 
 slaves, which was better in Athens than in some modern 
 countries, cf. p. 378 et seq. 
 
 " But this was the rule in the world then, and Athens was
 
 46 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 The distress of disease and poverty was not 
 less evident than it is among us. The continual 
 danger of war and the deficiency of intellect or 
 honesty among politicians made Athens no 
 splendid city of dreams, but a sober enough reality, 
 not very unlike that of which we are now aware. 
 The attainment of group independence did not 
 make foreign politics any more noble or idealistic 
 in Athens ; and the independence of individuals 
 within the city was often a mere excuse for 
 unbridled egoism and savage jealousy. Athenian 
 civilization at its best was very close to barbarism. 
 
 Liberty itself was obstructed. The right of all 
 to mind the public business was made a cover for 
 the interference of each man with his neighbour. 
 We hear of innumerable sycophants and public 
 informers ; and Socrates himself suffered death, 
 not from a hostile oligarchy, but from a democracy 
 which was suspicious of any man who seemed 
 exceptional. 
 
 And agaiii, as Plato saw, 'the souls of the 
 citizens are rendered so sensitive as to be indignant 
 and impatient at the smallest symptom of slavery. 
 For surely you are aware that they end by making 
 light of the laws themselves, whether statute or 
 customary, in order that, as they say, they may not 
 have the shadow of a master.' Then follows the 
 Nietzschean gospel of the liberty of the Superman, 
 defined as any one who is able to make his own 
 taste his only law, and 'thus excessive freedom is 
 unlikely to pass into anything but excessive 
 
 better, if anything, than other cities. A few had freedom, 
 and at least the freedom of women was freely discussed. 
 Cf. Plato's Rep. v, and the jokes on ' Votes for Women ' 
 in Aristophanes.
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 47 
 
 slavery, and democracy lays the foundation of 
 despotism'.^ All which, exaggerated as it is 
 by the aristocratic Plato, is based upon the 
 historical fact that the constitutional limits to 
 individual liberty were never realized in Athens. 
 ' Man should not think it liberty', says Aristotle, 
 ' to refuse to submit to the constitution, for it is 
 their salvation,' ^ but they evidently did so think 
 it in many instances. 
 
 Further, the liberty of all led directly to the 
 cult of incompetence.^ The 'democratic man ' of 
 Plato 'maintains that all appetites are alike and 
 ought to be equally respected ' ; * as the advocate 
 of individual liberty tends either to deny the 
 distinction of quality among individuals, or, 
 worse still, to suppose that those qualities are 
 more valuable which are appreciated by the 
 greatest number of men. Where all are equally 
 free to give their opinion force in directing the 
 policy of their State, no one is willing to admit 
 that one man's opinion is more valuable than 
 another's ; and since the greater number are 
 usually incompetent to judge complex issues, the 
 level of opinion acted upon is generally low. 
 This is all the more dangerous when the liberty 
 of individuals leads them to choose a master. 
 The man chosen by the incompetent is always 
 he who can best be understood ; and the higher 
 qualities are less intelligible. Such, in brief, was 
 the argument of Thucydides and of Plato in looking 
 on at the choice of demagogues like Cleon. Aristo- 
 phanes, too, with his keen perception of political 
 
 ^ Plato, Rep. viii. 563. - Arist. Pol., loc. cit. 
 
 * Cf. fimile Faguet's Cvlte de V Incompetence. 
 ^ Rep. viii. 561.
 
 48 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 issues, makes the choice of leaders the worst 
 result of Athenian Liberty. 
 
 Finally and fatally, Athens would not allow to 
 other groups, over which she had power, the 
 liberty she had found admirable for herself. She 
 was accused, not unjustly, by her allies and her 
 enemies of being a tyrant city. And in the fifth 
 book of Thucydides there is written the eternal 
 condemnation of a city which can refuse autonomy 
 to her dependants when she has prided herself 
 on attaining it for herself. The fall of Athens, in 
 404: B.C., was directly due, not to the liberty she 
 had attained, but to the attempts she made to 
 limit her ideal to herself. There may be no moral 
 in history ; yet one more than half agrees with 
 the Thucydidean conception of a Nemesis over- 
 taking all who refuse to others what they believe 
 most necessary for themselves. Athens won inde- 
 pendence and used it ; and then built upon her 
 achievement an insolent claim to Empire and 
 a vulgar ambition for wealth. 
 
 Conclusion; 
 
 When, however, the worst is said against Athens 
 as it was in reahty, it still remains necessary to 
 understand the ideal wliich was the motive force 
 in all that was accomplished. That ideal we have 
 inherited ; and it will be seen later how it is 
 developed in the programmes of modern Indivi- 
 dualists or Socialists. For we still think that 
 each man should have free development and that 
 all should concern themselves with the business 
 of the State. Thus Athens, even though she 
 failed, even though she became tyrannical and in 
 the end submissive, has left us as much in her
 
 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 49 
 
 political ideal as she has in her works of art. 
 It has been observed that the Athenians were 
 never better off than when the Romans had 
 conquered them ; and indeed the Romans them- 
 selves, in conquering Athens, left her a liberty 
 which they denied to any other city of their domi- 
 nions. ^ Athens thus overcame her conquerors 
 by her ideal ; but it was not Athenian Liberty 
 which she then had. She had only the liberty of 
 a slave to be interested in everything but his own 
 condition ; such liberty as might be allowed to the 
 working-man to pursue art and science so long as he 
 will not trouble about wages. Thus Athens was no 
 longer a city, but only a university town of dilet- 
 tantes, connoisseurs, and phrase- makers; for with- | 
 out Athenian Liberty no great civilization can exist, j 
 
 I have said that my subject is restricted to 
 Western Civilization ; but since for this purpose 
 I have begun the history of political development 
 with a reference to Athens, it may be as well to 
 say that perhaps the subject is really one which 
 concerns all human civilization and not merely 
 that of Europe. I am more than inclined to ' 
 suspect that the principles first embodied con- 
 sciously in the law and government of Athens 
 and Rome are human and not provincial. ' No 
 
 ^ Paus. vii. 17. 2 : ' In a later age, when the Roman 
 Empire devolved on Nero, he took Greece , . . and set 
 it free. . . . But the Greeks could not profit by the boon. 
 For when Nero had been succeeded by Vespasian, they 
 fell out among themselves, and Vespasian commanded that 
 they should again pay tribute and submit to a Governor, 
 the Emperor remarking that Greece had forgotten what 
 it was to be free.' 
 
 The text of Nero's speech above referred to has been 
 found (see BtilUtin de Corr. helUnique, 12, 1888). It is 
 referred to in Frazer's Introd. to Pausanias. 
 
 1782 D
 
 50 ATHENIAN LIBERTY 
 
 antithesis is more frequent in the popular mouth 
 to-day than that between the East and the West, 
 between the European spirit and the Oriental. 
 We are familiar with the superiority, the material 
 supremacy, of European civilization. When, how- 
 ever, we analyse this difierence of the European, 
 when we state what exactly the qualities are in 
 which the Western presents such a contrast to the 
 Oriental, they turn out to be just those which dis- 
 tinguished the ancient Hellene from the Oriental 
 of his day. On the moral side the citizen of the 
 modern European state, like the citizen of the old 
 Greek city, is conscious of a share in the govern- 
 ment, is distinguished from the Oriental by a 
 higher political morality (higher, for all its lapses), 
 a more manly self-reliance, and a greater power 
 of initiative. On the intellectual side it is the 
 critical spirit which lies at the basis of his political 
 sense, of his conquests in the sphere of science, 
 of his sober and mighty Literature, of his body 
 of well-tested ideas, of his power of consequent 
 thought. And whence did the modern European 
 derive these qualities ? The moral part of them 
 springs in large measure from the same source 
 as in the case of the Greeks — political freedom ; 
 the intellectual part of them is a direct legacy from 
 the Greeks. What we call the Western Spirit in our 
 own day is really Hellenism re-incarnate.' ^ Such 
 are the words of an historian who has described 
 the first effects of ' Western ' civilization upon the 
 'East'. And the political freedom to which he re- 
 fers, though faintly present in many Hellenic cities, 
 had no more splendid expression than in Athens. 
 
 1 E. R. Be van. The House of Seleucus, i. 16. The italics 
 are in the original.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 If Law and Order are connected in our minds 
 it is because of Rome. She first made it possible 
 for the multitude of different tribes who were our 
 ancestors to form the present European civiliza- 
 tion, A city at first no greater than Athens, with 
 disadvantages of position for trade and no great 
 genius for art, she discovered for herself the value 
 of settled law and government, and, in the course 
 of almost accidental rivalry, proved to Western 
 Europe the excellence of what she had discovered. 
 
 As for the facts of contemporary life, we take it 
 for granted that Order is as essential to civilization 
 as Liberty.! Without any reference to history the 
 political thinker is forced to admit that Liberty 
 without Order is futile ; that we can only keep out 
 of each other's way by agreeing each to keep on one 
 side or the other. And it is only when we begin to 
 think of it as a problem that there appears to be 
 any limitation of Liberty in the establishment of 
 Order, or any violation of Order in the exercise 
 of Liberty. The average man pays lip-service to 
 both. 
 
 Modern Ideal of Order. 
 
 Here, however, it is necessary to state at least 
 the general character of that Order which we all are 
 agreed to praise. It implies first that the different 
 
 » Of. Sidgwick, Elem. Pol., p. 598: 'The political 
 character of a society is lost or impaired when it falls into 
 disorder and anarchy.' 
 
 D2
 
 52 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 groups of men which we call states shall have 
 some settled relation one to the other. That is to 
 say, for example, the county of Kent shall not 
 make special arrangements with France irrespec- 
 tive of the other counties of the English State. The 
 groups must be at least comparatively permanent ; 
 and within each larger group the subordinate or 
 constituent groups shall also have settled relations 
 one to another. Thus, as Liberty is the principle 
 of change, so Order is the principle of permanence ; 
 and civilized life demands both. Real growth 
 involves at once a continuous readjustment of the 
 growing organism to the environment (liberty) and 
 a ' sameness ' in what is so readjusted. And so 
 a political group has no opportunity for develop- 
 ing its own character unless it remains stable in 
 relation to other groups. 
 
 In the relation of individual to individual the 
 same permanence seems to be essential. That is the 
 basis of Law. We cannot live even in comfort, 
 much less with civilized interests, unless, as we say, 
 ' we know where we are ' ; so that we may almost 
 suppose that it is more essential for Law to be 
 certain than for it to be just. The pliability of a 
 beneficent but arbitrary ruler is not so valuable for 
 civilization as the fixity of Law, which is unfeeling, 
 but is common for all concerned. 
 
 And again, the caste-system is of course obsolete, 
 but there is a sense in which social orders are of 
 value to a civilized state. It is a gain to have 
 certain fixed relations between those who perform 
 one function and those who perform another, for 
 even within the single state group there are in- 
 numerable instances of other groupings, according 
 to common interests or special economic inter-
 
 ROMAN ORDER 53 
 
 dependence. We take it for granted, therefore, 
 that it is good for a state-group to be so ordered 
 that its component parts shall not be simply 
 detached individuals, but groups of individuals 
 with common interests. Such is the ideal of Law 
 and Order as we find it in our own day. It is in 
 great part an inheritance from Rome. 
 
 The First Embodiment in Rome. 
 
 But in order to understand how Rome has, once 
 for all, established the political ideal of Order it will 
 be necessary first to summarize the course of Roman 
 history, and next to show how the Roman Spirit 
 was interpreted by those who observed its develop- 
 ment. And with respect to the growth of the 
 Roman Empire it will not be necessary to recite 
 a succession of facts and dates ; for what we are 
 studying is the embodiment of an ideal, and there- 
 fore many centuries may be treated as parts of 
 essentially the same movement. 
 
 In this case the want from which the ideal takes 
 its rise is the discomfort caused by disorder and 
 instability. The warring tribes and the com- 
 plexity of divergent custom impressed men un- 
 favourably ; and, on the other hand, they perceived 
 the beginnings of a life more worth living under 
 the system of alliances and the legal uniformity 
 established by Rome. This, more even than the 
 successful wars or the great men of the city, gave 
 to her history a consistent purpose ; but neces- 
 sarily the ideal was not so obvious as it seems to us 
 now, and it was not so consciously valued as liberty 
 was in Athens. 
 
 By way of guarding against the too vague 
 generalities of a philosophy of history, we may note,
 
 54 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 also, that althougli order is the complement of 
 liberty in the basic structure of civilization, we 
 cannot suppose that there is any known cause why 
 the ideal in Athens was the internal development 
 of a small district through the conception of liberty, 
 while Rome seems to have extended her life out- 
 wards through the conception of order. We cannot 
 speak as though the Romans knew of the failure of 
 liberty under Athens, or were using the experience 
 of past civilization in their embodiment of order. 
 It was not mere chance which led to the Roman 
 feeling that disorder and instability were the chief 
 evils of life ; but I think we cannot suppose that 
 any ' dialectic of history ' is involved or that the 
 ' logic of history ' made it in any sense ' necessary '. 
 All such phrases are misleading, because the pro- 
 gress of the race cannot be understood either by 
 the Bergsonian conception of an absolutely open 
 future or by the Hegelian conception of a necessary 
 development of the same kind as that observed in 
 the life of an individual. I do not propose to 
 establish the existence of a new law ; I confess I do 
 not know what such a law may be. But as the 
 evidence stands no suggestion for a general law of 
 the development of civilization is adequate, and 
 the conception that it is due to mere chance is 
 philosophically futile, since it is absurd to suppose 
 that because we do not at present know we cannot 
 ever know what is the general rule governing racial 
 history as we know the rules of nature or the human 
 individual. With such a proviso we may proceed 
 to examine the embodiment of the second great 
 ideal of civilized life in the history of Rome.
 
 EOMAN ORDER 55 
 
 The UniGcation of Italy. 
 
 There was, first, the establishment of a hegemony 
 in the Latin league. In place of a confusion of 
 separate tribes, Rome established a settled relation 
 of alliance between her kindred and united hostility 
 to foreigners. And these foreigners were con- 
 ceived, not, as in Greece, by reference to their lack 
 of intelligence or at least intelligibility, but with 
 respect to their political opposition, this political 
 opposition being primitively based upon military 
 rivalry. Such is the distinction between the har- 
 haros of Greece and the hostis of Rome. 
 
 Part of the same movement we may see in the 
 gradual adoption by Rome of suzerainty over the 
 whole of Italy. Where Rome came, there settled 
 order took the place of continuous and internecine 
 discord. And the external symbols or material 
 seals of Roman Order were the roads and the 
 colonies. From Rome the roads led out over each 
 new district subdued, and gave trade a permanent 
 course and government a ready means of reaching 
 across natural obstacles. For in place of wild land 
 separating the settlements of different tribes, 
 communication along roads bound men together ; 
 and the Roman armies could move more rapidly 
 than any opponents who might have to reckon 
 with the untracked spaces where Rome had not yet 
 come.i Thus the great Via Appia was built ^ in 
 312 B. c. to keep the country in order between 
 Rome and Capua ; the Via Flaminia (in 220 B.C.) 
 
 ^ In the. Middle Ages 'all roads led to Rome'; but 
 that was only because nearly a thousand years before 
 Rome had made all roads to the world lead out from her. 
 
 2 Livy ix. 29.
 
 56 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 to secure the route to the north ; the Via Aemilia 
 (in about 190 B.C.) across Northern Italy, followed 
 by the Via Aemilia Scauri (in 109 B.C.). 
 
 Indeed, on any map of ancient Italy, the most 
 striking feature is the ramification of roads all 
 leading from Rome itself. And as the Roman 
 Empire grew so it marked its progress by the 
 extension of roads. Even in far off Northern 
 Britain the roads kept men in touch with the centre 
 of civilization and made it possible to maintain 
 order. And when Rome drew back from her 
 Empire, in the fiith century of our era, the roads 
 began to be broken up, until at last they remained, 
 in the new civilization of the Middle Ages of the 
 North, one of the few tangible records of more 
 orderly times. Until the seventeenth century, 
 indeed, most of Europe still depended for com- 
 munication on the neglected Roman roads. 
 
 With the roads we must count the colonies, 
 which were to Cicero ' propugnacula imperii '.^ 
 Such foundations were essentially different from 
 the haphazard results of privately managed 
 emigration. They were established by the State - 
 to keep order 3 or to resist invasion.* Roman 
 citizens who thus went out were considered as an 
 army, and an assignment was made to them of 
 land, the ancient inhabitants of the district being 
 allowed a portion for themselves. These Roman 
 colonists retained their full rights as citizens of the 
 city of Rome ; but there were other colonies, called 
 Latin, of which the inhabitants had only some of 
 the political rights of Rome. The details, however, 
 
 ^ Leg. Agr. ii. 27. " Livy xxxvii. 46. 
 
 ^ Livv iv. 11. ^ Ibid. x. 21 ; xxvii. 46
 
 ROMAN ORDER 57 
 
 are for my present purpose unimportant if it is 
 suflQ.ciently clear that the deliberate foundation of 
 colonies led to a conscious unification of the whole 
 of Western Europe. The ofiicial language was one, 
 law was the same for many distant countries, and 
 the political life of each colony was a reproduction, 
 more or less complete, of that in Rome itself. 
 
 But roads and colonies would not have produced 
 Roman Order without Roman Law. It is symbolic 
 of the ideal of Rome that so large a place should be 
 given in her early history to the controversies con- 
 cerning the Twelve Tables ; ^ and it was Rome 
 among all nations which first definitely tried to 
 reduce the chaotic system of tribal customs to the 
 ius gentium.^ Law for the Romans themselves 
 was the very backbone of civilized life ; but more 
 strangely still, in that early world of confusion, the 
 Romans conceived a law for others. The " Praetor 
 peregrinus ' and the formulation of general prin- 
 ciples of right irrespective of race, language, and 
 land, are signs of what Roman Order meant to the 
 world at large. In place of arbitrary decisions 
 Rome put certainty of principles, and in place of 
 divergent local customs, universality. 
 
 Now Rome in all this did not pretend to give her 
 allies and dependents a position equal to her own.^ 
 
 ^ Completed in 449 b. c. These refer to the adjustment 
 of disputes between the social orders ; and they are the 
 only code in Roman history until the time of Justinian. 
 
 ^ I need not discuss the distinction between ' the law 
 of Nature ' {his natiirale) and the established custom 
 of non-Roman peoples, which is usually called the itis 
 geyitium, 
 
 ^ The iu8 gentium was by no means ' higher ' than 
 Roman civil law until a philosophical theory of human 
 nature made it into the ius naturae, Maine {Anrient
 
 58 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 She respected local prejudices ; but the centre of 
 all local interests was Rome. She established 
 order by dividing localities from each other and 
 attaching each directly to herself.^ Thus the 
 movement of Rome to the natural boundaries of 
 Italy was literally a replacing of disorder, or at 
 least difference and the continual tendency to dis- 
 order, by one system of law and government. 
 
 The Organization of the Empire. 
 
 The second movement in Roman History begins 
 with the first expeditions outside the boundaries of 
 Italy. And the order which had been found 
 valuable to the Italian tribes was soon accepted 
 by the whole of Western Europe, parts of Asia, and 
 Africa. The Empire only consolidated what the 
 Republic had done ; nor must we lay too much 
 stress on the fact that it was the sword that won 
 and the sword that kept the dominions of Rome. 
 The order that followed gave the Roman army its 
 most effective strength, as it was the order of Rome 
 which had first inspired its movement. For we 
 must remember that the Romans were not a nation 
 of soldiers as we count soldiering to-day. To them 
 always military service was a burden, and the 
 legionary of Rome was at first himself a colonist,- 
 who brought with him not only Roman prowess 
 but Roman Order. 
 
 Law, ch. iii) says that the ius gentium was simply due 
 to the refusal to admit foreigners to Roman privilege, 
 but that the Romans should have made order out of 
 a chaos of divergent customs is what is most striking. 
 The later views of Pollock do not interfere with the 
 thesis. 
 
 1 According to the trite quotation — ' Divide et impera '. 
 
 * The Colonus was primarily a tiller of the soil.
 
 EOMAN ORDER 59 
 
 The value of this order is to be seen, not only in 
 the movement of Rome outwards, but also in the 
 movement of foreigners into the city. Throughout 
 the history of the city her fortunes were 'afiected 
 by the presence of foreigners ', and we can see clearly 
 enough that it was order which was the attraction. 
 All the contests between inhabitants of Rome were 
 really ' conflicts between a stubborn nationality and 
 an alien population'. 'The instability of society 
 in ancient Italy gave men considerable inducement 
 to locate themselves in the territory of any com- 
 munity strong enough to protect itself and them 
 from external attack.' ^ With this we must reckon 
 some commercial advantage which Rome must 
 have had ; but chiefly we must count the estab- 
 lishment of a consistent and efficacious Law as the 
 greatest attraction. Thus, both by going out to 
 make orderly and by reducing to order those who 
 came to her, Rome established a new political 
 ideal. 
 
 Effects of the Imperial Sway of Rome. 
 
 For the benefits accruing to the provinces from 
 the fax Romana there is much evidence. The 
 land was divided for administrative purposes ; 
 regular taxation ^ took the place of the predatory 
 expeditions of barbarism : there were local centres 
 for the administration of justice at which local 
 customs would be respected, and yet the general 
 
 * Maine, Ancie7it Law, ch. iii ; the words quoted above 
 are from the same place. 
 
 ^ For the disadvantages of the Roman system of farming 
 the taxes, see below, p. 65, and Cic. in Verr. The whole 
 subject, so far as the facts go, will be found discussed in 
 W. Arnold, Studies in Roman Imperialism, and in Bury's 
 T.afer Roman Empire.
 
 60 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 principles of law as understood at Rome would 
 be valid for all. This would be generally true 
 of all provinces, although after Augustus the ad- 
 ministration varied in provinces which needed 
 military occupation and were under the Emperor 
 himself as compared with those provinces still 
 administered by the Senate. 
 
 Nowhere is there a clearer statement of the 
 transformation worked by Roman Order than in 
 the AgricoJa of Tacitus. There it is said ' as men 
 who are scattered and uncivilized and prompt to 
 fight are made more used to quiet and inaction by 
 pleasure, Agricola induced individuals and helped 
 communities to build temples, squares, and houses, 
 praising the energetic and punishing sluggards. 
 The rivalr)' for distinction took the place of mere 
 compulsion. The children of the upper classes 
 were educated, and he valued the British genius 
 more highly than the Gaulish plodding, inasmuch 
 as they had at first rejected the Roman tongue, but 
 now they actually aimed at rhetorical proficiency. 
 So our dress of rank was adopted, the toga became 
 common.' Tacitus the puritan then shows himself 
 in the disapproval of the luxury which must always 
 accompany civilization ; but even in his hard 
 words we may find a record of the good done by 
 Roman Order : ' There was a gradual yielding to 
 the attractions of vice,' he says, 'porches and 
 baths and elegant banquets. And this in their 
 ignorance they called civilization — but it was only 
 one part of their enslavement.'^ So also in the 
 Histories ^ the Romans are said to enslave the con- 
 quered by introducing pleasures. But we can see 
 plainly enough the facts upon which the moral 
 
 ' Tac. Agric, ch. xxi. * Hist. iv. 64.
 
 ROMAN ORDER 61 
 
 judgement of Tacitus was based, and, allowing for 
 the vicious luxury of the Rome of his day — greatly 
 exaggerated by satirists and controversalists — we 
 can understand the immense benefit to the savage 
 inhabitants of Britain, for example, of a settled 
 life and the latest resources of civilization which 
 the Romans brought with them. 
 
 Not least of the results of Roman Order we must 
 count the first real feeling of brotherhood among 
 all the nations which had ever come under her rule. 
 It is not of course Rome, but Greek philosophy, 
 which gave the Stoics their cosmopolitanism ; but 
 such an attitude as theirs would have remained an 
 empty and perhaps occasional aspiration of philo- 
 sophy but for the fact that Rome had really made 
 so many different races feel their common interests. 
 Thus we must count as due in part to Rome the 
 phrase of Seneca, ' homo homini res sacra '. and that 
 other of M. Aurelius Antoninus : ' The poet says. 
 Dear city of Cecrops ; and wilt not thou say, Dear 
 city of Zeus ? ' It must also be remembered that 
 Rome, in ruling civilized Greece as well as barbaric 
 Gaul, spread the results of Greek thought and 
 developed Greek thought itself by turning it to 
 new issues. And Roman Order kept back the 
 destruction of the Greek world in resisting the 
 tendency of every Greek city to war against its 
 neighbour. 
 
 Little need be said to show the Roman ideal of 
 order with respect to the relation of economic 
 groups within the State. Not only did Rome 
 extend her law to different national groups, but 
 she was continually adjusting the political rights 
 of distinct social classes. The whole of early 
 Roman History is coloured by the rivalry and final
 
 62 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 adjustment of rights between the Upper Classes 
 and the People. Indeed, the word Order itself 
 reminds one that the upper classes were in good 
 Roman called the ' Ordines '. Ordo seems to be 
 used of any economic group with the same inter- 
 ests, ^ and the word order itself is peculiarly Roman 
 and remains in Europe as a memorial of what 
 Rome achieved. 
 
 Expression of Roman Ideal in Literature. 
 
 It is difficult to quote authorities for the Roman 
 conception of the Roman ideal, because Roman 
 poetry and political philosophy are so much coloured 
 by Greek thought ; and besides, it is one of the 
 peculiar characteristics of the movement which 
 made the Roman Empire that it was unconscious. 
 Athens, by contrast, had her eyes open in working 
 for liberty and in refusing it to others. She did 
 good and evil with equal foresight ; although, of 
 course, it cannot be said of any people that 
 they know what is involved in the first steps they 
 take. But Rome was peculiarly without plan. She 
 marched in this direction and in that, and in a few 
 centuries found herself mistress of the whole world 
 known to her. 
 
 As to the part she conceived herself to play in 
 that world the trite words of Virgil are evidence : 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.^ 
 
 And Horace has but expressed a contemporary 
 political fact in his splendid prayer that the Sun 
 might see nothing greater than Rome in all his 
 
 * Cf. Cic. Verr. ii, 6 ' Ordo aratorum, sive pecuaiiorum, 
 sive mercatorum'. ^ Aen. vi. 851.
 
 ROMAN ORDER 63 
 
 journeys, for Rome was indeed the civilized 
 world. ^ 
 
 Cicero, in rhetorical phrases, but in the main truly, 
 sets out the foundations of Roman power, saying 
 that 'the way was laid open from all cities to Rome 
 and from Rome to the outer world ; the result was 
 that the nearer the stranger was bound to us the 
 greater his share of political and other advantages '.^ 
 He contrasts the Roman with the Greek treatment 
 of foreigners and is quite conscious that Rome not 
 only won civilization for herself but conferred it 
 on others in the enforcement of Law and Order. 
 
 But more clearly still than from political 
 rhetoricians we may catch the Roman spirit in 
 observing the Roman heroes. One can always 
 tell the character of a man by discovering whom 
 he admires, and the ideal of a people is generally 
 embodied in its heroes. But among Roman heroes ] 
 are to be found no philosophers, no artists, no poets. | 
 The list is of generals and administrators. It in- ; 
 eludes Publius Decius Mus, Regulus, the Brutus of 
 Tarquin fame and the friend of Caesar. Of all 
 these we may say that the leading characteristic is 
 their devotion to what was conceived as the good 
 of the State. They were all supposed to have 
 acted as they did and to have died to keep Rome 
 what it desired to be. And whether the stories of 
 them are historically true or not, they give us a very 
 
 ^ Carm. Saec. 9 : 
 
 Alme sol, curru nitido diem qui 
 promis et celas aliusque et idem 
 nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma 
 visere maius. 
 ^ Pro Balbo, ch. xii. Cf. ch, xiii ' lUud . . . nostrum 
 fundavit imperium '.
 
 64 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 clear insight into the Roman spirit of devotion to 
 Rome. Thus the list of heroes given in Horace ^ or 
 in Juvenal ^ is a clear indication of the Roman con- 
 ception of what was worthy of imitation, and the 
 complaint against contemporary decadence indi- 
 cates the same standard.^ 
 
 The trite recitation of these events and views 
 must be justified by the necessity for establishing 
 in concrete form the ideal of order. And just as we 
 saw the peculiar quality of Athenian Liberty to be 
 the productive use made of it, so now we may find 
 a quality in Roman Order which separates it from 
 the order established by such Empires as the 
 Assyrian. This quality is to be seen in the fact 
 that order under Rome was the embodiment of 
 a principle of which the subject races were made to 
 feel the value. The Roman world learnt to keep 
 itself in order ; whereas all former Empires seem 
 by contrast to have impressed order from above 
 upon peoples who were never made to understand 
 their interest in the order established. It is the 
 difference between an action done with a con- 
 sciousness of its value and one forced upon the 
 unwilling ; or it may be, the difference between 
 a principle embodied and a chance practice. 
 
 Too much cannot be made of this quality in the 
 Roman Empire, since it is this which enabled the 
 ideal to survive the downfall of Rome. It has 
 been said that no people over whom Rome had 
 ruled lost entirely the conception of civilized life. 
 Even in far Britain the ability for local govern- 
 ment developed by the Roman conception of order 
 meant that the so-called subjects of Rome felt that 
 they had something to lose in the disappearance of 
 
 Od. i. 12. 37. ^ Sat, xi. 90. ^ Horace, 6>d, iii. 6. 1.
 
 ROMAN ORDER 65 
 
 the Roman system. The provincial and municipal 
 administration distinguished the pax Romana from 
 military imperialism ; and the fact that all the 
 soldiers of Rome were on the frontiers, that the 
 Empire itself was not garrisoned — a fact which 
 contributed to the sudden success of barbaric 
 invasion — was also an important sign of the idea of 
 self-government implied in Roman Order. 
 
 Criticism of Roman Order. 
 
 But order may be paid for too dearly if it is at 
 the expense of lilDerty. It may be that true liberty 
 is consonant with true order ; but how are we to 
 tell the true from the false ? Obviously in giving 
 order to Europe Rome had taken away all local 
 vitality. And when the blood was taken from the 
 parts, which had not any power of self-development, 
 the body itself, or the very heart of the whole, 
 decayed. It was because Rome never achieved 
 her own ideal that she perished ; for order cannot 
 imply the limitation of the natural development of 
 what is set in order. If it were so, life would not 
 be orderly but only death ; an order which is in- 
 flexible is tyranny — or in the words of a keen 
 Roman critic ' we make a desert and we call it 
 peace '.1 
 
 The provinces became the sources of supply to 
 a city which gave almost nothing in return, for the 
 farming of the taxes led to all kinds of corruption 
 and the Roman administrators generally depended 
 upon filling their pockets during their term of office. 
 Thus order became tyranny, and in the name of 
 
 1 Tac. Ayr. 30. 
 1782 E
 
 66 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 settled civilization all natural growth was checked, 
 since as liberty tends to degenerate into licence so 
 order tends to be corrupted into the unnatural 
 fixity of the status quo. Permanence did indeed 
 become a sort of obsession to the Roman mind, as 
 we may see by comparing the eagerness for new 
 things among the Athenians with the continual 
 praise of Roman moralists for the good old times ; 
 indeed the word for revolution in Rome is simply 
 ' something new ' ; ^ and Tacitus hints at an experi- 
 ence of the rigid and inflexible conceptions which 
 have crushed the life of morality, in Rome and in 
 other cities also, in the splendid phrase ' Virtues 
 unrecognized were counted as new vices '.^ But 
 the order which sacrifices originality, and therefore 
 growth, destroys itself. 
 
 And next Rome could not maintain the adminis- 
 trative order she had established. Her own sons 
 rose against her : ' the secret of empire ' was out 
 when it was found that ' an Emperor could be 
 made outside of Rome '.^ And with few exceptions 
 the years which followed the death of Tiberius were 
 filled with internecine and ci^dl contests among the 
 powerful for private gain. What is most astonish- 
 ing is the length of time during which the pro- 
 vinces continued to flourish * while Rome itself was 
 
 ^ ' Res novae ' : so a man of no position is a ' noviis 
 homo '. There is a Roman horror of novelty which still 
 haunts the City. 
 
 * ' Virtutes ignotae nova vitia.' Tac. Ann. n. 2. 
 ^ Tac. Hist. i. 4. 
 
 * Nearly three hundred years. Surely it is an astonishing 
 fact that Gibbon took fourteen volumes to describe what 
 he called a ' Decline and Fall '. He covers more time in 
 that work than would have sufficed most nations for their 
 most flourishing state.
 
 ROMAN ORDER 67 
 
 disorderly and rent by private selfishness. The 
 foundations must indeed have been well laid for 
 the building to survive such treatment as it suffered 
 for so many years before it fell in ruins. But 
 gradually the provinces learnt to disregard their 
 common interest; the barbarians, made orderly and 
 therefore powerful by Rome herself, began to 
 despise the strength and to covet the wealth of 
 their former mistress : and the Roman World was 
 scattered into the dust of tribes out of which it had 
 been made. 
 
 Such are the facts which show how the ideal half 
 consciously followed by Rome was corroded ; and 
 how in the failure to attain her ideal Rome her- 
 self disappeared as a political power. As liberty 
 became licence in Athens, so order became tyranny 
 in the Roman Empire ; and despite the benefits of 
 the ' pax Romana ' we must recognize that it 
 involved evils which were too great for men to 
 endure long. The natural forces of local discon- 
 tent and personal rivalry might have destroyed 
 the Roman Empire just as effectually without any 
 barbarian invasions, and indeed we may assert that 
 in a sense the barbarians only made obvious what 
 was already an accomplished fact — that Roman 
 Order had disappeared. 
 
 It will be seen that I reject entirely the old 
 platitudes concerning the moral corruption of the 
 Roman Empire. It is impossible to admit that 
 the barbarians who sacked Rome so often diu'ing 
 the fifth century of our era were either more moral 
 or of purer race than the civilized inhabitants of 
 the Empire. All the trivial moralizing about the 
 victory of a barbaric purer morality is due to early 
 Christian Fathers who were intellectually incom- 
 £2
 
 68 ROMAN ORDER 
 
 petent to understand the situation. Unfortunately 
 / for moral ready-reckoners, the destruction of the 
 I Roman Empire by the barbarians was in fact an 
 I emergence of brute force in Europe, from which 
 I it has taken us nearly two thousand years to 
 I recover. 
 
 It is true that Roman Order had devitalized local 
 growth, and that the provinces had no obvious 
 interest in the continuation of the system ; but by 
 contrast with what was to follow, even the tyranny 
 of an official caste would have been preferable. 
 When the Empire was no longer more than a 
 memor}'', Europe was delivered over to confusion, 
 and all the poUtical ideals of the past were forgot- 
 ten, only gradually to be recovered when the spirit 
 of Rome began to overcome and to educate her 
 destroyers. For Rome remained a name of much 
 power when the actual city was a ruin and its 
 inhabitants an uncivilized rabble. The gorgeous 
 ghost which inherited the Roman name in Con- 
 stantinople could still overawe the barbarian when 
 Rome itself was in ruins, for Athanaric is reported 
 to have said that the Emperor appeared to him to 
 be a God upon earth. ^ As Freeman admirably 
 puts it : 'It is in the days of the decline of the 
 Roman power — those days which were in truth 
 the days of its greatest conquests — that we see how 
 truly great, how truly abiding, was the power of 
 Rome.' So great indeed was it that the barbarians 
 who conquered her ' deemed it their highest glory 
 to deck themselves in some shreds of her purple '.^ 
 And again, ' the history of Rome is the history of 
 
 ^ Jomandes, de Get. Orig. ch. 28; Migne, vol Ixix 'Deus 
 terrenus est Imperator '. 
 - Comji. Politics, p. 329.
 
 EOMAN ORDER 69 
 
 the European world. It is in Rome that all the 
 states of the earlier European world lose them- 
 selves ; it is out of Rome that all the states of the 
 later European world take their being '.^ 
 
 The Roman words Caesar and Imperium still 
 guide much modern political thought, and the city 
 of Rome itself is still much more to the Western 
 world than a mere capital of the Italian kingdom. 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 327.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 The Cosmopolitan Ideal. 
 
 A COMMON humanity is now usually believed to 
 override all distinctions of race or of social status. 
 Man, although divided from his fellow man, is at 
 least more divided from the beast ; and at least 
 civilized men of every race are by a common senti- 
 ment supposed to be political equals. But this 
 was not always so. Not long ago philosophers 
 found it possible to maintain, what common pre- 
 judice asserted, that some men were naturally 
 slaves and others masters — that there was a greater 
 distinction between a master and a slave than 
 between a slave and a beast, or even a tool. And 
 not much more distant is the time when reason- 
 able citizens believed, what the unthinking still 
 often take for granted, that one's own race was 
 ' humanity ' and all others simply ' the rest '. 
 
 The recognition in practice, however, of a com- 
 mon humanity is still an ideal : for it is hardly yet 
 possible tQ act upon it, either, for example, in the 
 solving of the negro problem in the United States, 
 where a racial distinction is identical with one of 
 social status, or in the management of European 
 policy with regard to China. The majority, even of 
 statesmen, still continue to think that the practical 
 recognition of a common humanity would involve 
 some injury to the real distinctions of race or of
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 71 
 
 social rank. They cannot yet grasp that to recog- 
 nize likeness in one element supports rather than 
 destroys distinction in another ; one is more likely 
 to see the real distinction between Chinaman and 
 Englishman or between master and workman when 
 the real likeness between them is understood than 
 when it is disregarded. For the likeness being 
 disregarded, the difierence is exaggerated and thus 
 falsified. And yet in practice our statesmen cling 
 with pathetic faith to the immense value of the 
 distinction between races and ranks, and refuse to 
 subordinate either to cosmopolitan equality. In 
 theory, however, and in sentiment, all men are re- 
 cognized to have something in common ; and if it 
 be agreed that this common element must be main- 
 tained and developed then we have the modern 
 ideal of a common humanity. It is faint enough 
 as a motive force in politics ; but even in this 
 faint embodiment it represents the slow growth 
 from an earlier time. For the bare theory or senti- 
 ment had to be established in the face of a contrary 
 practice and a philosophy which supported that 
 practice ; and although we have not yet the ideal 
 in practice, we have it in theory. We must therefore 
 first discover what is the present meaning of the 
 idea that men of all races and of all ranks are some- 
 how equal. It works vaguely and intermittently 
 in modern politics. 
 
 Modern Form of the Ideal; 
 
 As at present active it involves first that no 
 nation shall regard itself as superior by nature to 
 any other. I do not mean that we should deny the 
 fact that some races are not developed. The concep- 
 tion opposed to that of cosmopolitan humanity is
 
 72 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 that of natural and inevitable inability to develop. 
 Thus it is not opposed to this ideal to say that 
 a race is not developed ; but it is opposed to the 
 ideal to say or to act as though any race were not 
 able to be developed. We are moved by this ideal 
 if we act as though any and every race may enter 
 into the tradition of civilized life ; since this 
 implies that no natural and ineradicable element 
 in the lowest group will prevent its descendants at 
 some time from being ci\'ilized. 
 
 In the second place the ideal involves at present 
 the repudiation of at least the theory of slavery. ^ 
 The practice of slavery need not concern us at the 
 moment ; for we are all agreed that even if there 
 are slaves there should be none. The ideal, then, 
 involves that there is no human being who is not 
 more like any other human being than he is like 
 a beast or a tool. Thus we are all agreed that 
 a common humanity exists in spite of, or above or 
 beneath, the distinctions of social rank. Race and 
 rank, then, are the obstacles against which the ideal 
 is a protest, not as though it would destroy them, 
 but because we must correct the exaggerated value 
 they are given in political life. Our ideal in this 
 matter is naturally due in part to the work of the 
 Revolution,^ but there are certain elements^ in it 
 
 ^ It is indeed difficult in reading Seneca's letters and 
 then Mr. Rowntree's Poverty to find any fundamental 
 distinction (other than that of language) between the 
 slave and the labourer. But the old theory is dead. 
 Cf. Barker, Pol. Theory of Plato and Aristotle, p. 372 : 
 ' Modem practice . . . while recognizing the right of every 
 man to life and liberty, does not make it real.' Yet Mr. 
 Barker (loc. cit., note) is afraid of seeming to imply a right 
 to work. "^ Cf. chapter vii. 
 
 ^ As, for example, its connection with religion.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 73 
 
 which, belong to a still earlier stage, when race and 
 rank were stronger even than they were in the 
 eighteenth century. For the explanation of these 
 elements in the present ideal one must go back to 
 the period which saw the decay of the Greek- 
 Roman civilization. 
 
 This ideal ^ was established in face of two great 
 evils, (a) the Greek-Eoman exclusiveness implied 
 in such words as barbarian, and (b) the universal 
 system of slavery. It arose out of the perception 
 of these evils and out of the hints of good involved 
 in the cosmopolitan power of Rome and the 
 Christian-Stoic conception of the brotherhood of 
 man. But the ideal, though double-faced, was one. 
 Men were at the same time and by the same causes 
 led to destroy the exclusiveness of primitive races 
 and to correct the extremities of distress arising 
 from slavery. They felt the irksomeness of racial 
 distinction at the same time as the discomfort of 
 slavery, since slavery itself was recognized to have 
 come out of primitive exclusiveness.^ 
 
 For purposes of argument, however, it is better 
 to take the two elements separately. First, then, 
 let us consider racial exclusiveness. 
 
 ^ What follows is continually dependent on Carlyle, 
 Med. Pol. Theory, vol. i, and Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren 
 der ckristl. Kirche/i und Gruppen. 
 
 - Thus all thinkers of the period look upon slavery as 
 a substitute for slaughtering enemies. It was based upon 
 tribal war, which again was simply due to race exclusive- 
 ness. Cf . the Digest : ' lus autem gentium omni humano 
 generi commune est ; nam, usu exigentc, et humanis neces- 
 sitatibus, gentes humanae quaedam sibi constituerunt. 
 Bella enim orta sunt, ct captivitates secutae, ct set- 
 vitutes, quae sunt iuri iiaturali contraricic, iure enim naturali 
 omnes homines ah initio liheri 7iascebantur ^ (Inst. i. 2. 2). 
 
 ' Et libertas quidem (ex qua ctiam libori vocantur) est
 
 74 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 The Ideal opposed to Racial Exclusiveness. 
 
 The tendency to this is universal. Indeed, it is 
 even more obvious in the claim of the Jews to be 
 ' the chosen people ', and to be in some sense 
 religiously or divinely isolated from all other races, 
 than it was in the Greek pride of culture or the 
 Roman pride in ' virtus '. Nearly all the pre- 
 Greek empires seem also to have been based upon 
 the exclusive quality of a conquering race ; and 
 this exclusiveness, consecrated by religious enthu- 
 siasm, was one of the chief obstacles with which 
 the great Universal Religions have had to contend. 
 The claim to a special revelation for a chosen race 
 has been made or implied by every race in the 
 primitive stages of its development. But with 
 this issue we are not immediately concerned, since 
 
 (1) the effect of religious exclusiveness is less when 
 men reach the political stage of development, and 
 
 (2) the changes in European political ideals in this 
 matter are nearly all due to the conflict with 
 Greek-Roman exclusiveness. 
 
 The fact that Christianity arose out of an opposi- 
 tion to Jewish exclusiveness and that it greatly 
 modified the political life of the first four centuries 
 of our era will be noticed later. It is necessary 
 first to notice the evil out of which the Stoic and 
 
 naturalis facultas eiusquod cuique facerelibet, nisi si quid 
 aut vi aut iure prohibetur. Servitus autein est constitutio 
 iuris gentium, qua quis dominio alieno contra naturam sub- 
 iicitur. Servi autem ex eo appellati sunt, quod impera- 
 tores captivos vendere iubent, ac per hoc sorvare ncc 
 occidere solent ' {Inst. i. 3. 1 to 3). 
 
 'In potestafe itaque dominorum sunt servi' (Inst. i. 
 S. 1).
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 75 
 
 legal cosmopolitanism of the later Roman Empire 
 grew. 
 
 Athenian Liberty was always exclusive. In its 
 practice this has been admitted ; ^ but even in 
 theory the Athenian made a very clear distinction 
 between the Hellene and the non-Hellene. ^ Bar- 
 barians were by nature incapable of the culture 
 which Hellenes had attained and race characteris- 
 tics obscured the fundamental nature of man. 
 
 Rome's Cosmopolitan Tendencies. 
 
 This theory was acted upon by politicians at 
 the very moment when Alexander's armies were 
 unconsciously proving that no such vital distinction 
 could be made.^ It was soon abundantly obvious 
 that the most diverse races were capable of 
 assimilating the culture of Athens, and therefore 
 ' barbarian ' could no longer be used to refer to 
 distinction of race. Romans and others were 
 admitted to the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the 
 native Athenian found himself in a world where 
 Alexandria could prove all races equal in the 
 capacity for philosophy or poetry. That the 
 culture lost in depth by being so extended made 
 no difEerence to the essential fact that what had 
 once been a distinction of the Hellene was now 
 common to men of every known race. Rome 
 carried to its conclusion this tendency to cosmo- 
 politanism. 
 
 In the Roman world also the old racial practice 
 
 ^ Cf above, p. 45. 
 
 - Cf. Arist. Pol. i. 2. 4, quoting Eurip. Iph. in Aid. 1400 ; 
 and again Arist. Pol. i. 6. 7. Also ' Barbarians are more 
 servile than Hellenes ', ibid. iii. 14. 6. 
 
 ^ Cf. Carlyle, op. cit., vol. i, p. 7 et seq.
 
 76 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 and theory, and further practice bolstered up by 
 the theory, are to be found prevalent even while 
 the effect of Roman Order was to eradicate any 
 such vital differences between the provinces and 
 Rome. Thus the civis Romanus originally claimed 
 a racial and natural superiority to ' outsiders ' ; 
 but when the claim to citizenship was most 
 powerful under the cosmopolitan Empire, the 
 racial exclusiveness implied in the claim had 
 already disappeared. In the events of the time we 
 may watch the old racial exclusiveness giving place 
 to the new cosmopolitanism in the admission of 
 foreign genius transforming Roman literature, in 
 the growing sense of common citizenship and 
 common power in distant provinces, and at last 
 in the Constitutio Antoniniana of A. d. 212.^ We 
 must add to this the increase of humanitarian 
 legislation which developed into the later Roman 
 jurisprudence, in all of which the same feeling for 
 a common humanity is obvious. 
 
 Stoic and Christian Cosmopolitanism. 
 
 This ideal is reflected in the literature of Stoicism, 
 and it may be noted in the j)revalence of the word 
 homo as compared to the word civis w^hich had 
 earlier been more prominent. ^ ' Man in contact 
 
 ^ Caracalla conferred by this the citizenship upon all 
 the subjects of the Roman Empire. 
 
 ^ As the individual comes into prominence as opposed 
 to the State, so cosmojrjolitanism develops. ' Daraus 
 ergibt sich auch hier ein prinzipieller Individualismus der 
 religios-ethischen Personlichkeitsidec und ebenso sein 
 unumgangliches Korrclat, ein ebenso prinzipieller Univer- 
 salisraus dcr alle Menschen zur gleichen Gotteserkenntnis 
 berufen weiss imd sie in gemeinsamer Hingabe an das 
 gottliche Naturgcsetz ethisch verbindet.' Troeltsch, p. 53.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 77 
 
 with man in society is proof of the common law 
 of Mankind.' ^ ' We are members of one great 
 body.' 'Yet it shames not men to rejoice in each 
 other's blood, to wage war and to hand on to our 
 children more wars, while even the dumb beasts 
 keep peace in their own species. . . . Man, the sacred 
 thing to man, is slain in holiday sport.' ^ ' This 
 is Man's duty, to help men.' ^ Such phrases, little 
 as they meant to the men of the time, were signs at 
 least of some vague hope which in spite of centuries 
 of disappointment may still survive. There was at 
 any rate the conception of a fundamental interest, 
 due to likeness, between men of every race. 
 
 The cosmopolitan ideal in early Christian litera- 
 ture has been so often described* that it is not 
 necessary to deal with it here. The Gospel 
 brotherhood of Man and the great Pauline phrase 
 ' Neither Jew nor Greek ' are not only protests 
 against the exclusiveness of the Jews but against 
 every racial difference which might be made an 
 obstacle to the recognition of a common humanity. 
 And this ethical-religious conception obviously 
 affected the arrangement of political relations be- 
 tween men of different races. 
 
 The magnificent theory of God's State and God's 
 Politics in St. Augustine contains in religious 
 language an indication of the same cosmopolitan 
 tendency. ' That heavenly State,' he says, ' while 
 in pilgrimage on earth, calls its citizens from all 
 races and its pilgrim company is gathered from 
 men of every tongue : for it cares not for diversity 
 in manners, laws or administration, by which peace 
 on earth is acquired or maintained. None of these 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. v. 7 (48). - Ibid. Ep. xv 3 (95). 
 
 ^ Ibid. Dial, dc Ofio, iii. 5. " Tioeltsch, op. cit., init.
 
 78 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 are abolished or destroyed, but they are kept and 
 followed. For the diversity of different tribes 
 tends to the single end of earthly peace if it does 
 not hinder the religion which teaches the service of 
 the only true God.' ^ And the frequent reference 
 in the Sermons of St. Augustine to the common 
 nature of all men in so far as Man was made in the 
 image of God, shows how completely the exclusive- 
 ness of race was breaking down, at least from the 
 point of view of religion. The effect upon political re- 
 lations with 'foreigners' was natural and inevitable. 
 One could no longer be altogether superior to ' out- 
 siders '.when the special relations between the Deity 
 and one's own race were no longer supposed to exist. 
 As an ideal this conception was always limited 
 by being applied only to a certain group of races 
 and not to humanity at large. By the time that 
 the barbarian invasions were over there was no 
 race in Europe which was racially exclusive, either 
 in theory or practice, in the same way as Greeks 
 and Romans had been. Men of different races 
 might still have the primitive disdain of foreigners, 
 but all were treated as equals who belonged to the 
 European group. Thus the cosmopolitanism of 
 the Middle Ages was made possible in the orders of 
 knighthood, the 'catholic' clergy, and the uni- 
 versalism of scholars. But the cosmopolitanism or 
 equality of race was not extended beyond the 
 European nations. Even the Jews, whose relation- 
 ship was close enough with European society, were 
 regarded as ' outsiders '. And this limitation of 
 the ideal, now less prominent in religion, still 
 survives in the political contrast between what is 
 called the East and the West. 
 
 1 De Civ, Dei, six. 17.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 79 
 
 The Obsolescence of Slavery. 
 
 In the next place the practice and theory of 
 slavery had to be criticized before another stage 
 could be reached in political life. Athenian 
 Liberty and Roman Order both rested upon slavery, 
 and although a few idealists might attempt to 
 understand the State without reference to it, the 
 majority accepted it as inevitable and thinkers saw 
 in it the only possible method of attaining the life 
 of leisure. Hence it was that Aristotle explained 
 slavery as due to some fundamental difierence 
 among men, some of whom were by nature slaves.^ 
 This conception had to be destroyed before the 
 narrow cliques of the Greek-Roman world could 
 be broken up and political life proved possible 
 for every sane adult human being. The theory 
 of Aristotle was destroyed in the interval that 
 separates him from St. Augustine, and, although in 
 practice little enough was done for definitely 
 political progress, the ethical and religious revolu- 
 tion intensified the feeling which was growing that 
 slavery as an institution was a nuisance. 
 
 The ideal does not arise because of a theory as to 
 the nature of man, but rather from a perception of 
 definite evils. The evils of slavery, however, were 
 not recognized at that time in precisely the same 
 way as we, looking back, should now recognize, 
 them ; nor was the gain to be hoped for from an 
 abolition of slavery by any means so clear as we 
 now suppose it to have been. The ideal at the 
 beginning is vague and confused, since the want 
 from which it arises is indefinite. Slaves and 
 
 ' Arist. Pol. i. 5 et seq. ; 'the slave is a tool,' ibid. ch. iv. 
 Cf. E. Barker, Pol. Theory of Plato and Aristotle, ix. 2.
 
 80 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 owners were alike feeling the inconvenience of the 
 situation ; but neither party had any definite other 
 institution to substitute for slavery ; and in the 
 end the old institution simply decayed because of 
 the invasions, the new society, and the new beliefs. 
 It was not abruptly abolished. 
 
 We may, however, in a summary manner attempt 
 to express the real difficulty of the old situation, 
 first from the point of view of the slave, and next 
 from that of the slave-owning classes. And from 
 the slaves' point of view it is difficult to see de- 
 finitely what the grievances were, since slaves have 
 not, of course, expressed themselves in literature ; 
 and many things which would horrify us were un- 
 doubtedly accepted as a necessary part of life by 
 the enslaved. It is very easy for men to submit. 
 Though dissatisfaction has made history, men are 
 easily persuaded to leave things as they are. A cow 
 does not revolt if the field is pleasant ; and by treat- 
 ng men as beasts they are made to acquire that 
 satisfaction which distinguishes a beast from a 
 man. 
 
 Excessive cruelty was not usual, but the danger 
 of such cruelty acted as a spur to discontent. 
 Prisons and mines and chains were always before 
 the eyes even of those belonging to kindly masters. 
 Natural affection would be hampered while slaves 
 were used for breeding purposes : ^ blood relation- 
 ship was disregarded. 2 
 
 * In the Digest are noticed the practices of man- 
 breeding for economic ends of the slave-owner. Plutarch 
 {Cato M. ch. 21) says that Cato held that it was personal 
 passion which made slaves most restless, so he only 
 permitted his slaves occasionally to indulge in it. 
 
 ^ ' Ad leges serviles cognationes non pertinent.' Paul in 
 the Dig. xxxviii. x. 10, par. 5.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 81 
 
 Work brought no gain to the worker. Vast 
 numbers would contain at least a few who were on 
 the look-out for a chance to evade a force they 
 could not resist. And added to particular griev- 
 ances was, no doubt, the indefinite feeling of ability 
 not recognized or superior force of numbers not 
 used. For though many slaves did indeed become 
 beasts or tools, the minds of a few survived. These 
 prevented others from being altogether benumbed 
 and made submissive animals by the accepted in- 
 stitution, as is clear from hints in the Lawyers and 
 in Seneca. There was continual restlessness which 
 not seldom broke out into open defiance, and the 
 very hopelessness of the situation bred a contempt 
 of death against which not even the most subtle 
 slave-master could contend. 
 
 Perhaps even the Stoic praise of suicide was not 
 due to an abstract theory but to the observed 
 frequency of the practice among slaves, who sought 
 often an escape to that ' liberty to which a door 
 may be found in every vein of the body '.^ ' How 
 many slaves ', says Seneca, ' has not the anger of 
 their master driven to seek a refuge in death ? ' ^ 
 There was therefore a feeling of the intolerable 
 evils of the institution which grew with the increase 
 in the number of slaves at the end of the Roman 
 Empire, 
 
 From the point of view of the masters slavery 
 was not altogether pleasant. It might make 
 
 ^ Seneca, de. Ira, iii. 15 ; cf . Dial. vi. 20 : ' Haec (mors) scr- 
 vitutem invito domino remittit. Haec captivorum catenas 
 levat. ' The description of the evils of life which follows is 
 almost a picture of the distresses of slavery. ' Omnis vita 
 servitium est,' he says {de, Tranq. Anim. x. 4). ' Qui mori 
 didicit, servire dedidicit ' {Ep. 26. 10). 
 
 ^ Dial, v, da Ira, iii. 5. 
 
 1782 F
 
 82 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 leisure or great wealth possible, but the price paid 
 was heavy. The slave-owning classes lived con- 
 tinually on the watch. Plutarch makes Cato say 
 that he preferred a slave who slept when he was not 
 working; ^ and although in less developed economic 
 situations, such as that of the small family, the 
 slave was a member of the household, the institu- 
 tion of slavery led directly to the dangerous 
 labouring masses of later Rome. 
 
 ' We must go on depending on those who weep 
 and hate us,' says Seneca.^ That is bad enough, 
 but it might become positively impossible : ' He 
 is a bad servant who is so reckless as to despise 
 even death.' ^ And not merely the impossibility 
 of governing so reckless an instrument — but also 
 the continual danger from slaves of which we read 
 so often in Seneca, must have made the most 
 convinced Aristotelian or the most inhuman slave- 
 owner uncomfortable. 
 
 Politically the evil resulted in a perpetual fear 
 of revolution, which would naturally destroy the 
 value of that very leisure which slavery was 
 supposed to make possible. Any small governing 
 clique which depends upon the labour of a great 
 number of other human beings must live in a state 
 of watchfulness. All would be well if the slaves 
 could in practice be treated as animals or as tools ; 
 as they might be regarded in theory. An animal 
 
 '^ Cato Maj. ch. 21. irpaorepovs twv iypTjyopoTojv. 
 
 ^ The passage in which these words occur I have not 
 been able to find again ; but cf. de Brev. Vitae, 4, on the 
 boredom of having many dependent on you. And Ep. 47 
 ' totidem hostes esse quot servos. Non habemus illos 
 hostes, sed facimus.' Ep. 4. 8 ' Intelliges non pauciores 
 servorum ira cedidisse quam regum '. 
 
 ' dc Ben. ii. 34.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 83 
 
 will not revolt if its food is secured, and a tool will 
 remain as one leaves it when not being used ; but 
 the capacity for development of a non-material 
 kind makes it difficult to keep any human being in 
 a given class. The fundamental likeness of all 
 human beings forced itself upon the recognition 
 even of those who persisted in supposing that some 
 men were beasts or tools. ^ 
 
 Further, political life became more and more im- 
 possible in proportion as the ruler could rely upon 
 freedmen or slaves hoping to be freedmen to act 
 in his behalf. It was, in part, slavery that made 
 the destruction of Senatorial power possible. 
 
 Again, the decrease in the number of small pro- 
 prietors of land or houses and even of small indus- 
 tries was recognized as a political difficulty ; for, 
 the social organization is less stable in direct pro- 
 portion as fewer have any interest in its mainte- 
 nance. But it was slavery which made possible the 
 growth of the vast estates of Imperial Rome ; and 
 the gTeat slave-owners were masters of industry 
 and of agriculture as well as maintainors of large 
 private establishments. ^ 
 
 Stoic and Christian Views of Slavery: 
 In view of these evils the idea began to be sug- 
 gested that slavery itself was undesirable. The 
 only good which could be pointed to by contrast, 
 
 1 ' Ne tanquam hominibus quidem, sed tanquam iumentia 
 abutimur,' Sen. Ep. 47. 5. 
 
 ^ I take it as known that slaves were used as ' factory 
 hands' or as 'agricultural labourers' for a source of income 
 to the emxjloyer-owner and not as merely family or personal 
 servants. The modem parallel is not only in the domestic 
 establishments (footmen, &c.), but also in the mills of 
 Pittsburg. 
 
 r2
 
 84 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 to make the basis for an effective political ideal, 
 was independent individual labour ; and that, as 
 we know to our cost now, is by no means an un- 
 limited blessing. But we do not find that any 
 genuinely political movement was initiated by 
 those who saw the disadvantages of slavery. The 
 suggestions were more of a religious than of a 
 political nature. They appear as expressions of a 
 sentiment of equality and of kindliness to all men, 
 including slaves. The influence of the Stoic 
 cosmopolitanism was forcible in changing the 
 practical attitude at least among the thinking few ; 
 and a real amelioration at least of the conditions 
 of domestic slaves was the result. 
 
 Then came Christianity with its practice as well 
 as its theory of brotherhood : and thus also slavery 
 was made less irksome to master and slave. It 
 became impossible to act in precisely the traditional 
 way, either as a master or as a slave, and this trans- 
 formed the actual working of the institution even 
 though not this but other forces were working at its 
 abolition. Thus political changes were occurring 
 although, because the forms remained, the extent 
 of those changes cannot be clearly read in the 
 events of the time. Christianity did not attempt 
 to abolish slavery. Indeed, St. Paul had set the 
 tone in favour of the maintenance of established 
 institutions ; ^ and so far as action went the new 
 Christians strove rather to make the best of what 
 was bad, keeping their eyes upon another and 
 a better world. 
 
 The reflections of the ideal are stronger in litera- 
 ture than in events, because the changed attitude 
 
 * Thus he sends back the runaway slave (Ep. ad Phil.) : 
 cf. the language as to subjection (1 Cor.) and government.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 85 
 
 did not result in any great remodelling of the social 
 system. And as examples of the literary cause 
 and literary efiect of the new ideal we may take 
 Seneca's de Beneficiis and St. Augustine's de 
 Civitate Dei, one preceding the other following the 
 great religious change which affected political life. 
 
 In Seneca it is maintained continually that 
 slavery does not destroy the natural equality of 
 man.^ 'He errs who thinks that slavery goes to 
 the heart of man. For the better part of man is 
 unaffected. Bodies are under the power of a 
 master and are counted as his, but the mind is free 
 {sui iuris). It is so untrammelled indeed that it 
 cannot be held down even by those prison walls 
 within which it is shut, but may burst out to great 
 deeds and flee to the infinite as a comrade of the 
 divine. 
 
 ' It is the body then which fortune gives to the 
 master. This he buys and sells. That inner 
 element cannot be enslaved. What comes from 
 that is free ; for we cannot command everything, 
 nor can slaves be forced to obey in everything. 
 Commands against the State they will not obey, 
 and to no crime will they lend their hand.' ^ It is 
 a far cry from Aristotle when we read, ' A slave can 
 be just and strong and noble-minded'.^ 'Can 
 a slave benefit his lord ? — Well, a man can help 
 a man.' * And examples follow of noble acts done 
 by slaves. 
 
 Again, there is the trite passage in the letter to 
 Lucilius, ' They are slaves, it is said — Yes, but men. 
 
 * The statements in the de Beneficiis are all given in 
 Carlyle and well summarized. Therefore I select only a few 
 passages as typical. 
 
 "■ (h Ben. iii. 20. ' Ibid. iii. 18. * Ibid. iii. 22.
 
 86 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 Slaves — but comrades. Slaves — but poor friends. 
 Slaves — Yes, but fellow-slaves. . . . Live kindly with 
 your slave, and as a comrade. Admit him to 
 speech and counsel and common fare. ... " He is 
 but a slave," — Yes, but perhaps his mind is free.' ^ 
 Such sentiments, if they had been embodied in 
 a programme for the reform or the abolition of the 
 institution of slavery, would have immensely 
 efiected political development ; but they remained 
 unembodied. 
 
 In the interval between Seneca and St. Augustine - 
 the influence of an organized religious system had 
 made more effective the growing sentiment against 
 slavery ; although it was combined with a passionate 
 desire not to be revolutionary in politics. In the 
 de Civitate Dei it is said^ that 'No man is by nature 
 a slave . . . but only a beast is by nature such. Sin, 
 however, was the origin of slavery ; which God has 
 established as a punishment.' Therefore in the 
 management of a household ' although a distinction 
 must be made in the treatment of children and 
 slaves, yet in the service of God in which eternal 
 good is hoped for, all members of the household 
 must be regarded with an equal love '.■* 
 
 Thus we may find indications enough both in the 
 records of the situation and in the sentiment of 
 
 1 Ep. 47 (Teubner). 
 
 ^ Cf. Carlyle, i. 114. Where the doctrine of the other 
 Fathers in this matter is also explained. 
 
 •■' de Civ. Dei, xix. 15. Of natural liberty : slavery, he says, 
 'non fit nisi Deo iudicante': but St. Augustine goes on 
 to say that evil masters may have good slaves, in which 
 case it would seem that the punishment for the original 
 sin falls upon the wrong shoulders. This is, however, 
 probably ' a mystery '. 
 
 ' Ibid. xix. 16.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 87 
 
 idealists that slavery was discovered to be in some 
 way objectionable. Such a distinction of rank 
 could no longer be supposed to abolish the funda- 
 mental likeness between all human beings ; and 
 although no political thinker arose to establish the 
 ideal in the definite form of a plan or programme of 
 reform the vague sentiment was strong enough to 
 ameliorate in some way the evils of an institution 
 which it was ineffective to abolish.^ 
 
 Criticism of the Ideal of Equality. 
 
 The criticism of such an ideal is only too easy. 
 It was based upon a political need, but it supplied 
 no political or economic remedy. The changed 
 attitude towards slavery was undoubtedly a gain 
 even for the arrangement of the political relations 
 between men in a civilized society. But a senti- 
 ment is not effective for the majority unless it be 
 embodied in an institution. A few may really 
 abolish the evil of slavery by treating their servants 
 as human beings and not as tools or beasts ; but 
 to the vast majority an attitude or a sentiment is 
 a transient luxury of momentary emotion having 
 no real effect on their action.^ And slavery was 
 
 ' The new situation is expressed in the Digest (cf. 
 Carlyle, op. cit. i). ' Sed hoc tempore nuUis hominibus, 
 qui sub imperio nostro sunt, licet sine causa legibus 
 cognita et supra modum in servos sues saevire ' {Inst. i. 8. 2). 
 
 Antoninus made the murder of one's own slave punish- 
 able as if the slave belonged to another, i. e. the punish- 
 ment was death or deportation. In the case of lesser 
 cruelties the slave was to be sold and his price paid to 
 the master. A slave's earnings, however, were neve'* 
 legally protected, 
 
 ^ For example, every one says patriotism is admirable, 
 but the majority are quite incapable of continued and
 
 88 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 ameliorated but it still continued in existence with 
 all its dangers even after Christianity was an estab- 
 lished force. It died down in fact not because of 
 any political substitute offered by Christian or other 
 thinkers, but simply in the general ruin of the old 
 social system during the Dark Ages. We say first 
 then that the ideal was ineffective because it was 
 embodied in a sentiment and not in a programme.^ 
 ' Christians ', says St. Augustine, 'should not own 
 a slave exactly as they own a horse or money, even 
 though the horse may sell for more than the slave.' ^ 
 But ' slaves must go on submitting even to bad 
 masters ', so long as these do not go too far.^ Thus 
 no real change could be affected in the institution, 
 and the change in sentiment was therefore made 
 less effective. 
 
 And again the ideal involved the disregard of 
 the actual social situation. It repudiated rather 
 than reformed the established system. The ob- 
 jectors against slavery did not attempt to show 
 how men might do without the institution in actual 
 life ; they said in effect that the conditions of actual 
 life must be simply disregarded by those who were 
 Stoics or Christians. 
 
 The Stoic said that according to the law of 
 Nature there was no slavery ; but the law of 
 Nature had in fact been succeeded by a convention 
 to which we must submit. And the Christian said 
 that there had been no slavery ' before the Fall of 
 
 reasoned patriotic action unless an institutional demand, 
 such as service in the army, is made. 
 
 ^ So Seneca does not dispute the actual necessity of 
 slavery, altliough he wishes the attitude changed. ' Sibi 
 quisque dat mores : ministeria casus adaignat,' Ep. 47. 15. 
 
 * de Serm. Dom. i, c. 59. 
 
 ^ Enarr. in Ps. cxxix.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 89 
 
 Man ', but man had fallen and we must submit to 
 the established conditions. The dread of revolution 
 was hampering idealists. The Stoics had seen the 
 evils of the rapid changes in government under the 
 influence of a brutal egoism or military power 
 without any noble conception to guide it. Any- 
 thing therefore seemed better than further un- 
 settlement. And Christianity had been accused of 
 anarchical tendencies, which indeed had proved 
 difficult for the first Apostles ; ^ it was necessary 
 therefore to avoid the disruption of society which 
 might be attempted in the enthusiasm of a religious 
 revival. Thus both the systems of political 
 idealism were made over-careful. 
 
 Both Stoicism and Christianity disapproved of 
 slavery; but both were too careful of the established 
 order, and the real efiect of their attitudes was to 
 keep the old institution in existence. For to the 
 Stoic the law of Nature was somewhat aloof from 
 the actual arrangements of society. Stoics might 
 believe and evenact as though a slave were a human 
 being ; but the established convention had also to 
 be maintained. And the Christian idealist also 
 believed all men equal in the eyes of God and 
 treated slaves as brethren ; but he too gave his 
 influence to maintain the established institution, 
 for the laws of the City of God were very far 
 removed from any real contact with the order of 
 the State. 
 
 Thus began the greatest hindrance to political 
 development, the divided allegiance, according to 
 which men continue to maintain as citizens what 
 they condemn as human beings. Caesar being 
 
 ^ Cf. Carlyle, loc. cit., i. 156. Hence the extreme 
 admiratioQ for government from St. Paul to Gregory I.
 
 90 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 
 
 given one sort of service and God another, the 
 higher your enthusiasm the more you neglected the 
 actual re-arrangement of human relations. The 
 temporal was reduced to dust and ashes by taking 
 from it all the spirit of life, and the spiritual was 
 emptied of all content by being removed from 
 immediate contact with the world. 
 
 It must be understood that I am not under- 
 valuing the effect of religious enthusiasm on poli- 
 tical life ; but, since politics can be distinguished 
 from religion, one may understand how political 
 change may be lessened by the transference of all 
 enthusiasm to the sphere of religion. The actual 
 effect of such religious enthusiasm upon politics is 
 very much less than a more obviously political 
 enthusiasm would have attained.^ There was 
 nothing essentially Stoic or Christian in the neglect 
 of political development at the date to which we 
 have been referring ; but Stoicism and Christianity 
 appeared in a world which had exhausted its poli- 
 tical inventiveness and even its capacity for 
 political perception. The result was that the 
 political changes were few, so far as the develop- 
 ment of the civilized tradition is concerned, and 
 most of the political energy was spent in assimilat- 
 ing northern institutions of a more primitive type 
 or in embodying the old ideals in a new form. 
 
 In spite of its deficiencies, however, the ideal lived 
 on, transforming the relations of man to man in the 
 social castes of the Middle Ages and preventing 
 
 * A contrasted case may be found in modem politics 
 (v. Individualism, &c.), where political enthusiasm is 
 given an almost entirely economic tone. As Religion 
 tends to the neglect of Politics, so Economics tend to 
 confining its scope.
 
 COSMOPOLITAN EQUALITY 91 
 
 serfdom from developing into a new slavery. It 
 broke into new flower with the rediscovery of 
 politics at the Renaissance ; and it was at work to 
 destroy the inequalities of men at the Revolution. 
 With respect to the other element in the same ideal 
 — the cosmopolitan equality of races, as opposed 
 to equality of political rank — the later history of 
 the tribal groups in mediaeval Europe is largely 
 due to the conception of all civilized races as equal. 
 The exclusiveness of race had been overcome and 
 the movement became possible towards mediaeval 
 unity.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 Originality of the Mediaeval Ideal. 
 
 Superficially very little remains of the ideals of 
 the Middle Ages. If one sought in the statements 
 of the fourteenth century an expression of what 
 was worth working for, little would be found with 
 which we should agree. Idealists then set out 
 magnificent programmes for the political adjust- 
 ment of the relations between man and man. And 
 most of these programmes are quite unreal to us, 
 since no one to-day would think it desirable to 
 subordinate the rulers of Europe to a German 
 Emperor, even if he called his Empire holy and 
 Roman ; and no one would work for an adjustment 
 of classes within the State such as is implied in 
 Feudalism. But the ideal which lay behind these 
 fantastic programmes is still active in so far as we 
 desire to maintain and develop a comity of Euro- 
 pean nations. The obsolete programmes, therefore, 
 may be used as a partial and transient embodiment 
 of an ideal . We may give the mediaeval idealists 
 credit for their intentions, for they were hampered 
 in their expression of them by their inheritance. 
 
 The ghost of old Rome haunted their minds ; 
 and they took the creature of their dream for the 
 Roman Empire made holy by alliance with the 
 Roman Church. But this creature was really 
 a new spirit wearing the trappings of the old.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 93 
 
 What they imagined was a political uiiity unlike 
 that of the Roman Order in everything but its 
 language, degraded to a universal dialect : and 
 they took the result of their imagination for a mere 
 reproduction of obsolete fact. Less imaginative 
 ages have often called a register of fact by the high 
 name of artistic creation ; but the Middle Ages 
 never gave themselves enough credit for the Holy 
 Roman Empire. They should have said it was 
 an absolutely new conception, and they declared 
 instead that it was what had already existed. 
 We must then give them credit for a political ideal 
 which they really created, although they never 
 claimed to be creators of a new motive force in 
 politics. 
 
 The Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 The Empire they imagined was the crude em- 
 bodiment of a conception of European Unity. 
 But to the cursory eye that Empire, never very 
 substantial, is less now than even the shadow of 
 a name. It may seem that the political ideal of 
 the Middle Ages is at its best represented, as its 
 monastic ideal is, by ruins. The beauty and 
 grandeur of abbey and cathedral may be undeni- 
 able ; but little indeed is left of the conceptions of 
 human life which prevailed among the men who 
 built them. I am not concerned here to say how 
 much has survived of the religious ideals of the 
 Middle Ages ; but it is essential to note that the 
 Spirit may inform many shapes, and the ideal may 
 survive a complete transformation of its bodily 
 expression. That is the case certainly with the 
 political ideals of mediaeval thinkers ; and my task 
 now is to show what motive force at present exist-
 
 94 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 ing in the political sphere is an inheritance from 
 them. I take as my historical phrase the Holy 
 Roman Empire, and I shall attempt to show how 
 much is in existence to-day of that conception 
 which made mediaeval jurists build up the Empire. 
 To do so it will be necessary first to distinguish 
 the ideal from its almost accidental form. The 
 mediaeval thinker would not, of course, agree with 
 what I have to say about his ideal ; for in the 
 course of history much meaning has developed out 
 of his half -formed thought, and he would be the last 
 to recognize his own progeny in its new shape. 
 Again, I do not presume to say that the Holy 
 Roman Empire was an accidental form in the sense 
 that the mediaeval thinker could have imagined 
 a unity of nations without any suzerain. The 
 conception of common interests among different 
 peoples and of an organization of world-polity 
 necessarily expressed itself in the Holy Roman 
 Empire, because of events which had preceded. 
 But the actual detail of the conception, the relation 
 of the King of the Romans to the princes of Europe 
 and other such ideas, were due ultimately to the 
 magnificent ideal of unity among all civilized 
 peoples. It is this conception of unity which 
 still survives in our political thought in the dis- 
 tinction we make between European and other 
 nations and in the vague feeling that we have 
 which makes European war seem more terrible 
 than any other. We still take it for granted, 
 although in only an indefinite way, that the peoples 
 of Europe are brothers, and such a conception is 
 not cosmopolitan nor is it anti-national. It is 
 a concept of quite a unique relation which in fact 
 is due to mediaeval history. Underlying all the
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 95 
 
 obsolete politics of the de Monarchia and the de 
 Regimine Principum, there is this ideal which 
 still lives. It was first a motive-power in the 
 Middle Ages, even if consciously it did not enter 
 into political action : it has survived the Indus- 
 trialism of the nineteenth century, and it is still 
 forcible in moulding our conception of the future 
 we desire. 
 
 Modern European Unity. 
 
 Let us take it first as we find it active in modern 
 politics. There is a common feeling among the 
 people of Western Europe that they are, in spite of 
 differences, part of one system by contrast with the 
 races of the East. Mr. Kipling declares that 
 
 Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain 
 shall meet, 
 
 Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judg- 
 ment seat. 
 
 He is perhaps unaware that such sentiments are 
 a survival of the Middle Ages, when Western 
 Europe regarded itself as civilized humanity and 
 the outer world as only ' the rest '. But he repre- 
 sents a feeling which, even if mediaeval, is none the 
 less based upon observation of undeniable facts. 
 The civilization of all the various nations of Western 
 Europe is really one, and I do not in the least mean 
 to be abusive in using the word mediaeval ; for 
 the Middle Ages observed facts and made a record 
 of them in their political conceptions. It would 
 be a very deficient history which refused to recog- 
 nize any debt to the Middle Ages and confined our 
 political inheritance to what we derive from Greece 
 and Rome. 
 
 Again, there is a vague feeling that war among 
 the nations of Europe is more terrible than war of
 
 96 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 any one of these against ' savages ' or ' the yellow 
 races '. There is more than a tendency to regard 
 European war as almost civil war, whereas other 
 warfare is regarded as only ' civilizing '. Idealists 
 who dream of a homogeneous humanity are much 
 incensed by such distinctions ; and we must admit 
 that it is no justification of one evil to say that 
 it is at least not so bad as another. War against 
 savages is not rational simply because it is slightly 
 less irrational than war against our equals. No 
 war is civilizing, even though some wars obstruct 
 civilization less obviously than others. 
 
 But the fact remains that the popular feeling 
 is quite justified. European war is more terrible 
 to contemplate than any other because the nations 
 of Europe are in fact more united in sentiment 
 and tradition than any one of them is with non- 
 European nations. Even treaties cannot, abolish 
 the past. Japan is alien to us in a sense in which 
 Germany is not. And it is utterly impossible in 
 rational politics to regard one nation as absolutely 
 equivalent to another or to test their relationship 
 merely by Economics. 
 
 Suppose that two brothers who have grown up 
 together are in conflict during their later life about 
 some business issue. Even so, they are bound 
 together by their common tradition more closely 
 than either of them is with his business partner. 
 Or again, imagine men who have been educated 
 in the same school. They too may become rivals 
 politically or in business and yet a common tradi- 
 tion would hold them together and keep them 
 distinct from even their partners or members of 
 their party who have not been to the same school. 
 But some of the nations of Western Europe are
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 97 
 
 brothers in blood and all have been to the same 
 school. 
 
 Two points, therefore, are of interest in this 
 matter. First, there is the general feeling of the 
 unity of Western European civilization, and next 
 there is the general desire that such unity should 
 be preserved and developed. This is the ideal 
 which we inherit from the Middle Ages, and it is 
 still effective in politics. ^ 
 
 Mediaeval Origin of the Ideal. 
 
 We must now discuss its meaning and value. 
 But this can only be done by discussing its origin 
 and fijst development, and then interpreting the 
 language of those who first attempted, although 
 half-consciously, to express it. The facts to which 
 we must refer are those of psychical inheritance 
 rather than of external event ; we must find out 
 how the desire for unity in Europe first became 
 forcible, how it then expressed itself in the form of a 
 political programme, and how the inevitable limita- 
 tions in its expression led men to oppose the ideal. 
 
 The downfall of Rome has become a plati- 
 tude of history ; and with the power of Rome, 
 order disappeared in Europe. Even such order 
 as Rome had achieved, inadequate as it was by 
 comparison with the ideal which Rome herself had 
 suggested — even that order was more admirable 
 than the confusion which followed. Each locality 
 preyed as far as it could on the other, and various 
 tribes began moving across the settled lands of 
 
 * Carlyle (Med. Pol. Theory, I. iii, ch. xv, p. 185) seems 
 to doubt whether the value of the conception of unity 
 has not been exaggerated. It is to be understood that 
 I limit the effectiveness of the idea to Europe. 
 1782 G
 
 98 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 Europe, so that even the most primitive civiliza- 
 tion of agriculture became almost impossible. 
 Men lost heart at the sight of the fruits of labour 
 destroyed by the ignorant rapacity of barbarous 
 invaders, and the best possible means of living was 
 in copying these successful savages. Those were 
 the Dark Ages indeed, since almost all that had 
 been won by Greece and Rome seemed to be lost. 
 
 The chronicles of the time record invasion and, 
 following upon the destruction of crops, famine 
 and, hard upon famine, plague. Then once again 
 invasion ; and so on, year after year, until no man 
 lived without daily fear of death and the greatest 
 expected soon the end of the whole world. Thus 
 in the words of Pope Gregory I : ^ ' Everywhere 
 we see grief : we hear groans on every side. The 
 cities are ruined, garrisons destroyed, and country 
 depopulated, so that the land is made desert. No 
 husbandman in the fields, and almost no inhabitant 
 in the cities, but the small remnant of the human 
 race is still daily and ceaselessly troubled. Some 
 we behold led off into captivity, some maimed, 
 others killed. ... If we still delight in such a world 
 we must love wounds, not joys. We see what 
 Rome is now, that Rome which once seemed the 
 Queen of the world. Her citizens are few, her 
 enemies always attacking, and her ruins every- 
 where.' And again : ' The ruins of the world call 
 aloud. The world under many blows falling from 
 its glory shows us how near the other kingdom is 
 which is to follow.' ^ 
 
 1 Horn, xviii, super EzecMelem proph., Migne, vol. 76, 
 p. 1009. 
 
 ^ Horn, iv, in Ev. I, Migne, vol. 76, p. 1090 : ' Ruinae 
 mundi vocea eius sunt. Qui attritus percussionibus
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 99 
 
 Pope Gregory's work also expresses the natural 
 result of such an observation of evil in the exag- 
 gerated value he seems to give to established 
 governiTient.^ It is natural to suppose that in the 
 general confusion he felt the need of maintaining 
 any shadow of established authority which might 
 remain over from better times : and his own defer- 
 ence to the Eastern Emperor was simply a logical 
 result of what seems to have been his general con- 
 viction as to the sacredness of secular authority. 
 
 Discord and disunion had taken the place of 
 liberty and order. But out of much wandering 
 and many wars and universal confusion the world 
 of the Middle Ages was born. It was natural that 
 with the half-remembered dream of Roman Order 
 in the waking world of many conflicting interests 
 the mediaeval ideal should be unity. In such 
 a time what seemed most desirable was the realiza- 
 tion of common interests among the warring tribes 
 or the invaded peoples. Only upon such common 
 interests, it was felt, could peace and security be 
 established ; and along with the memory of 
 
 a gloria sua cecidit quasi iam nobis e proximo regnum 
 aliud quod sequitur ostendit.' 
 
 Gregory argues that in the time of the Apostles miracles 
 were necessary to make people feel for ' the other world ', 
 but when ' this world ' was obviously dying no miracles 
 were needed. 
 
 * I do not mean to deny Mr. Carlyle's statement that 
 the attitude was ' due to three causes ', the need of cor- 
 recting the anarchical tendency in the primitive Church, 
 the relation between Church and Emperor, and the influence 
 of the Old Testament conception of the position of the 
 king (Carlyle, I. iii, ch. xiii, p. 157). I add a fourth cause. 
 
 The further passages may be found discussed in Carlyle, 
 loc. cit. They are Reg. Past. iii. 4 and Lib. Mor.. in -Job, 
 xxii. 24. 
 
 G2
 
 100 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 Roman Order went the new Christian gospel of the 
 brotherhood of man, until at last vague aspirations 
 took definite form in an ideal. 
 
 The Ideal in Action. 
 
 The form in which men of the early Middle Ages 
 conceived unity was, no doubt, inadequate ; but it 
 was the only possible form to minds so situated. In 
 that world of disunion there existed one organiza- 
 tion which seemed to rise superior to divisions of 
 place, nationality, and language. By the time that 
 the tradition of Roman Order had completely 
 disappeared, the missionaries of the Roman Church 
 had already reached the farthest bounds of what 
 was afterwards to be Mediaeval Europe. And the 
 Church thus became the source of that aspiration 
 after political unity which was embodied in the 
 Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 The officials of the Church were definitely con- 
 nected by the use of one language and by general 
 agreement as to the nature of the world and the 
 duties of man. Their customs and traditions, even 
 apart from religious ritual, were the same. They 
 were at home with one another long before the 
 different migrating or dissevered nations were able 
 to conceive of any peaceful relation among them- 
 selves. By contrast with diversity of local belief 
 and practice, the organized Christianity of the 
 eighth and ninth centuries preached 'One God, 
 one faith, and one baptism'. Unity was, as it were, 
 the charm by which the divided powers of earlier 
 religion were eventually subdued. Thus when at 
 last the settlement following the migrations of the 
 Dark Ages began, there was already a definite con-
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 101 
 
 nection to be found throughout Western Europe, 
 and that was the Roman Church. 
 
 Then came the success of Charles the Great. 
 Since the disappearance of Rome no such far- 
 reaching power over wide domains had been seen. 
 What was more natural then than to call the new 
 power by the name of the old, or even to identify 
 the two by supposing the Empire of the ninth 
 century to be only a resurrection from the dead of 
 the Rome long since dismembered ? ^ 
 
 On Christmas Day, a.d. 800, the Pope Leo 
 crowned Charles the Great King of the Romans. 
 The Holy Roman Empire was thus, as we now say, 
 founded ; but to the man of the Middle Ages all 
 that had happened was a renewal, after an unfor- 
 tunate lapse of centuries, of the rule of Augustus 
 Caesar. 2 Charles himself, the revolutionary be- 
 ginner of a new civilization, was deluded into 
 believing that he was only a maintainor of an 
 ancient order. ^ 
 
 The Roman Church passed on its sacred, its 
 magic, word ' Unity' to the new Empire ; and thus 
 the Emperor became, for over five hundred years, 
 the recognized symbol of the unity of all the 
 humanity that counted.'* Thus Alcuin addressed 
 
 1 Cf. Carlyle {Med. Pol. Theory, I. iii, ch. i, p. 197) for 
 the completely new atmosphere of the ninth century, 
 even as compared with Gregory the Great. 
 
 ^ ' Quem (Carolum) hodie Augustum sacravimus.' Bull 
 of Leo III ap. Jaffe, Regesta Pontif. 
 
 ^ Thus his seal is inscribed ' Renovatio Romani 
 Imperii'. Biyce, p. 98. 
 
 ' Troeltsch, Die Soziallchren der christl. Kirclie, p. 166, 
 and note, p. 170 : ' Das Ideal des wahren Staates ist 
 dann eben nicht mehr an dem Naturrecht gemessen, 
 sondem an der Glaubensgemeinschaft.'
 
 102 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 Charles : ' The prayers of all the faithful must 
 follow you that your imperial power be exalted 
 gloriously, that the catholic faith be fixed in all 
 hearts by one accord, in so far as by the gift of 
 the heavenly King all men everywhere may be 
 ruled and guarded by the holy peace and perfect 
 love of unity.' ^ 
 
 So also Engelbert, Abbot of Admont, writes : 
 'There is one only State of the whole Christian 
 people, and therefore necessarily one only chief 
 and king of this State.' ^ It is because of the 
 unity of all civilized humanity that there is one 
 symbol and support of that unity, the Emperor. 
 There was already a beginning of political unity to 
 which the idealist could point as something desir- 
 able. Its effects could already be felt by the many 
 to be good before any great political theory of unity 
 arose, for the beginnings of actual unity in the suc- 
 cess of the Roman Church were continued and 
 developed in the less complete success of the early 
 Empire. 
 
 But in the ninth century the complete theory of 
 unity was not yet established, since the majority 
 seem to have believed in a dual authority of Pope 
 and Emperor each svipreme in his own sphere.^ 
 Probably this was simply a step towards the later 
 ideal of a single head for all Christendom, for it 
 seems that the theory of dual authority is rather 
 an avoidance of the real issue than an elaborate 
 political scheme. A settled society had begun, and 
 
 ' Alcuin's letter, quoted by Bryce (p. 92) from Waitz. 
 I have rendered it freely to give the force of the concluding 
 phrase : ' Omnes ubique regat et custodiat unitas.' 
 
 ^ Engelbert, quoted by Bryce, p. 94. 
 
 ^ Carlyle, Med. Pol. Theory, I. iv, ch. xxi, p. 253 et seq.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 103 
 
 the relations between the warring tribes had been 
 partly arranged by a theoretical subordination to 
 one Emperor in the temporal and one Pope in the 
 spiritual sphere. It was easy to see how much 
 had been gained by such unity ; and the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries had only to make the last 
 step in resolving the dualism into the real unity of 
 which men dreamed.^ But just this step it was 
 found impossible to make. Political practice and 
 thought having climbed so far from the Dark Ages, 
 stumbled at the very summit of its ambition. The 
 opposing claims of Church and State could not be 
 reconciled. 
 
 The history of this long controversy need not be 
 described here, since what is important for my 
 present purpose is that the whole controversy as to 
 which power should be supreme proves conclusively 
 that every one at that time thought that one should 
 be supreme. Both Papalists and Imperialists 
 therefore supply evidence that (1) as much unity 
 as had been acquired was specially valued, and (2) 
 the ideal of the time was an increase of such unity. 
 Each party in action as well as in theory wished to 
 preserve the essential qualities of the power it 
 wished to subordinate. The Imperialist by sub- 
 ordinating the Church made the State a Church ; 
 the Papalist, subordinating the State, made the 
 Church a State ; but each did. this for the same 
 purpose, that the world should be a unity. Such 
 is the process that appears in the action of the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries and is systematized 
 in the thirteenth.2 
 
 * Carlyle, Med. Pol. Theory, II. ii, ch. x, p. 199 et seq. 
 
 * Ibid., II. ii, ch. xi, where the continual change of the 
 Middle Ages is well rendered and the distinction made
 
 104 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 The men of the Middle Ages did not observe con- 
 fusion and then imagine an ideal unity by contrast. 
 That is never the history of an effective ideal : it 
 never is without basis in actual fact ; it is never 
 purely the effect of desire, for its beginnings are 
 always to be found existing along with the undesir- 
 able fact to which it is opposed. It is partly the 
 effect of imagination ; but the imagination only 
 carries out what experience has already suggested. 
 
 There was in the midst of confusion a certain 
 unity, to develop which was the hope of reformers. 
 First there was the ecclesiastical system. In this 
 one might hold position quite apart from difference 
 of race or even of feudal rank. Thus although the 
 various races in Italy gave the Church most of its 
 Popes, Germany and England gave some. The 
 great bishops of Christendom in the different 
 countries had international power : and even the 
 simple 'clericus', if he happened to travel outside 
 his own district, would be recognized in all Europe 
 as having certain rights. 
 
 But in spite of the beginnings of actual unity in 
 the ecclesiastical system, unity was more im- 
 portant still in aspiration than it was in fact. 
 When the Middle Ages were well begun there was 
 still a continual complaint as to prevailing disunion, 
 and a writer at the end of the eleventh century 
 actually hints that the disorder was due to the 
 Papacy itself. This was perhaps prejudice ; and 
 yet it is a sign of the high value put by men of that 
 period on unity. ' Long ', he writes, ' have wars and 
 
 between the growth preceding and the systems appear- 
 ing in the thirteenth century. The excellence of these 
 systems has given the Middle Ages a false reputation for 
 stability and changelessness.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 105 
 
 seditions troubled the realm of the Roman Empire ; 
 and some say that the supporter of this discord is 
 Gregory the Pope, who is called Hildebrand.' ^ 
 And again : ' It is certainly true that Pope Hildebrand 
 has attempted to destroy the Scriptures and com- 
 mands of the Lord concerning the unity of the 
 Church.' 2 The treatise from which these words 
 are taken begins by showing that schism is the 
 greatest of all crimes since it is an offence against 
 unity. Quoting St. Augustine the author proceeds: 
 'Woe to them who hate the unity of the Church 
 and presume to make parties among men ! Would 
 that they might listen to those words : for it is clear 
 that the sin of schism is greater than that of idolatry, 
 since we read in the Old Testament that idolatry 
 was punished by the sword and schism by an open- 
 ing of the earth.' ^ Thus the unity actually estab- 
 lished by the Church was as nothing if compared 
 with the ideal which the Church herself had first 
 suggested, which the memory of Roman Order 
 supported and the Mediaeval Empire inherited. 
 
 As the Church is the first period of the Middle 
 Ages, so in a later period Learning also was really 
 international and thus kept Europe together. 
 Irrespective of race, if the student desired to study 
 Law he went to Bologna or Padua, if Medicine to 
 Salerno or Montpellier, if Theology to Oxford or 
 Paris.* The same language, the same text-books, 
 
 ^ Schardius, Syntagma Tractatuum de Imp. lurisd., etc., 
 publ. 1609. The tractate above quoted is De Unitate Eccl. 
 cotiservanda el schismate quod fuit inter Henric. IV et 
 Greg. VII. 
 
 "■ Ibid., p. 17. ^ Ibid., p. 1. 
 
 * The details may be found in Rashdall's Universities 
 of the Middle Ages. There it is shown that the first
 
 106 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 and the same methods were recognized all over 
 Europe. The student held the same place in every 
 land, and claimed almost the same privileges ; and 
 before beginning the special study which was to fit 
 him for public activity he was put through almost 
 the same course in Arts as all other students. 
 
 Such were the facts ; and imagination, going 
 beyond them, held up before men an ideal unity 
 of culture which was expressed in the Licentia 
 docendi granted by authority to proved scholars 
 and in the use of the word Studium. For 
 Studium did not only mean the actual system of 
 higher education ; it meant a universal power in 
 Europe to be ranked with the Church and the 
 Empire. 
 
 We may find another trace of actual unity in the 
 criteria of social rank ; for these also were the same 
 in all countries, so that a real unity might be found 
 among knights or princes of widely separate realms. 
 Diplomacy, that interesting survival of mediaeval 
 and Renaissance politics, still preserves some of 
 the ancient criteria. A diplomat can still arrange 
 meetings between potentates on the basis of 
 mediaeval ideas of caste. The extent to which one 
 monarch may bow to another is still known ; but 
 we no longer so generally know precisely where 
 a knight of the United Kingdom should sit if he 
 meets a count of the kingdom of Italy. The com- 
 ing of nationality has obscured the universally 
 accepted castes of the JVIiddle Ages. We accept 
 division as desirable, but in those days the actual 
 unity of social ranks led men to form an ideal 
 
 Universities were each a school for special studies ; uni- 
 versal in their appeal to different nations rather than in 
 the, rather futile, attempt to teach all subjects.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 107 
 
 European polity in which each man should have 
 his place recognized in whatever country he 
 travelled. 
 
 Literary Impression of the Ideal. 
 
 The importance of unity to the mind of the 
 Middle Ages may be still more clearly seen from the 
 rank given to the Emperor by theorists. He is not 
 related to kings as they are related to their vassals. 
 Such a relation was held to be too external ; it did 
 not sufl&ciently indicate the uniqueness of the 
 Emperor's position in the world. As Emperor he 
 is over and above all that system of ranks which 
 may seem to lead up to him. He is to Kings as the 
 Pope is to Bishops : and we know that the Pope 
 stands aloof in the ecclesiastical system of ranks. 
 To say even that he holds the highest rank is to 
 misrepresent the mediaeval conception. The Pope 
 is outside of all ranks. And so also the Emperor 
 stands in an absolutely unique relation both to the 
 source of all power who is God and to the kings of 
 earth. The Emperor is not a feudal sovereign ; for 
 he does not even in theory own the land on which 
 men live who are subject to him, whereas the feudal 
 system implies a theory of ownership of land. 
 Thus Slthough the Emperor happens at the same 
 time to be a feudal sovereign over parts of Germany, 
 as Emperor his authority is not feudal and extends 
 in some ill-defined way even over England. Such 
 was the generally current conception of the Emperor 
 as the symbol of that ideal unity of all civilized 
 humanity, which was thought to exist in such a way 
 as to underlie and almost reduce to insignificance 
 national, racial, or local differences. 
 
 As evidence for this lofty conception we have
 
 108 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 not only the generally accepted political theory 
 but definite literary expressions ; of which the most 
 striking is to be found in the de Monarcliia of 
 Dante. ^ This, although a personal expression of 
 opinion, is really a statement of an accepted theory 
 at least in its main contention. It is not a Utopia ; 
 it is a political programme : and although the 
 genius of Aristotle shines through the childishness 
 of Mediaevalism, its politics are very far indeed 
 from the Greek. It begins with the statement that 
 there is one common end for all humanity in so far 
 as all are men. One end implies one rule, as we 
 now admit : and then comes the innocent mediae- 
 valism, ' One rule implies one ruler ' ! ^ Next, 
 the ruler is to the realm of humanity as God is to the 
 Universe.^ Further, contentions may arise between 
 lords and kings, and there must be an ultimate 
 judge ; and again, what one can do should not be 
 done by many. By what Dante calls inductive 
 reasoning also, the single principle of unity is 
 proved essential, 'for the world was never quiet 
 except under the Monarch Augustus Caesar ' ; * 
 but now mankind is transformed into 'a beast of 
 many heads '. The third book shows that the 
 Emperor as the source of political unity does not 
 hold his power from the Pope and therefore" (chap. 
 
 ^ The text may be found in Schardius's Syntagma above 
 referred to or in the Works of Dante. I quote from 
 Schardius. ^ Ch. v. 
 
 ' I, ch. vii 'et ipsa ad ipsum universum sive ad eius 
 principem qui Dens est et Monarcha respondet, per unum 
 principium tautum scilicet per unicum principem'. 
 
 * I, ch. xvi. The mistaken idea as to the nature of 
 the Empire of Augustus is here obvious ; but the mistake 
 is continued by the German historians who interpret 
 Imperialism as a Caesarism enforcing peace by military 
 power.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 109 
 
 xvi) lie holds it direct from God. The whole work 
 is saturated with the conception of an underlying 
 unity in all the diversity of human character and 
 human interest. Man as man is the basis for 
 politics, and it made little difference to Dante or his 
 contemporaries that man meant only the inhabi- 
 tants of part of Europe during a few short years. 
 
 The other treatise on politics which is expres- 
 sive of unity is that of Thomas Aquinas, which 
 is known as the de Regimine Principum or the 
 de Rege et Regno?- There it is said that a single 
 power must move all to a goal which is one for all ; 
 and going further than Dante, Thomas makes the 
 king to his people 'as the soul is to the body '.^ 
 He is like God in the world. God made it and 
 rules it ; and so the king makes the State and 
 ordains its end and the means to that end, which is 
 'virtuous life '.^ Thomas writes like an intelligent 
 schoolboy who had read Aristotle, but did not 
 quite understand what politics are. His admiration 
 for unity, however, is all that concerned us here 
 and we may leave uncriticized his fantastic con- 
 ception of political power. The leading conception 
 of the constitution of civilized society both in the 
 de Regiynine Principum and in the part of the 
 Summa^ which deals with this issue, is that of 
 
 ^ Ojmsculum, xx. (edit. Rom.) vol. xvi. (edit. Paris). 
 In the Paris edit, of 1875 it is in vol. xxvii. From the 
 middle of Book II the work is not by Aquinas. 
 
 ^ ' Sicut anima in corpore et sicut deus in mundo,' 
 i, eh. 12. 
 
 * ' Virtuosa vita est congregationis humanae finis,' ch. 14. 
 
 * In S. Theol., prima secundae, q. xcv (de legibus), and 
 q. cv (de ratione iudicialium praeceptorum), art. 1, ad 2, 
 'dicendum quod regnum est optimum regimen populi': 
 and the division into many kingships is a punishment
 
 110 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 unity. This alone gives force to the desire for one 
 ruler, since the mediaeval thinker could not con- 
 ceive of unity except in what we call a pictorial or 
 plastic form. Men needed then, as it were, to see 
 unity in order to believe in it ; but they did believe 
 in it intensely. 
 
 Modern Form of the Ideal. 
 
 Such was the mediaeval ideal of unity, and such 
 the embodiment of it in the world of historical 
 fact : it is not altogether obsolete. I have given 
 at the beginning of this chapter the argument by 
 which European Unity might still be maintained. 
 In the rivalry of nations — an inheritance from the 
 Renaissance — and in the agitation for social reform 
 — an inheritance from the Revolution — modern 
 politics seems to take little account of European 
 Unity; but at certain times the old ideal recurs 
 to the minds of statesmen. Thus a sort of faint 
 shadow of the ideal is to be found in the so-called 
 'Concert of Europe '. In actual politics not much 
 force seems to remain in the words, but they express 
 a common sense of duty and a vague aspiration for 
 unity. Enough has been said elsewhere of the 
 futility of the supposed Concert, in which every 
 member seems to be aiming at private advantage ; 
 and no statement of policy other than empty ex- 
 pressions of general principles has ever come from 
 its conferences. But it remains an embryonic fact 
 
 rather than a means of ' perfection ', ibid, ad 3 ' multi- 
 tude regum magis est data in poenam . . . quam ad eorum 
 perfectum'. Cf. Secunda secundae, q. 1, art. 1, ad 2 
 ' regnum inter alias politias est optimum regimen ut 
 dicitur in 8 Ethic, c. 10 '. All, however, ' must have 
 a part in the State'. Thomas 'proves' that the Mosaic 
 rule was the ideal composite suggested by Aristotle !
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 111 
 
 in politics and it may yet be developed. Thus the 
 mediaeval ideal of unity would remain, not in the 
 vague cosmopolitanism which desires to find the 
 common interests of all men, but in the develop- 
 ment of actual European sympathies. We may 
 still desire to see the nations of Europe at least 
 agreed in the maintenance of what we believe to be 
 civilization ; for it is not too much to expect 
 that they should subordinate the immediate private 
 interest of each to the general effort towards 
 liberty and order, and the common end of all may 
 well prove to be the best for each. 
 
 Some vague feeling, however, seems to survive, 
 which prevents any real European Unity : and this 
 is not due merely to present jealousy but to the 
 deficiencies of the original ideal. We must there- 
 fore turn to criticism of the mediaeval conception. 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 The disunion and rivalry between nations, which 
 marks modern European politics and is even taken 
 for granted as desirable by many writers on politics, 
 is not a purely modern growth. The ideal of the 
 Middle Ages was never attained and in part it was 
 really defective. We must not too readily con- 
 demn an age which did not achieve its ideal ; be- 
 cause the ideal itself may have had limitations 
 which prevented its attainment, and we are different 
 from our mediaeval forefathers chiefly in being able 
 to stand aside and criticize even accepted concep- 
 tions of what is desirable. The idealists of the 
 Middle Ages were peculiar in condemning their 
 contemporaries and never really blaming the ideal 
 itself. Thus Langland in England laments the 
 primitive simplicity and the contemporary luxury
 
 112 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 of the world. In his view all would be well if men 
 lived up to their beliefs and professions, a pathetic 
 fallacy which still survives in the rhetoric of 
 preachers. It never dawned on his rather limited 
 intelligence that his conceptions of the ideal life 
 might be mistaken. So also the much greater 
 Dante looked back with regret to the days when 
 humanity lived up to the ideal : he was ignorant, 
 of course, that no such days ever had existed.^ 
 The implied attitude is clear. If men would but 
 realize the ideal of Church and Empire all would 
 be well ; and even Dante never dreamt that such 
 ideals might have necessary deficiencies. Petrarch 
 too when he wishes to reform Europe does not 
 suggest any new ideal : he only points to the old 
 plan which even the good intentions of the best 
 Popes and Emperors had never made workable. 
 And so, long after the faintest possibility of Euro- 
 pean political unity had disappeared, mediaeval- 
 minded thinkers called men to accept the old ideal. ^ 
 If anything divides our attitude completely 
 from that of the Middle Ages it is this.^ They 
 looked back, we look forward : they said, ' Here is 
 
 * In the famous passage, Par. xv. 97. Cacciaguida's words : 
 Fiorenza . . . 
 
 Si stava in pace, sobria e pudica. 
 Non avea catenella, non corona. 
 ^ Thus even the scholar Nicholas de Cusa does so in 
 spite of his Renaissance interests. Pius II, Aeneas 
 Sylvius, may have felt that the Papacy was bound up 
 with the old ideal. At any rate he worked for no new ideal. 
 ^ Cf. Troeltsch (op. cit., p. 326), who points out how 
 different what we call Social Reform is : ' Fiir die alte Kirche 
 war eine Sozialreform zu schwierig, fiir die mittelalterliche 
 war sie iiberfliissig. Sie hat den tatsiichlichen Zustand 
 idealisiert und fiir das wahre, von Vemunft und Offenbar- 
 ung gleichmassig geforderte, Ideal erklilrt.'
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 113 
 
 the ideal, let us live up to it ' : we are in doubt as 
 to which ideal is worth living up to. And with our 
 knowledge of the many ideals which men have 
 followed, we find some good and some bad. Our 
 knowledge of history makes us sceptical as to the 
 correctness of our own conceptions of the ideal ; 
 whereas in the Middle Ages, the ignorance of history 
 being complete, ^ no one really doubted what was 
 the most desirable political arrangement. Even 
 thinkers hke Ockham or Marsilius of Padua, with 
 definite democratic conceptions, were still obsessed 
 by the abstract ideal of Imperial Unity. ^ 
 
 I argue then that the ideal of the Middle Ages 
 was really limited or defective in its rigidity. The 
 unity conceived and partly realized was fixed and 
 dead. It was modelled on the dead body of the 
 Roman Empire. It did not allow of new develop- 
 ments of its parts nor of any new meaning of 
 universal Empire and universal Church. But races 
 grow as individuals do, and it is hopeless to com- 
 press a growing organism in the swaddUng clothes 
 of an inherited political theory. Either the 
 organism is injured or it bursts through its limita- 
 tions, as Europe did in the Renaissance. The 
 unity of Europe, if desirable, must at least be the 
 unity of a growing tree and not that of a stone ; so 
 much would be clear in the abstract. And next, 
 
 ^ So complete that Thomas Aquinas, for example, an 
 exceptionally brilliant thinker, can treat the Amazons 
 as evidence for political constitutions, in the de Reg. 
 Princip. 
 
 * Cf. Poole's Illustrations of Mediaeval Thought, and 
 the treatises he quotes in Goldast, Mon. S. R. Imp. 
 The conflict against Ecclesiasticism in Marsilius gives 
 him an extreme importance, but for my purpose he may 
 be counted as only another exponent of the ideal of Unity. 
 1782 H
 
 114 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 mediaeval unity in fact was never realized. The 
 different races grew into different States without 
 any real influence to counteract their tendency to 
 be hostile one to the other. But something must 
 surely have been fatally wrong with an ideal which 
 remained an empty aspiration when forces were 
 arising with which it should have dealt. It was an 
 unrealized ideal because it was too crudely con- 
 ceived : the unity of civilized humanity cannot 
 mean the submission of every group to one central 
 power. In any case the new States which arose 
 in the fourteenth and grew to power in the fifteenth 
 century could afford to neglect the ideal of common 
 interests and a universal brotherhood. 
 
 And yet precisely this crudity of conception in 
 the mediaeval ideal, its weakness and not its 
 strength, has been perpetuated into contemporary 
 politics. It is to be found in the political theory of 
 certain German writers ^ and in the practice of 
 German diplomatists ; for among the forces which 
 have gone to establish the unity of the German 
 Empire is the mediaeval ideal of the Holy Komau 
 Empire ; and the mistaken elements in that ideal 
 have been perpetuated by a conception of a pre- 
 dominant world-state. But the peace arrived at by 
 such means would be a dead and inorganic unity. It 
 would be the unity of a stone as compared with that 
 of a tree ; a unity which flows from some external 
 source of compression rather than an internal force 
 of growth. Thus the weakness in the mediaeval 
 ideal still continues to corrode the popular German 
 idea of a united Europe. To us the mediaeval 
 ideal is still alive and forcible, in so far as we all 
 hope for a real European ' alliance of civilized 
 * Treitschke, and von Billow's Imperial Germany.
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 115 
 
 uations ' ; but that is the soul of mediaeval 
 politics. Its bodily expression is and always was 
 crude ; for it involved that European unity should 
 mean a European world-power dictating peace 
 and progress in the name of God. The Holy 
 Roman Empire may have been the necessary em- 
 bodiment of mediaeval unity, but it was always 
 an obstacle to the realization of real unity, and it 
 has become in recent times a fantastic anachronism. 
 The bodily expression of this ideal, then, is now 
 a withered ogre, which stultifies the political 
 idealism of the German peoples. For the mediaeval 
 Empire, though in theory international, was in 
 fact German ; and the present German Emperor 
 seems to suffer from an hallucination, which his 
 diplomatists seem to cultivate — that a particular 
 race and even a particular government are called 
 upon to dominate, in the name of God, the society 
 of nations. Unity and peace may be the purpose 
 of such domination ; but domination has been con- 
 clusively proved by the failure of the mediaeval 
 system to be not the right method for attaining 
 unity. 
 
 We may still hope to see a united Europe, but not 
 in the form hoped for by the Middle Ages ; for that 
 form implied the subordination of many govern- 
 ments to one central power. The unity was ex- 
 ternal and dictated from above. In the modern 
 conception the mistakes of MediaevaUsm are 
 corrected even while its excellencies are admitted ; 
 for our ideal is a unity of co-operating parts, the 
 unity of a pc^tical organism, not of a fixed and 
 centralized Caesarism. Indeed, if the modern 
 German politician who spoke of the German Empire 
 as a predominant influence in world-politics has 
 H 2
 
 116 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 really learnt his lesson from the limited teaching 
 of mediaeval Imperialists, he seems to have caught 
 at precisely those elements in the teaching which 
 were based upon ignorance. The mediaeval 
 thinker did not really know the nature of the 
 Roman Empire which he supposed that he was re- 
 establishing. He imagined it to be an ImperiaUsm 
 subordinating local kingships, and as such it 
 appears in mediaeval poUtics ; but we all know 
 now that Rome had no national governments under 
 her in those parts of the world which developed 
 into mediaeval Europe. Gaul and Britain were 
 not ruled by mediaeval barons and kings when 
 Rome subordinated them. Modern Germany can 
 therefore hardly suppose that the domination of 
 Rome can be repeated now that the nations have 
 developed independent state systems. . And again, 
 even the Middle Ages based the power of their 
 centralizing Empire not on force of arms. The 
 very soul of the Empire was its spiritual position, 
 disembodied from any military power. But in the 
 new and false conception unity is made to depend 
 upon the force of arms exerted by the Holy German 
 Emperor, The old ideal, therefore, in its crudest 
 form, survives in the ambitions of some German 
 writers, and to its withered antiquity is added the 
 new falsehood of military armament. These poU- 
 tical thinkers adopt the worst features of a noble 
 aspiration, and insult their own forefathers by sup- 
 posing that in the Middle Ages men could see no 
 difference between divine right and force of arms. 
 
 The very feebleness of the Holy Roman Empire 
 is a sign of its true value in the development of 
 European politics. For it was a spiritual rather 
 than a military source of unity. It is true that
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 117 
 
 military domination established the Empire of 
 Charles the Great ; but when the Imperial theory 
 was fully developed the Empire had no military or 
 economic force whatever, and yet it stood for the 
 unity of the civilized world. 
 
 The Emperor for generations had always been 
 hopelessly feeble. He could neither enforce peace 
 between princes nor establish any real universal 
 power such as the Church. Politically there has 
 never been such disunion in Europe since the 
 Middle Ages as there was when men everywhere 
 admitted that unity was desirable. But this, so 
 far from making us doubt the value of their ideal, 
 should make us all the more admire its force. For 
 the popular feeling of European brotherhood, to 
 which we have referred above, is a realization of 
 the hope of those divided ancestors of ours ; and 
 it is their dream which, in part at least, has worked 
 its own fulfilment. 
 
 The very feebleness of the Emperor gave support 
 to the theory of his exalted position. Few 
 emperors had either wealth or military power. 
 Mere kings might take rank over their vassals by 
 the force of superior arms ; but there was a 
 sacredness which exalted the Emperor far above 
 the need for any such crude criterion of rank as 
 military power or wealth. Such a theory must 
 seem wildly unpolitical in an age such as ours, 
 which admits no test of value except the economic ; 
 but it was a splendid and effective ideal, if not in 
 producing real unity, at least in keeping alive the 
 hope of some other relation between states than 
 that of mere rivalry. 
 
 There remains therefore this from among the 
 many ideals of the Middle Ages : European nations
 
 118 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 should be considered as a unity in spite of their 
 mutual independence. We are not likely to go 
 back upon the Renaissance conception of a sove- 
 reign State with which I shall deal in the next 
 chapter ; but we may still retain a conception of 
 European Unity as worth working for. Thus we 
 shall reject the mediaeval conception of a single 
 suzerain or of a single ' State ' in Europe, and we 
 shall no longer confuse politics by reference to 
 a supernatural basis for political power such as 
 was implied in the Emperor's relation to the 
 Deity. But although Empire and Emperor have 
 gone and a universal Church with the same rela- 
 tion to all the different political units of govern- 
 ment is hardly conceivable, the mediaeval ideal 
 of unity still remains. It must be made more 
 conscious among the peoples of Europe before it 
 can become politically effective ; and it must be 
 guarded against possible corruptions which might 
 arise if the contrast of European with other civiliza- 
 tions led us Western nations to make an arrogant 
 and insolent claim to domination over all humanity. 
 
 A Note on Feudalism 
 
 It will be noticed that I deliberately set aside any 
 discussion of Feudalism. I do so because my pur- 
 pose is not to give a complete account of all political 
 ideals, even those of importance in Western Europe, 
 but rather to explain those ideals which are in some 
 way at present effective as ideals. My chief purpose 
 is historical criticism of existing political ideals, not 
 the recording of all ideals which have ever been 
 active : it is therefore a discussion of existing 
 problems, not a complete account of existing facts. 
 It is clear that Feudalism does still affect our
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 119 
 
 political practice and theory. We cannot escape 
 the fact of social castes and of a land-owning system 
 which are, if not actually feudal, at least the im- 
 mediate results of Feudalism.^ And in a complete 
 discussion of political history Feudalism would 
 naturally be given a very important place. For in 
 so far as the past Uves in the present, Feudalism is 
 still active and we may take notice of it as a factor 
 in politics. 
 
 But as an ideal Feudalism is dead. That is to say, 
 I am not aware that any one ^ seriously desires to 
 maintain and develop the relics of feudal tenure or 
 feudal rank. No practical politician would attempt 
 to re-establish the mediaeval relations of man to 
 man, although, as I have said above, there may be 
 much to be said for the mediaeval ideal of the 
 relation of all the national groups in Europe. It is 
 because no one now desires Feudalism that I have 
 omitted it ; for I am arguing only as to the actual 
 forces which are changing the present into the 
 future. The past only interests me here in so far 
 as it may contain hints as to this process ; and 
 what is no longer desired has no force for present 
 change, even though it may have made this present 
 because it was once desired. 
 
 This does not imply that Feudalism was absurd 
 or obstructive to progress. I am not concerned 
 here with political judgement upon the ideals of the 
 
 * Accepting the word ' Feudalism ' in a vague sense. 
 The complete system imagined by nineteenth-century 
 historians I do not believe ever to have existed, but that 
 is another question. For the influence of Mediaevalism 
 in this regard, see Freeman, Comparative Politics. 
 
 * Except a few romantic historians and irrational 
 political writers who do not really count, I think, in the 
 influencing of political thought or action.
 
 120 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 
 
 past ; and much that is no longer desirable may 
 have been very desirable indeed during the Middle 
 Ages. I am not insulting Feudalism because I 
 omit it. But, on the other hand, I should not take 
 it for granted that because Feudalism existed 
 therefore it was good, even in the Middle Ages. 
 Many things which men have desired were not 
 good, and that not simply from our point of view 
 but from theirs. I can quite conceive that 
 Feudalism was obstructive, as I am certain that 
 many other mediaeval ideals were mistaken and 
 evil. Things were desired which ought not to have 
 been desired ; men worked for and realized in- 
 stitutions which were evil. I am not then implying 
 either a favourable or an unfavourable judgement 
 of Feudalism as an ideal, but I do imply that one 
 judgement or the other must be passed. 
 
 I am aware that such a statement involves that 
 there is a standard by which we can judge institu- 
 tions and actions and ideals. Good institutions can 
 be distinguished from evil, largely if not entirely in 
 consequences, quite apart from any question as to 
 what has or has not existed. But this larger issue 
 I have not space to discuss. I mention it simply 
 that it may be understood that in my omission of 
 Feudalism I am aware that I imply the existence 
 of an ethical as well as an historical judgement, 
 although I do not give an ethical judgement but 
 only an historical judgement in omitting it. That 
 is to say, it can be discovered whether Feudalism 
 was good or bad, and I do not think I assert either 
 one or the other in omitting to deal with FeudaUsm, 
 but I assert that historically and as a fact of present 
 political experience Feudalism is no longer an ideal. 
 
 It should be clear further that Feudalism was not
 
 MEDIAEVAL UNITY 121 
 
 only an established fact in the Middle Ages. It 
 was also an ideal in the same sense that Socialism 
 or Individuahsm is an ideal at present. Men not 
 only saw that society was arranged according to 
 inherited status, but they desired to maintain and 
 develop this arrangement. The reformers com- 
 plained that villeins were not duly submissive to 
 being governed for their own good ; that barons 
 were rebellious and that 'the order of knighthood 
 is become mere disorder'.^ Langland tells the 
 aristocracy, ' Go hunte hardiliche to hares and to 
 foxes ',2 since they were neglecting to clear the 
 countryside of pests, which was their duty. And 
 thus an elaborate conception grew up of a perfect 
 Feudalism in which every man knew his place and 
 the higher rank held its place by service to all its 
 dependants. William Morris represented the revo- 
 lution of John Ball and mediaeval Socialism in 
 saying that ' No man is good enough to be another 
 man's master '. The ideal Feudalism, on the con- 
 trary, held the no less noble gospel that no man is 
 too good to be another man's servant. 
 
 But both as a splendid aspiration and as a sordid 
 political arrangement the ideal of Feudalism is 
 dead. 
 
 ^ Peter of Blois. 
 
 " Langland, Piers, Passus vi. 30. The duty is reciprocal, 
 of course, for Piers is to ' swynke and swete and sowe 
 for us bothe '. See also in Passus i. 94 : 
 
 Kynges and kni.^tes • shulde kepe it bi resoun, 
 Riden and rappe down • in reumes aboute. 
 And taken transgressores • and tyen hem faste.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 In modern political thought and action the 
 rivalry between the independent States is a govern- 
 ing factor. Each State is jealous for its own free 
 and full development, and its ' foreign ' policy is an 
 adjustment of powers among the existing groups. 
 
 This is a situation which can only be explained 
 by reference to the Renaissance. The Holy 
 Roman Empire and the unity of mediaeval Europe 
 gradually faded from the minds even of the lawyers. 
 Practical men had long set aside the conception of 
 a single European realm before the theorists were 
 able to supply a statement of a new ideal. Difierent 
 independent governments had been long estab- 
 lished in England, France, Spain, and parts of 
 Germany and Italy, before any clear conception 
 appeared as to the claims of the newly-born States 
 of Europe. Jurists continued to pay lip-service to 
 an Empire which did not exist even as an ideal any 
 longer ; while more and more the difierentiation of 
 Europe was proceeding. 
 
 And when at last the new ideal was clearly seen 
 it appeared as a doctrine of sovereignty. This 
 word therefore I shall use as symboHc of our poli- 
 tical inheritance from the Renaissance ; but I must 
 use it in its widest meaning, for it must be made to 
 include both (1) the conception of an independent 
 and established government, generally in the form
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 123 
 
 of a monarchy, and (2) the first beginnings of the 
 sentiment of NationaUsm which impHes that each 
 separate group of men should be allowed a distinct 
 development of its own. I shall, however, put aside 
 for the present any detailed contrast between the 
 Renaissance ideal of an independent State and the 
 modern conception of Nationalism ; I shall speak 
 here of the state primarily and not of the nation, 
 leaving it to be understood that I am referring to 
 distinctions in law and government and not to 
 those of race or language or tradition. 
 
 The Ideal in Modern Politics. 
 
 Modern politics is much concerned with sovereign 
 States. By that we mean, I suppose, that States 
 with established governments are equals. It is, in 
 the first place, a repudiation of the mediaeval 
 conception of an overlord. No sovereign State 
 would be expected to take rank lower than any 
 other, however larger or more powerful ; each 
 State is absolute so far as its internal affairs are 
 concerned, and each is governed by some central 
 authority. Not only is this a fact accomplished, 
 but it is also believed to be a situation which is 
 admirable and should be developed. No one now 
 protests against the distinctions and differences of 
 law and government in different countries as, for 
 example, Dante did ; for civilization seems to 
 depend on the maintenance of many separate 
 governments. 
 
 Hence arises the conception of an international 
 law, which concerns the relation of State to State 
 but does not imply any power superior to the 
 States which may enforce its commands. Such
 
 124 EENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 a law is as yet hardly more than a collection of 
 statements as to what generally occurs or of admir- 
 able and almost inefiective aspirations. But in 
 modern politics we could reckon upon the feeling 
 that there are some things which no civilized State 
 could do — at least with respect to another civilized 
 State. The humanity which limits all warfare 
 between such States has not really been extended 
 yet to govern the treatment of ' savages ' ; for 
 political sentiment grows but slowly, and few men 
 feel that it degrades a civilized State to wage war 
 savagely even against savages. ^ Nevertheless it is 
 a great gain that we draw the line somewhere and 
 feel, however vaguely, that States must adhere 
 honestly to their treaty obligations or wage only 
 moderate war. At any rate we suppose that all 
 States are bound by such laws, whether or not 
 any power exists which may enforce them. 
 
 And again in ' foreign ' politics, as we provinci- 
 ally call it, we suppose always that something 
 corresponding to a ' Balance of Power ' should be 
 maintained. For if any one State were to become 
 too powerful, even though it were still theoretically 
 equal with the others, it could so influence the 
 development of the others as not to leave them 
 free. Theoretical independence is valueless unless 
 it involves a real power to carry out one's own 
 will ; and were any one State to become supreme 
 in miHtary or economic power, no other State 
 would be really able to govern itself in its own way. 
 Quite apart from actual invasion or conquest, 
 
 * I need not make the obvious references to the use of 
 exploding bullets, &c., which appears good enough for 
 the mere savage, perhaps because the civilized could 
 retaliate in kind and the savage cannot.
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 125 
 
 a preponderant influence in Europe would check 
 local differentiation. 1 
 
 This then is the present ideal ; that each sovereign 
 State should enter into equal relations with all 
 others ; that each should have free development 
 on its own lines, and that there should be no State 
 so powerful as to threaten the independence of any- 
 other. It is an ideal because still the statesman 
 is concerned to maintain and develop the situation 
 as it now stands ; and although it hardly enters 
 into the calculation of the ordinary voter, it appears 
 as a vague fear of foreign domination and a desire 
 for complete safety for his own type of law and 
 government. 
 
 The Ideal of Sovereignty in the Past. 
 In order to discover the meaning of this ideal or 
 guiding conception we should have to go back to 
 the period during which the mediaeval system of 
 thought and practice was breaking down. This 
 was not a sudden change, but a slow and hardly 
 conscious growth ; for even though the philoso- 
 phers of the Renaissance knew that a revolution 
 of thought was proceeding, and even though the 
 Humanist scholars gave themselves an unwarranted 
 position of importance in the obvious progress of 
 a civilization, and even though explorers discovered 
 new worlds, the great political change from tribal 
 division governed by vague aspirations towards 
 unity to a complete severance of the European 
 nations was largely unconscious. Not until the 
 
 * The particular instance of this political sentiment 
 is, of course, in the counting-up of ships in England as 
 compared to the ships of any two or three possible Conti- 
 nental allies.
 
 126 RENAISSANCE SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 change had occurred was any one really conscious 
 of its direction. Then only did political thinkers 
 in the attempt at finding an excuse for accomplished 
 fact happen upon the statement of a new ideal. 
 
 The first necessity was the recognition of national 
 distinctions, embodied in the legal phrase ' sovereign 
 States ' . That is to say, politicians and j urists were 
 compelled to allow that politically autonomous 
 groups existed, whose relations one with another 
 were not feudal and could not be explained accord- 
 ing to the theory of the mediaeval Empire. Thus 
 the distinction of the interests of different groups 
 was the basis for the new ideal of divided sove- 
 reignty, but the group was hardly considered as 
 more than the subjects to be governed. The 
 different States were to have their intercourse 
 arranged, but no one seemed as yet to suspect that 
 the State was the people and not the offi.cials. 
 Jurists assumed that the State was the king or at 
 least the established government. 
 
 Here, as in modern times, the ideal of Nationalism 
 was only in part expressed by international juris- 
 prudence, because of the unnoticed distinction 
 between the nation and the State. This dis- 
 tinction is still important : it had its origin at the 
 Renaissance ; it was an inheritance even then from 
 the arbitrary distinctions of the past ; and it will 
 continue to trouble politicians until every State is 
 the natural organization of a distinct nation. 
 
 In general a nation is a natural growth : it is 
 a group of families or individuals with the same 
 traditions. But a State is an organized govern- 
 ment. ^ It will be clear then that the State may be 
 
 ' The organization may also of course be a natural 
 growth, but it may be suddenly established; whereas it
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 127 
 
 the organized nation, but the nation may be subor- 
 dinated to a State-organization not its own. Such is 
 our modern conception of the distinction ; but no 
 such distinction was clear to the thinkers of the Re- 
 naissance, and the vast majority of the governed, 
 who were led by the thinkers or driven by the 
 officials, could not possibly as yet have distinguished 
 the right of every government to be independent 
 from the right of every nation to have its own 
 government. Renaissance sovereignty therefore 
 was a State ideal rather than a national ideal, but 
 it had within it implicitly the later ideal of modern 
 Nationalism. 1 I do not mean that there was no 
 national sentiment — there clearly was in England 
 and France of the fourteenth century ; but this 
 national sentiment went to support established 
 dynasties and State sovereignty, and did not 
 involve the expression in the government of the 
 will of the group governed. 
 
 The Ideal as embodied in events. 
 
 In the later Middle Ages the distinct groups of 
 the European civilization were sufficiently clear, 
 although there was no doctrine yet even of the 
 independent sovereignty of each group. When 
 Boniface VIII was frustrated in his attempts at 
 universal power by the law of England and the 
 military activity of the French king, it was obvious 
 
 takes many years to make a nation. The distinction is 
 further explained in the chapter on ' Nationalism '. 
 
 ^ This is not clearly stated, but is implied in Pollard's 
 Factors in Modern History. It is surely an anachronism to 
 say that the fourteenth century was ' the first epoch of 
 English Nationalism ', ibid. p. 22. But perhaps England 
 accidentally combined sovereignty with Nationalism — 
 a fortunate chance.
 
 128 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 that new forces had arisen in politics.^ The English 
 State and the French State were clearly separate 
 entities having a hf e of their own. And again, when 
 for seventy years the Papacy was at Avignon and 
 the Pope was under the direct influence of the French 
 king it was clear that a contest was going on be- 
 tween the old Universalism and the new French 
 State ; for the French State almost captured the 
 prestige of the mediaeval Papacy. ^ Then followed 
 the Schism of theWest, and Italians fought against 
 Frenchmen for the Papacy while the new nations 
 took sides — England and Germany being for the 
 Roman Pope, Scotland and France for the Pope 
 at Avignon. Such events are significant of the 
 distinct political groups which were coming into 
 power. 
 
 I need not cite all the examples of local sove- 
 reignty which are to be found in the history of the 
 later Renaissance. The French kings soon estab- 
 lished a powerful central government, using the 
 popular, almost national, sentiment to displace the 
 feudal barons, 3 and finally, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, attempting to crush this very popular senti- 
 ment. The last stage of Renaissance sovereignty 
 
 * The reference is to the resistance of England and France 
 to the taxation of the local clergy by Boniface VIII, and the 
 final tragedy at Anagni on September 8, 1303. 
 
 * Thus the Templars were suppressed by the Avignon 
 Pope almost at the bidding of the French king. 
 
 ' ' Well-ordered States and wise princes have taken 
 every care not to drive the nobles to desperation and to 
 keep the people satisfied. The best-ordered of our times 
 is France ... in which the first good institution is the 
 parliament. He who founded the kingdom, knowing the 
 ambition of the nobility, considered that a bit in their 
 mouths would be necessary to hold them in.' Machiavelli, 
 Prince, ch. xix.
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 129 
 
 was reached in France when, as in the case of Louis 
 XIV, the State could be identified with the King. 
 
 But the same stages may be marked in the events 
 of Enghsh history between the fourteenth and the 
 eighteenth centuries. ^ The national sentiment was 
 gradually formed under Edward III and Henry V, 
 in the usual primitive manner, by warlike opposi- 
 tion to 'foreigners'. And upon this sentiment 
 as a basis the Tudors established not popular or 
 national government but Renaissance sovereignty. 
 The Armada episode was perhaps an" occasion for 
 national enthusiasm, but this was speedily trans- 
 formed by cunning dynastic statesmen into a sup- 
 port for personal sovereignty; until at last the 
 true value of the conception of group independence 
 displaced that of personal sovereignty in the trans- 
 formation of politics from 1640 to 1688. 
 
 In Spain the situation was more difficult, for 
 besides the mediaeval life of cities and of local 
 lordships there was the presence of an aUen race 
 and government before the Renaissance sove- 
 reignty of Ferdinand and Isabella. The unity of the 
 group there, more even than elsewhere, depended 
 upon the single rule of a sovereign ; and Spanish 
 national development was very confused until the 
 upheaval of Napoleonic times. 
 
 In Italy Renaissance sovereignty gave rise to 
 minute divisions of local government which sepa- 
 rated peoples of the same race, language, and 
 tradition. And in Germany the same tendency 
 produced the division which made warfare so 
 
 ^ The theme is well stated in Pollard's Factors in Moderti 
 History, but he does not seem to distinguish clearly 
 between (1) State sovereignty and (2) national indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 1782 I
 
 130 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 prominent and victory by foreigners, as in Napo- 
 leon's time, so easy. The ' cuius regio eius religio ' 
 of Augsburg,^ then, did not mean that each nation 
 should choose its own form of religion, but that 
 each district should adopt the religion of its ruler. 
 And this considered not the interest of the governed 
 group but that of the local prince. Thus whereas 
 the English and French States of the eighteenth 
 century united many nations, the German nation 
 was divided into many States ; and thus Renais- 
 sance sovereignty is seen to have been in part 
 a valid appeal to local and geographically or 
 racially distinct interests and in part an historical 
 excuse for arbitrary non-geographical and non- 
 racial dynastic divisions. 
 
 Interpretation of the Renaissance Ideal. 
 
 According to my thesis, however, what actually 
 occurred must in some sense have been due to the 
 supply of a political need. The ideal, even in the 
 limited form in which it was conceived, must have 
 been one of the motive-forces which established 
 Renaissance sovereignty. But it is clear that this 
 sovereignty was by no means conceived as the 
 real sovereignty of the group ; nor is it possible 
 without exaggeration to say that Renaissance 
 kings and princes believed themselves to hold their 
 position at the will of their subjects. In what 
 sense, then, was a political need supplied by the 
 establishment of the new ideal in place of the 
 mediaeval desire for unity ? The need supplied 
 was that of certain, powerful, and therefore central 
 
 ^ In 1555 this motto became prominent. Note the use 
 of regio in Hugo Grotius, cf. below, p. 140. It means 
 ' kingship ', not ' region ' or territory.
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 131 
 
 government ; and men were willing enough to give 
 their princes any rights they chose to claim in 
 order that the country might be freed from the 
 perpetual contests of the local nobles. For it 
 must be recognized that the mediaeval conception 
 of unity led in fact to a very minute subdivision 
 of political power. While the ultimate temporal 
 power was believed to come direct from God to one 
 man, the Emperor, in fact the actual political 
 power was held by innumerable local magnates. 
 And so the people of one speech and one tradition 
 unconsciously groping towards unity found them- 
 selves in opposition to the subdivision of their 
 country ; and the king or prince was accepted as 
 the instrument for attaining permanent riddance 
 from the brawls of the nobility. Thus in England 
 the Tudor sovereignty followed hard upon the 
 Wars of the Roses ; and in France, as Machiavelli 
 thought, the king used the people against the nobles 
 or, as we may now put it, the people uncon- 
 sciously used the king. So also in Italy the Medici 
 and other tyrants really supplied a need in provid- 
 ing at least a settled government in place of the 
 continual bickering of parties. I do not mean that 
 the mass of men agreed together to establish a king 
 or prince in order to establish local sovereignty 
 and rid themselves of disunion and civil strife. 
 The process was almost unconscious, but the 
 want was felt — men really were troubled at the 
 wars of nobles or the controversies of party and cir- 
 cumstance. The accidental power at the moment 
 of one feudal lord or the accidental success of one 
 party suggested the solution. There were the 
 beginnings of local central government, and these 
 seemed worth development. The mass of men 
 12
 
 132 KENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 could not have recognized, even if they had been 
 told, how much they were giving when they gave 
 themselves into the hands of the sovereign ; and 
 the thinkers told them, as we shall see, that it 
 was right to give their all. Now we are too much 
 influenced by the French Revolution to approve of 
 the complete alienation of power by the group 
 governed ; but in the Renaissance experience had 
 not yet shown what limitations had to be forced 
 upon the sovereignty of princes. And therefore 
 the history is not one of crude tyranny established 
 in defiance of national rights and popular feeling. 
 So to view the Renaissance is to go back to the very 
 limited knowledge of Rousseau. We must acknow- 
 ledge that even the most absolute tyrant of those 
 times supplied a popular need and was accepted, 
 not irrationally, as a substitute for the discord of 
 nobles and parties. For this reason the divine 
 commission of the mediaeval Emperor was in 
 "i theory taken over by the Renaissance princes and 
 kings, and we begin to hear elaborate proofs of the 
 Divine Right of kings. The Emperor had been 
 directly commissioned by God, and now the local 
 kings were ; but the theocratic theory of sove- 
 reignty remained much the same. So also the 
 insignia of Empire were taken over by the local 
 princes,^ and the ambiguous position of the 
 mediaeval Emperor with respect to the ecclesias- 
 tical organization was adopted and developed by 
 the kings of England and the princes of Germany. 
 The evil of local difference even within the group 
 
 1 The ball or globe held by a local king has no meaning ; 
 but when it was held by the Holy Roman Emperor it 
 meant sovereignty over the whole world. So of the purple 
 of the Caesars, &c.
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 133 
 
 formed by one blood, language, and tradition, was 
 obvious enough ; and the vague hope was in some 
 form of central government. But there was 
 another side to the movement of the Renaissance. 
 Not only was government made strong and central, 
 but it was made absolute, and this produced the 
 diversity of independent states. Why was Europe 
 divided and not unified at the Renaissance ? 
 Partly at least because the Church and the Empire 
 of mediaeval Unity tended to make 'inroads upon 
 local governmental authority '.^ The Empire was 
 politically weak, but the bare theory of subordina- 
 tion tended to weaken the local prince ; and the 
 State-system of the Church really did interfere 
 with the exercise of a local authority in politics. 
 It was necessary to break this system which 
 weakened the effectiveness of government. 
 
 Hence the movement towards absolute equality 
 of independent sovereigns was in part religious, and 
 a new Church system accompanied and supported 
 the expression of the new political ideal. The 
 Reformation and the establishment of diverse 
 religions did indeed influence the establishment of 
 diverse States ,2 but it is not necessary for my 
 purpose here to look beyond the political evil to 
 find the reason for the political ideal. Even in 
 France, where the religion remained in name 
 
 ^ Figgis, Gerson to Grotius, p. 15. It will be seen that 
 I do not follow the writer in treating ' political ideas as 
 a branch of ecclesiastical history ' (p. 31). 
 
 * ' Luther in the world of politics transferred to the 
 temporal sovereign the halo of sanctity which had hitherto 
 been mainly the privilege of the ecclesiastical' (Figgis, 
 op. cit., p. 81 ). The limits of my thesis forbid that I should 
 attempt to discuss the reflection of the political ideal 
 in Luther and Calvin. Ct Troeltsch, op. cit., p. 724 et seq.
 
 134 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 Catholic and therefore mediaeval, since it was 
 opposed to other equal reUgions, it was no longer 
 in fact universal. A Catholicism which is con- 
 troversial is only another form of Protestantism. 
 And the State system can use one or the other in 
 the interests of absolute local government. The 
 political ideal pursued its way. Europe was no 
 longer to be a hegemony even in theory : it was 
 to be a diversity of equal independent States, for 
 thus only could security of law and effective con- 
 sideration of local interests be maintained. 
 
 Such is the sign of the ideal in the events of the 
 time ; for these events are largely the result of the 
 half-formed desires of masses and the limited con- 
 ceptions of practical politicians. The movement 
 of the time is thus hardly at all a conscious adoption 
 of certain means for attaining a clearly conceived 
 end ; it is a clumsy experiment guided by an 
 unstable desire. But the ideal is there all the 
 time as a motive-force, unrecognized or misrepre- 
 sented. 
 
 The Ideal in Literature. 
 
 The work of contemporary thinkers, however, 
 gives another expression of the Renaissance ideal, 
 in their effort to acknowledge distinctions of local 
 interest. 
 
 In the literature of the early Renaissance the 
 De Pace Fidei of Nicholas de Cusa embodies 
 the tendency.^ That treatise, which complains 
 of the disunion of Europe, supposes that the 
 different nations are made to send each a repre- 
 sentative to the heavenly Court to argue before 
 God each for a distinct view. Thus the German, 
 
 * This was written about 1454.
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 135 
 
 the Englistiman, the Frenchman, and the Italian 
 are given different points of view, along with the 
 Turk and the Arab. The Enghshman complains 
 against the Sacramental system and the Arab 
 against the Trinity : Cusanus thus recognizes that 
 local distinctions were making the old mediaeval 
 Universalism almost impossible. This, however, 
 may not be held to imply more than the old recog- 
 nition of tribal differences. 
 
 The governments of the different divisions of 
 Europe were in fact independent, but this does not 
 appear to be justified in theory until Jean Bodin 
 produced in 1577 his Six Livres de la Republique.^ 
 The conception of government there expressed 
 need not concern us in all its details : it is partly 
 traditional and partly a reasoned statement of 
 observed facts. But the whole force of the work 
 is concentrated upon the explanation of the phrase 
 ' puissance souveraine \^ The purpose of the State 
 being clear, and the existence of subordinate groups, 
 we read (Book I, chap. 8) : * II est icy besoin de 
 former la definition de souverainete, parce qu'il 
 n'y a ny jurisconsulte ny philosophe politique qui 
 I'ayt definie ; ia9oit que c'est le poinct principal, et 
 le plus necessaire d'etre entendu au traite de la 
 RepubHque.' The conception of sovereignty, how- 
 ever, is used in chapters preceding this discussion 
 of its meaning. And from the whole we learn that 
 sovereignty contains two elements, the first being 
 
 ^ The edition I use in what follows is the corrected 
 Lyons edition of 1580. 
 
 * In the definition ' Republique est un droit gouveme- 
 ment de plusieurs mesuages et de ce qui leur est commun 
 avec puissance souveraine ', Bodin explains he is not 
 describing an ideal like Plato's or ' Thomas le More's ' 
 (p. 5).
 
 136 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 the independence and equivalent value of the 
 organized groups which are 'sovereign'. Bodin 
 takes this for granted even in his illustrations in 
 such a way as to make it clear that absolutely 
 independent governments were in existence and 
 were recognized as good. 
 
 He sees the contrast between local sovereignty 
 and the old Imperial sovereignty ; even though he 
 makes, in the Renaissance manner, the Empire only 
 one among many equal sovereignties. ^ He says 
 that the power, then recognized, for States to make 
 treaties implies the sovereignty of several separate 
 powers independent of the Empire.^ The Latins, 
 he says, 'held that there was only one State ', and 
 some wrongly hold that the Swiss Cantons are one 
 State, whereas they are thirteen 'with separate 
 sovereignty '.^ But this is to recognize one of the 
 new features of political life in the Renaissance as 
 a good to be increased and developed. 
 
 Secondly, sovereignty is ' absolute and perpetual 
 power ', by which Bodin appears to hint at the 
 necessity for subordinating local officers, townships, 
 or interests, to the purpose for which the whole 
 organized group exists. This power, it is taken 
 for granted, is in the hands of one man ; although 
 it might theoretically rest with the popular 
 assembly.^ The sovereignty of the State readily 
 
 ^ ' L'Empereur ne s'attribue pas aussi la souverainete 
 sur les Princes ' (p. 94). 
 
 'Nous ferons pareil iugement de tous les Princes et 
 seigneurs desquels il y a appel a I'Empire et chambre 
 imperiale, qu'ils ne sont pas souverains' (p. 164, Book I, 
 ch. x). 
 
 * Book I, ch. vii, in fine. ^ 2, ibid. p. 77. 
 
 * ' En I'estat populaire ou la souverainete gist en 
 I'assemblee du peuple ' (p. 150).
 
 KENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 137 
 
 becomes by an almost imperceptible change of 
 terms the sovereignty of the Prince. That is the 
 Renaissance embodiment of the ideal of certain 
 and centralized power ; and it is easy to see what 
 was the evil against which this conception was 
 urged. Village laws and baronial government, 
 divergence of custom and interest within the group, 
 inherited from the feudal tradition, made it better 
 to suppose one absolute and predominant central 
 power to be the real basis of civilized life. 
 
 ' The mark of sovereignty is the power of making 
 law without the consent of any superior or equal ', 
 and under this is included the power of ' peace and 
 war '.1 It matters nothing to this sovereignty 
 that the people are sometimes consulted, as in 
 England ; ^ and indeed, ' when the need is m'gent 
 the Prince ought not to wait for the consent of the 
 people '. 
 
 Of the two elements in sovereignty Bodin 
 seems to develop chiefly that regarding the internal 
 arrangement of the State. The later work of 
 Hugo de Groot contains the clearest presentation of 
 the second element of sovereignty — the equality 
 and independence of several sovereign groups. 
 The De lure Belli et Pads marks an immense 
 advance in the conception of the European State- 
 system, but the ideal is that of the time, not of the 
 author alone. 
 
 The details of the argument need not be dis- 
 
 ^ Book I, ch. X, pp. 154 and 155. At beginning : 
 ' There is nothing greater on earth after God than Sovereign 
 Princes.' 
 
 * P. 97. Bodin refers to Henry VIII, and he says that 
 M. Dail, the English ambassador, assured him that the king 
 accepted or refused a law as it seemed good to him.
 
 138 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 cussed, since my purpose is only to show how the 
 conception of a sovereign State is established ; 
 and it will be recognized that here, as in the case 
 of other ideals, two statements are implied. First, 
 the separate sovereign State is recognized by de 
 Groot^ as actually existing and, next, he wishes 
 to maintain and develop such sovereignty. The 
 book opens with the statement that jurists have 
 formerly considered (1) the law common to all 
 men and (2) the law peculiar to each group, but 
 that no one has yet considered the relation of 
 group to group. These relations are generally 
 warlike, as it seemed in the Renaissance, but 
 the author perceived that each group 'had need 
 of the other '.^ 
 
 Sovereign political power is defined as 'that of 
 which the acts are not under the jurisdiction of 
 any other '.^ Such power makes a State sovereign, 
 which is called a civitas* which again is 'the per- 
 fect group '. 
 
 We might suppose that we had here a theory of 
 the separate right of each group of men, but the 
 author goes on to attack those who say that the 
 sovereign power resides in 'the people'. Some, 
 he says, have conceived that the people can even 
 
 * The edition used in what follows is Whewell's of 1853. 
 The text is vaguely represented by a sort of translation 
 at the foot of each page, but the subtlety of the original is 
 largely lost. The book was published in 1625. It has 
 been often remarked that it was the Netherlands which 
 produced Grotius, as though there one might catch most 
 effectively the spirit of the Renaissance protest against 
 world-absolutism. * Prol., par. 22. 
 
 * ' Summa (potestas civilis) est cuius actus alterius 
 iuri non subsunt,' I, eh. iii. 7. 1. 
 
 * Ibid. ' "civitas" quam perfectum coetum esse diximus '.
 
 EENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 139 
 
 call their kings to account ; which is absurd, 
 because each group has either freely {voluntate) 
 chosen the form of government or accepted it from 
 the hands of superior force. In either case what 
 is established as government cannot be questioned. 
 ' The people ' now living are the same State as that 
 which hypothetically made the choice ; ^ and the 
 choice, once made, binds absolutely, even as a 
 woman may indeed choose a husband but, once 
 chosen, that husband must be absolutely obeyed.^ 
 
 Here is no gospel of popular or national develop- 
 ment ; for the group is thought of simply as the 
 basis of a separate government. That govern- 
 ment is, of course, for the good of the governed, 
 but only as the guardian must consider the interests 
 of his ward.^ No right of judgement remains to 
 the people. 
 
 What then is an independent group or a sovereign 
 State ? 'A people is that sort of body which 
 consists of things distant from one another, is 
 subject to one man, has "one habit " as Plutarch 
 says, and one spirit as Paul the jurist says. This 
 spirit or "habit " (e^is) in a people is the full and 
 perfect association of the civilized life, whose first 
 result is its sovereignty {imperium), the bond 
 which makes the State, the living spirit which so 
 many breathe as Seneca has it.'* The actual form 
 
 ^ II, ch. ix, par. 3 ' Civitates sunt immortales ' : except 
 that (ch. iv) they may be conquered or (ch. vi) the group 
 may have its rights taken away. 
 
 * I, ch. viii. 1, par. 13. ^ Ibid. I, ch. viii, par. 13. 2. 
 
 * ' Populus est ex eorum corporum genere quod ex 
 distantibus constat, unique homini subiectum est, quod 
 habet e^tf ut Plutarchus, spiritum unum ut Paulus 
 iuris consultus loquitur. Is autem spiritus sive tits in 
 populo est vitae civilis consociatio plena atque perfecta
 
 140 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 of government does not make any difference : ^ it is 
 the State organized in some form which is supreme, 
 and of such States there are and should be many. 
 
 The third great work on Renaissance sove- 
 reignty is the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes.^ The 
 details of the argument again need not concern 
 us, since for my present purpose the ideal implied 
 is what is of most interest. According to Hobbes, 
 men are naturally hostile one to the other, but they 
 make an alliance for mutual protection. Thus the 
 State exists for the control of egoistic impulse and 
 the protection of the group. The need, Hobbes felt, 
 was strong central government : that it rested ulti- 
 mately on the will, of the governed was a secondary 
 consideration. The facts of the time showed dis- 
 union and weakness in face of foreign rivalry ; the 
 ideal therefore was Renaissance sovereignty. ' The 
 final cause, End or Designe of men (who naturally 
 love Liberty and Dominion over others) in the intro- 
 duction of that restraint upon themselves (in which 
 we see them live in Commonwealths) is the foresight 
 of their own preservation and of a more contented 
 life thereby, that is to say, of getting themselves 
 out of the miserable condition of Warre.'^ 
 
 Thus if confusion would otherwise prevail, it is 
 worth while to sacrifice one's liberty in order to 
 have ' contentment ' . The ideal implied is a central 
 
 cuius prima productio est suum imperium, vinculum per 
 quod respublica cohaeret, spiritus vitalis quem tot millia 
 trahunt ut Seneca loquitur,' Lib. II, ch. ix, par. 3. 
 
 ^ Ibid. ch. viii 'Neque refert quomodo guberaetur, regione 
 an plurium an multitudinis imperio'. 
 
 ^ Cf. Graham Wallas, The Great Society, ch. vi, for a criti- 
 cism of Hobbes ; but Mr. Wallas does not give sufficient 
 force to the evil against which Hobbes was protesting. 
 
 ^ Leviathan, ch. xvii.
 
 EENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 141 
 
 government which is strong enough to overawe the 
 tendency to disorder, which Hobbes thought was 
 'natural , but we know to have been simply the 
 tendency of his time. The central power (sovereign) 
 having been established, ' Liberty lieth in those 
 things which the Sovereign hath praetermitted V 
 and 'sovereignty cannot be forfeited'.^ 'And 
 though of so unlimited a power men may fancy 
 many evill consequences, yet the consequences of 
 the want of it which is perpetuell warre of every 
 man against his neighbour is worse.' ^ 
 
 Hobbes never speaks as though he loved govern- 
 ment or absolute sovereignty : at best it was 
 not so bad as what would happen without it, and 
 that is small praise if one considers what primitive 
 barbarism Hobbes thought was a real danger. But 
 the general conception of the ideal is clear. It is that 
 of some settled and secure central government which 
 would abolish for ever the private wars of the Middle 
 Ages and the restless ambitions of the Renaissance. 
 
 Thus in thought as well as in fact, and at last 
 in ideal, European civilization was made to depend 
 upon several independent sovereign governments. 
 Distinction and difference seemed to be more im- 
 portant than unity, and politics became a balancing 
 of powers. 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 The result of all this separation into distinct 
 groups was both good and bad. It was good 
 because each group was better able to develop its 
 own opportunities when it was freed from indefinite 
 connections with other groups. Local dialects be- 
 came official and literary languages, local customs 
 
 1 Leviathan, ch. xxi. "' Ibid. ch. xviii. 
 
 ' Ibid. ch. XX.
 
 142 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 became established laws, and the interest of the 
 governed was more excited in proportion as men 
 felt themselves closer to the representatives of 
 absolute and almost divine power. 
 
 But the division was pernicious in so far as inde- 
 pendence meant continuous opposition between 
 the groups. This may in a sense have been 
 ' necessary ' for the independent national con- 
 sciousness to develop, but it is dangerous to say 
 that any evil which has occurred was 'necessary'. 
 For if such a statement only means that one cannot 
 change what has occurred, then it is a platitude ; 
 if it implies that one cannot prevent what is going 
 to occur, then it is false. 
 
 The fact remains that opposition between the 
 groups has often kept back that development of the 
 groups which is the purpose of independence. The 
 result is that we are burdened with an absurd 
 Renaissance conception of the 'Balance of Power '. 
 Every group is regarded as naturally desirous of 
 destroying every weaker group, and diplomacy 
 and international politics are still obsessed with 
 this primitive conception of sovereignty. The 
 independence of States was thought of as the inde- 
 pendence of individuals may be imagined to have 
 been conceived in primitive times — as though no 
 man could be independent without destroying his 
 neighbour. And since the new States were not 
 strong enough to destroy their rivals, each des- 
 perately began to arm itself for internecine warfare 
 in case an opportunity should ever occur of success- 
 ful destruction of another State. 
 
 The limitations in this conception of independent 
 States are quite obvious. For there was no clear 
 idea of the group as the source and purpose of the
 
 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 143 
 
 distinct law and government. Nationalism had 
 not yet arisen, and groups were distinguished not 
 by their real characters, but by their established 
 governments, or — worse still — by the family which 
 ruled them. 
 
 Renaissance sovereignty thus meant to men of 
 that time not the right of a distinct people but the 
 independence of a local government ; and this 
 narrow conception led directly to the dynastic 
 wars which followed the wars of religion. 
 
 The balance of power was maintained not by 
 common agreement between the peoples concerned, 
 but by the marriages of insignificant and unin- 
 telligent princelings : the land and the wealth of 
 Europe was imagined to belong, in some fantastic 
 sense, to the families among whom they were parti- 
 tioned as sources of income. And yet these families 
 were not always villainous or even self-seeking. 
 The ideals of the time established their position, 
 and all men looked to them as the only possible 
 maintainors of law and government. ^ 
 
 The dynastic conception of sovereignty was 
 closely related to the personal conception ; and of 
 this the Principe of Machiavelli is a sufficient 
 statement.2 That work is not a reflection of an 
 ideal, but an expression of its crudest embodiment 
 in fact. Indeed it is clear that the ideal of several 
 independent governments is misrepresented and 
 almost travestied by the Florentine diplomatist. It 
 is sufficient to note that his treatise was not intended 
 
 * Thus the Renaissance prince is not a tyrant : he is 
 accepted by the majority as at least the less of two evils ; 
 arbitrary, non-popular, but effective government and 
 absolute confusion. 
 
 * Cf. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, vol. i, ch. vi.
 
 144 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 to deal with what we should call morality. For 
 good and evil had for him no meaning in the realm of 
 politics. The Principe is, on the other hand, a subtle 
 analysis of the actual principles governing Italian 
 politics during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 and, had the author considered the policy of 
 princes in England or Germany of the same date, 
 his conclusions would not have been very different. 
 
 The conception of separate independent States 
 had been speedily reduced to the dependence of 
 each group upon an absolute sovereign, and the pur- 
 pose of politics was the maintenance and develop- 
 ment of that absolute power. Occasionally an 
 idealist might be troubled as to ' the good of the 
 governed ', but the majority until the end of the 
 seventeenth century were quite satisfied that the 
 governor should consider his own interest. It would 
 at least be to his interest that the people should 
 be either well enough governed to be satisfied or too 
 weak to protest ; ^ and as Machiavelli puts it, 'It 
 is best to be both loved and feared ; but it is much 
 safer for the prince to be feared than to be loved 
 when one of the two has to be dispensed with '.^ 
 
 Thus in this extremely candid mind the ideal 
 of Renaissance sovereignty, as understood by con- 
 temporary practical politicians, was very far from 
 being a gospel of Nationalism or of the interest of 
 the distinct group. It was a crude governmental 
 theory of small principalities, most of which had 
 suddenly arisen. We cannot then suppose that the 
 
 * ' When neither property nor honour is touched, the 
 majority of men live content and the prince has only 
 to contend with the ambition of a few whom he can 
 curb with ease in many ways.' Mach., Principe, ch. xix. 
 
 * Ibid. ch. xvii.
 
 EENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 145 
 
 work of Machiavelli is an adequate account of the 
 Renaissance ideal, since it is much more correct 
 historically to find this conception in the work of 
 Bodin or de Groot ; but in ' the Prince ' the essential 
 limitations of the ideal are most obvious. The 
 anti-popular tendency of Machiavelli was not 
 peculiar to him ; and from that tendency our 
 international politics still sufEer. It was a dan- 
 gerous mistake to neglect the interest of the group 
 governed in establishing the independence of the 
 group-government. 
 
 The last and most criminal application of the 
 same mistake was the partition of Poland. In 
 cynical disregard or in barbarous ignorance of the 
 existence of national character, tradition and ideals, 
 the ofi&cial statesmen of civilized Europe dismem- 
 bered an important group, whose services at least 
 they might have remembered if they had not in- 
 telligence enough to see how much more the Poles 
 might yet do for civilization at large. The par- 
 tition of a single people was made, as though the 
 sovereignty of a State had nothing at all to do 
 with the people, as though established rulers or 
 governments could take over peoples or countries 
 to be their property ; and civilized Europe may yet 
 have to pay heavily for permitting the crime of 
 diplomatists and dynastic ' Statesmen ' ^ or refusing 
 to make any amends for it. Our ancestors have left 
 us their mistakes as well as their successes. 
 
 From a conception of the sovereign State so 
 limited and so grossly embodied it may seem that 
 
 ^ I use the word ' Statesman ' with reference to the 
 distinction between a ' State ' and a Nation. We need 
 a new word for a man who is able to grasp the spirit of 
 a people as opposed to the interest of a government. 
 1782 K
 
 U6 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 we have inherited nothing of any worth. And j^et 
 it was a step towards our modern Europe with all 
 its variety of local development. Political ideals 
 are but slowly formed and at their first appearance 
 they are generally so crude as to be almost mon- 
 strous ; but in the course of time they are made 
 more presentable. So the Renaissance conception 
 of sovereignty has itself been modified into the 
 modern ideal that each civilized State should de- 
 velop on its own lines its own law and government. 
 And even without any reference to Nationality, in 
 cases as in the British Isles where nations so differ- 
 ent as the English and the Irish form one State, it 
 has been of advantage that the general principles 
 of social justice and governmental administration 
 should have been worked out without interference 
 from external conquerors or any such universal 
 claims as those of the mediaeval Pope and Emperor. 
 Thus even in a non-national State such as Austria 
 something has been gained through the dependence 
 of all the races upon the personal sovereignty of 
 the Emperor.^ 
 
 We must allow also that in spite of the opposition 
 of the Renaissance theorists the theory of inde- 
 pendent local sovereignty made it possible for the 
 later ideal of Nationalism to arise. It was easier 
 for the people to express their will under a local 
 domination than it would have been if vast terri- 
 torial power had supported an established and non- 
 popular government.^ 
 
 ^ It must be understood that personal sovereignty 
 oiE this kind is not necessarily pernicious though the sense 
 of the democratic source for sovereignty may be forgotten: 
 for devotion to a person may be a cause of peace. 
 
 ' Thus it was easier for Nationalism to arise in England
 
 EENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 147 
 
 Finally the Renaissance established the utility of 
 settled government. By many nowadays what is 
 established is suspected, but that attitude seems to 
 be an inheritance from the limited conceptions of 
 the French Revolutionary theorists. By some, 
 on the other hand, what is established is regarded 
 as sacred, and this is an inheritance from the Re- 
 naissance. Both attitudes are mistaken, for what 
 exists is not either necessarily good or necessarily 
 bad. Facts are valued by reference to an ethical 
 criterion ; and so an established government must 
 be judged by reference to its effects on the governed, 
 some of which are likely to promote happiness and 
 others not. The balance of good or evil thus esti- 
 mated will show whether it is to be opposed or main- 
 tained. Therefore we all believe nowadays in the 
 right of revolution for extreme cases. There is 
 nevertheless something to be said for any form of 
 government which is powerful enough to maintain 
 order and thus check civil strife or the extreme 
 rivalry of individuals. We not only accept such a 
 government as good, but we desire to maintain it 
 and to increase its power. This force for local or 
 racial unity is also a force for resistance against any 
 
 in 1688 and onwards, than it was in Italy in 1860, where 
 Austrian government was more poweiiul. Thus also 
 ' small States ' are more susceptible to the views of the 
 majority than are vast aggregates of different races under 
 a central power. In the same way one may argue that, 
 in spite of the fact that the ' small States ' of Europe 
 have become great Empires, Renaissance sovereignty gave 
 them a period in which they were independent ' small 
 States ', and it was during that period that the great 
 political work was done which we generally use in modern 
 times. National liberty and democratic government, as well 
 as art and science, all developed under the ' small State ' 
 system which followed the Renaissance. 
 K2
 
 148 RENAISSANCE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 predominance of one type of individuals against 
 another ; and for this reason also we should main- 
 tain and develop it. But these are merely the 
 guiding conceptions of Renaissance sovereignty, 
 purged of their connection with arbitrary personal 
 rule and anti-democratic tendencies. This there- 
 fore is our inheritance from the Renaissance in the 
 political life of the present.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 The ' Rights of Man ' is a phrase with definite 
 historical atmosphere about it : for the date of its 
 great power is already long past. It helped to 
 create the two great Republics of modern times in 
 France and America ; and yet even in these, so 
 swift has been the development that the old magic 
 has gone out of the words. The hypothetical Man 
 of the Revolution is now thought a meaningless 
 abstraction and rights are but shadows of duty. 
 
 There sur\dves, however, in modern life a definite 
 ideal from the days of the French Revolution. 
 We are too far away to be terrified as our grand- 
 fathers were of the sansculottes, and one could 
 hardly bring a shudder to the heart even of a 
 country parson by speaking of Liberty, Fraternity, 
 and Equality. 
 
 Modern Ideal of Equality. 
 
 The ideal involved concerns the relation of one 
 individual to another : for even though there was 
 much said about the State by the theorists of the 
 Revolution, it was generally conceived simply as 
 a collection of individuals ; and although revolu- 
 tionary France set about the destruction of tyrants 
 in other countries, there was no new conception 
 expressed of the relation of these national groups 
 of men one to the other. ^ What chiefly moved men 
 
 ^ The last sentence of Rousseau's Contrat social acknow- 
 ledges the further issue as to the relation between States 
 with which he feels he cannot deal (' trop vaste pour ma 
 courte vue ').
 
 150 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 to enthusiasm concerning the Rights of Man was 
 a conception of the individual having freedom 
 enough to develop himself and equality of oppor- 
 tunity as his basis for intercourse with others. All 
 those changes which appear indate-and-fact history 
 as the English Revolutions of 1640 and 1688, and 
 the French Revolution of 1789, were really motived 
 by the same ideal. There was the same vague and, 
 in England, unconscious striving after the political 
 equality of all adults, and the same indefinite and 
 in part mistaken conception of the independent 
 individual. This is the ideal which I shall call 
 revolutionary, not indeed because it is more sub- 
 versive of the orderly progress of civilization than 
 any other, but chiefly because of its embodiment 
 in that French movement which is still called pi^r 
 excellence the Revolution. It involves perhaps 
 a kind of philosophical Individualism such as was 
 common in the Enlightenment ; it is as reckless 
 a faith in the dictates of the individual conscience 
 as was the faith of Immanuel Kant. But I shall 
 keep the word ' Individualism ' as the name for 
 a more modern ideal. And on the other hand, 
 the revolutionary ideal implies much that is now 
 connected with Socialism, but this also I must leave 
 for later treatment. 
 
 It must be my first task therefore to show what 
 conception in modern politics belongs in the history 
 of development by date of birth to the revolutionary 
 period. This conception I think will be found in 
 the modern view of the minimum requisite for 
 human life in society ; and if one word may be 
 chosen as expressing the ideal it must be ' Equality'. 
 The implied opposite is a situation in which some 
 men had much and most had too little. Of these
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 151 
 
 ' most ' also we may say. that the little they had 
 was dependent on the will of those who had 
 much. 
 
 We are all agreed that there is no possibility of 
 civilized human life without security for each man 
 of food and clothing independently of the will of 
 any other. That is to say, the position of the 
 mediaeval serf on many estates may have been 
 more fortunate than that of the modern agricultural 
 labourer, but he depended for that position on the 
 goodwill of the lord of the manor. Now we are not 
 willing to leave to the vagaries of personal character 
 the distribution of the necessaries of life among 
 most of the inhabitants of a civilized country. 
 
 The modern conception therefore is based on the 
 fact that, apart from the social position of any 
 individual and apart from his necessities as a 
 labourer to make him fit for his labour, he must 
 be considered first as a man. So obvious does this 
 seem that we can hardly imagine a time when social 
 caste was strong enough to obscure the funda- 
 mental likeness between all members of the same 
 race ; and we can hardly believe that even religious 
 men once justified slavery as being good for the 
 slaves, who would be well fed by their owners in 
 order that they might do sufiicient work for these 
 owners. Thus we admit that every human being 
 has a right, independently of the interests of any 
 other, to food and clothing ; or at least we allow 
 it theoretically : for there may be some who would 
 maintain that those who are without sufficient 
 food and clothing should be left to 'charity '. ^ 
 
 ^ There appears to be still a conception abroad that 
 poverty or disease is due to personal moral defects, but 
 it is so absurd that I shall not discuss it.
 
 152 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 Since, however, very, many still are without 
 sufficient food and clothing even for bare human 
 life, the ideal is not realized. We are still moved 
 to act by the conception that as far as possible all 
 human beings should have sufficient for a human 
 life. But if our action be simply charitable or the 
 organizing of charity, it is mediaeval even though 
 we think it well that all the inhabitants of a 
 civilized state should have the bare needs of life. 
 We know indeed that in the Middle Ages distress 
 was often relieved. There was of course abundant 
 charity. The new ideal is implied in that small 
 word ' right ' ; and although the Church of the 
 Middle Ages preached almsgiving there was never 
 any conception of the right of each man to food and 
 clothing. There is a vast difference between giving 
 out of benevolence and supplying a legitimate 
 demand. The Revolution did not ask for charity : 
 it demanded the rights of Man. We agree, I take 
 it, at least in the vaguest sense, that each man has 
 an equal right to the bare necessities of life ; and 
 I think the majority of political thinkers would 
 agree that all men are politically equal. If that is 
 so the Revolutionary ideal is still in some sense 
 alive ; for, although we have acquired a certain 
 amount of equality, much more has yet to be 
 attained and there are at least some who are work- 
 ing for this equality. I do not attempt to define 
 the equal right of all men ; since there may be 
 much disagreement, for instance, as to whether real 
 equality can co-exist with vastly different private 
 incomes, or with inherited wealth, or with certain 
 traditional privileges. But the point is that what- 
 ever the precise sense given to political equality by 
 different parties, all accept some form of political
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 153 
 
 equality as desirable ; and by that we mean, of 
 course, equality of sane adulcs whom we may call 
 men, not of lunatics, imbeciles, or children. 
 
 Revolutionary Source of the Ideal. 
 
 Such is the Revolutionary ideal as it stands 
 to-day. I have now to show its early development. 
 Its value and meaning as well as its deficiencies 
 will appear in the discussion of its growth. 
 
 It is a custom among apologists to say that the 
 Christian Church introduced or at least made 
 popular the idea of the equality of man. No- 
 thing could be more glaringly untrue. Official 
 Christianity made no attempt to correct the 
 narrowness of caste prejudice. It accepted first 
 the ranks of the Roman Empire and afterwards the 
 castes of the feudal system ; and it employed itself 
 rather in finding justification for a political situation 
 which already existed than in correcting the defici- 
 encies of the system.^ But it must be understood 
 that I am not complaining against the mediaeval 
 Church ; for all I know it may have made a mis- 
 take in extending the protection of its teaching to 
 political theory. The fact remains that it is to the 
 pagan Renaissance and not to the mediaeval Church 
 that we must look for the source of that ' Liberty, 
 Fraternity, and Equality ' which made the soul of 
 the French Revolution. I do not, of course, deny 
 
 ^ Thus Rousseau found it necessary to protest against 
 the use by established government of the New Testament 
 advice to resist not the higher powers (' le precepte est 
 bon, mais superflu '), and of the statement that 'all power 
 is from God ' ( ' mais toute maladie en vient aussi : est-ce 
 a dire qu'il soit defendu d'appeler le medecin ? '). See 
 Contrat social. Book I, oh. iii. Cf. the earlier chapter on 
 ' Cosmopolitan Equality ',
 
 154 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 that the Chuich and the ecclesiastical politicians 
 had stated that all men were brothers whose Father 
 is God, The fundamental difficulty to a real 
 democracy was the addition of the statement that 
 all men were thus 'in the eyes of God'. This 
 made the first statement ineffective, and it was 
 reserved for the anti-ecclesiastical political thinkers 
 of the Enlightenment to show that all men were 
 equal ' in the eyes of men '. What was true only 
 to the mind of God was not true for political pur- 
 poses ; but when it was shown that men could 
 themselves grasp how all men were equal, then 
 a new and splendid ideal was added to the tradition 
 of Western Civilization. 
 
 The interests of all men had been considered by 
 theorists long before their rights had been admitted, 
 and even mediaeval political thinkers had not lost 
 sight of a common humanity. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas ^ was inclined to suppose that 
 government ultimately rested on the tvill of the 
 governed, and he certainly grasped the truth that it 
 exists for the good of the governed .^ But what was 
 not clear in early times to the official teachers was 
 that the people do not ask for their good to be 
 considered as a sort of charity ; it is no special 
 virtue in a prince to consider his subjects. He 
 exists for no other purpose ; for such is their right. 
 
 The conception of right becomes a little clearer 
 in the unorthodox thinkers William of Ockham 
 and Marsilius of Padua ; ^ but it was politically 
 
 1 In 1270. 
 
 * De reg. princ. ; Summa Th. I. Ilae. 
 
 * In the Compendium Errorum, &c. of Ockham and the 
 Defensor Pads of Marsilius : both published in Goldast's 
 Monarchia S. R. Imperii.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 155 
 
 inefEective since it was confused with a theory of the 
 Mediaeval Empire, and it was never widely spread. 
 
 As for the expression of the ideal in the days 
 when it was first powerful, some hint of the new 
 conceptions respecting the relation of individuals 
 may be found in Hobbes's Leviathan.^ In this 
 great book the whole structure of society was based 
 upon the conception that individuals unite together 
 for self-preservation. They agree to transfer the 
 power for self-preservation which is in each to 
 a central government, which thus in origin rests 
 upon the will of the people, and exists for the equal 
 benefit of all. Here was a principle which might 
 justify discontent with existing governments, but it 
 could not become a gospel of Revolution, because 
 for Hobbes the government once established was 
 for ever supreme. The transfer of power had been 
 made. Thus we are still in the region of Renais- 
 sance sovereignty, and Hobbes is classed with 
 Grotius in the Contrat social ; ^ but there was 
 present in the work of Hobbes at least a clear con- 
 ception of the origin and theoretical basis of 
 sovereignty in the will of the governed, which is 
 hardly to be found in Grotius, for whom the aliena- 
 tion of power removes from the people even the 
 theoretical possession of ultimate sovereignty. 
 There was then a beginning in Hobbes of the idea 
 of political equality among the many in whom 
 rested the basis of sovereign rule. 
 
 The actual change in the political situation which 
 made it possible for the ideal of equality to flourish 
 on a soil of concrete reality was sudden in some 
 countries and slow in others. In England the 
 
 ^ First published in 1651. 
 
 * Contrat social, Book I, ch. ii.
 
 156 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 greater number of inhabitants gradually made their 
 power felt from the sixteenth century onwards. 
 Political monopoly of power had been corrected 
 in the Puritan revolution and again in 1688.^ 
 A gradual approach was thus made towards the 
 equalizing of all adults in law and politics. 
 
 But in France the old mediaeval situation was 
 perpetuated until the great Revolution of 1789 ; 
 and the strength of the ancien regime made its 
 opponents all the more violent, so that it is doubt- 
 ful whether the crimes committed in the name of 
 fraternity should be put down to the Revolution or 
 to the long-established caste-system which made 
 such a revolution possible. 
 
 The Ideal of Rousseau. 
 
 Meantime the change of ideas had begun, and the 
 Gospel of the Revolution was found in the writings 
 of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. These have been so fre- 
 quently and so well expounded that it will not be 
 necessary here to do more than show how the funda- 
 mental idea of an equal humanity gave them force. 
 The union of men in society as conceived according 
 to the Contrat social is a union of equals who do not, 
 as in the Leviathan, repudiate their equality by 
 their act of union. Rousseau made a distinction 
 between the government set up by a people and the 
 structure of society, or the relationships of the 
 individuals. The only ' natural ' union is, for him, 
 one in which the fundamental equality or brother- 
 hood of all is preserved. ' If the whole structure of 
 
 1 The expression of the ideal involved is in Locke's 
 Essay on Civil Government. The great phrase in ch. xiii 
 is, ' there remains in the people a supreme power to remove 
 or alter the legislature'.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 157 
 
 society rests on an act of partnership entered into 
 by equals in behalf of themselves and their de- 
 scendants for ever, the nature of the union is not 
 what it would be if the members of the union had 
 only entered it to place their liberties at the feet of 
 some superior power. Society in the one case 
 (Hobbes's) is a covenant of subjection, in the other 
 a covenant of social brotherhood.' ^ 
 
 But this involves that every form of government 
 then existing, in so far as the people were not 
 directly governing, even if they had given over 
 their power willingly and it had not been snatched 
 from them, was corrupt : it was a violation of the 
 natural state and therefore of what was just.^ 
 
 ' Man is born free and he is everywhere in chains ' : 
 these first words of the Contrat social are, as it 
 were, the cry of pain from which the Revolutionary 
 enthusiasm arose. It is of interest to notice the fierce 
 antagonism with which Rousseau mentions the 
 name of Grotius as of one who had riveted these 
 chains :^ his name recurs frequently and Rousseau's 
 violence only shows how completely the Renaissance 
 ideal had become obstructive. The family is the 
 only natural society, all others are conventional. 
 The State is indeed conventional in so far as it is 
 
 ^ Morley, Roussemi, vol. ii, p. 160. 
 
 * Rousseau must have been influenced by the non- 
 representative direct voting of the States in the Swiss 
 Confederation ; but, as Morley observes, he prefers to 
 quote £18 an example the Roman comitia, and the Mace- 
 donians and Franks. 
 
 ^ ' Sa plus constante maniere de raisonner est d'etablir 
 toujours le droit par le fait' [Contrat social, ch. ii), and so 
 to suppose, as Grotius did, that a people gives itself over 
 to absolute obedience is ' supposer un peuple de fous : 
 la f die ne fait pas droit ' . Ibid. ch. iv.
 
 158 KEVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 the resiilt of a free contract or pact, but it is by no 
 means a loss of liberty for the individual. ' Ce que 
 rhonime perd par le contrat social, c'est la liberie 
 naturelle . . . ce qu'il gagne, c'est la liberte 
 civile.' ^ And again : ' au lieu de detruire I'egalite 
 naturelle, le pacte fondamental substitue au con- 
 traire une egalite morale et legitime a ce que la 
 nature avait pumettre d'inegalite physique entre les 
 hommes, et que, pouvant etre inegaux en force ou 
 en genie, ils deviennent tous egaux par convention 
 et de droit.' ^ The natural inequality of men is thus 
 recognized by Rousseau and placed in opposition 
 to their political equality. What meaning, then, 
 does he give to the new equality arising in the social 
 pact ? ' Le pacte social etablit entre les citoyens 
 une telle egalite, qu'ils s'engagent tous sous les 
 memes conditions et doivent jouir tous des memes 
 droits. Ainsi, par la nature du pacte, tout acte 
 de souverainete, c'est-a-dire, tout acte authentique 
 de la volonte generale, oblige ou favorise egale- 
 ment tous les citoyens.' ^ This is a protest against 
 class-legislation and privilege, and against the 
 tendency of those who are naturally better endowed 
 than others to consider only their own interests. 
 
 Such a tendency still exists, and the old excuse 
 for it, that men are born more or less intelligent or 
 powerful, is still sometimes used ; but Rousseau 
 is quite reasonable in supposing that its correction 
 can only be made by enforcing the fact of likeness 
 between all men in so far as they are members of the 
 State. To form a State, he argues, not only the 
 
 ^ Op. cit., ch. viii. ^ Book I, ch. ix, in fine. 
 
 ^ Book II, ch. iv : ' Des homes du pouvoir souverain.' 
 The popular will can establish classes, says Rousseau, 
 but not in the interest of the class. Cf. Book II, ch. vi.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 159 
 
 intelligent or the competent enter the compact but 
 all, both the intelligent and the non-intelligent. 
 As parties to the agreement all are equal though in 
 other ways they are dissimilar ; this is the meaning 
 of political equality.^ How to make this real it is ' 
 difficult to say ; ^ but equality is not a chimera. 
 ' C'est precisement parce que la force des choses 
 tend toujours a detruire I'egalite, que la force de la 
 legislation doit toujours tendre a la maintenir.'^ 
 A government is established by the sovereign 
 people for this purpose ; * governments are of all 
 kinds, and they tend to abuses ^ while what remains 
 always unchanged is the popular sovereignty. 
 Thus the statement (Book II, chap, i) that ' Sove- 
 reignty is inalienable ' and is not given up even 
 when a government is established, becomes the 
 theme (Book IV) of the later thesis that direct 
 government by the people is the only safe method. 
 ' Les hommes droits et simples sont difficiles 
 a tromper ' ; ^ kings, priests, and all governors are 
 
 ^ ' J'appelle done republique tout Etat regi par les lois, 
 sous quelque forme d' administration que ce puisse etre : 
 car alors seulement I'interet public gouverne, et la chose 
 publique est quelque chose. Tout gouvernement legitime 
 est republicain ' — in the sense explained later. Book II, 
 eh. vi. 
 
 * Whether by redistribution of wealth or by ' moderation 
 of avarice '. Cf. Book II, ch. xi. 
 
 3 Ibid. Book II, ch. xi. 
 
 * Ibid. Book III, ch. i. Government is intermediate 
 between the sovereign and the subject. 
 
 ^ Book III, ch. X. Thus Rousseau goes farther in 
 understanding Aristotle than Grotius did. 
 
 ° Book IV, ch. i. Rousseau says the people of Berne 
 or Geneva would never have submitted to a Cromwell 
 or a Duke of Beaufort. Thus he definitely refers to the 
 Swiss method, and I do not see why Morley says he gives 
 examples only from Macedon and Rome.
 
 160 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 to be suspected, for their very abilities lead theni 
 to power and their power to the maintenance of 
 a situation no longer willed by the governed. 
 
 Rousseau, however, was not isolated in the expres- 
 sion of this right of revolution ; although perhaps 
 he saw or felt more clearly than others what 
 practical consequences were involved in the theory 
 of popular sovereignty. The theorists of the 
 eighteenth century supposed the existence of 
 a Law of Nature by which, as Blackstone has it, 
 men have ' natural rights such as life and liberty, 
 which no human legislature has power to abridge 
 or destroy ' ; but here was a principle of revolution 
 in the guise of a basis for established law, since any 
 man might assert that the existing human legis- 
 lature violated his rights according to the Law of 
 Natiire. And this Law of Nature, being unknown 
 to every one, could be quoted by any one. It was 
 agreed on all sides that it involved certain rights 
 existing in man as man and irrespective of social 
 rank or inherited privilege. 
 
 Nature was an excellent ground for destroying 
 the governments which existed ; ^ but in practice the 
 direct sovereignty of a fraternal and equal people 
 was not established even by the Revolutionaries 
 who were inspired by Rousseau. Direct popular 
 government is only possible in small groups ; but 
 the Revolution had inherited the whole of mon- 
 archical France as a unit to be governed. Hence 
 an indirect government of the people had to be set 
 
 * Contrast with de Groot's adoration of the established 
 Rousseau's phrase : 'La loid'hiern' oblige pas aujourd'hui: 
 mais le consentement tacite est presume du silence, et 
 le souverain est cense confirmer incessamment les lois 
 qu'il n'abrogc pas, pouvant le /aire,' Book III, ch. xi.
 
 REVOLUTIONAEY RIGHTS 161 
 
 up ; and the various committees and councils of 
 Paris adopted the old methods of centralized 
 authority. Hence also the same principle of 
 revolution which had destroyed the monarchy 
 destroyed any government which the Revolution 
 could create ; for the ' true believers ' in the 
 Rousseau gospel could always protest that any 
 existing government was a tyranny when the whole 
 people did not vote on every issue. 
 
 Rousseau's Discourse ofi the Origin of Inequality 
 among men contains the same general theme. ^ It 
 admits natui-al inequality and deplores the political 
 inequality erroneously founded upon it. Rousseau 
 clearly expresses the prevailing difficulties and puts 
 them all down to inequality. Even the natural 
 inequality is luisrepresented, he says, in a state of 
 things in which ' a child is king over an old man, 
 an imbecile leads a wise man, and a few are gorged 
 with superfluities while the hungry majority lack 
 what is barely necessary '.^ 
 
 It is only too easy to point out the mistakes as 
 to fact and the erroneous political judgements of 
 Rousseau. What is not easy but is more important 
 is to see how clearly he expressed the general dis- 
 tress and the accepted idea of what would remove 
 it. If we could suppose all men equal, the Revolu- 
 tionaries might have said, we should at least dis- 
 cover by competition with equal opportunities who 
 were the best.^ Thus by political equality in place 
 of the prevailing inequality we might arrive at 
 natural inequality and also at the fundamental 
 likeness between all men irrespective of their 
 
 ^ It was published eight years before the C'onlrat social. 
 * The last words of the Discourse. 
 ^ The words are from D. Ritchie. 
 1782 L
 
 162 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 special abilities. But this political equality of right 
 was to be secured by direct popular government. 
 The political conceptions of Rousseau were con- 
 fused and unpractical ; but the ideal which moved 
 him was shared by very many, and it survived even 
 the ludicrous consequences of the first attempts to 
 apply it. For, after all, the repudiation of repre- 
 sentative government was only a means suggested 
 by which to arrive at the end of giving all men equal 
 political rights ; and although Rousseau thought 
 it was a necessary means, we may perhaps suppose 
 that there are others.^ And if it is really possible 
 for all men to have equal political rights in groups 
 which are too large for direct voting on all issues to 
 be practical, then we may value the ideal of the 
 Revolution independently of our judgement of its 
 political programme. That ideal as it appears in 
 Rousseau is the production and development of 
 individuals who may have the freest possible play 
 for all their faculties. It involves that no human 
 being is to be sacrificed to the development of any 
 other ; all are equal, all brethren, and all are free. 
 The still more fundamental conception, which is 
 perfectly valid, is that man is essentially ' good ' ; 
 and this transformation of the fundamental basis of 
 equality was wrought by the French thinkers almost 
 in spite of their English teachers, Locke andHobbes. 
 For with Hobbes especially the fundamental pre- 
 judice, inherited from Puritanism, is that human 
 nature tends to evil. Social organization is the 
 result of man's tendency to conflict ; and govern- 
 
 * There is of course the continual tendency to complain 
 against any system of representative government. The 
 Referendum is merely a modified form of the Rousseau 
 conception of the inalienable sovereignty of the people.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 163 
 
 ment improves man, Rousseau on the contrary '\ 
 held that government degrades man ; for man is ' 
 essentially free and independent. How then did j 
 society arise if it was an evil V It arose as the less ' 
 of two evils. ' The state of nature ' was being 
 destroyed by the inevitable growth of natural 
 forces (crowding, &c.) and to save themselves men 
 conventionally agreed to unite. Thus the less 
 government the better, for thus we are nearer to ; 
 the free life of the naturally virtuous man. Such \ 
 conceptions, it is clear, have their modern results 
 in Anarchism or in Socialism according as govern- 
 ment is conceived as a bad convention or as a 
 natural result of human nature. But of these issues 
 we shall speak later. The important point for 
 our present argument is the immense faith in the ; 
 original purity of man's nature which was possessed i 
 by all the great Revolutionaries. 1 
 
 The embodiment of the Ideal in events. 
 
 The facts as to the Revolution are sufficiently 
 well known, but it is perhaps necessary to point 
 out why I have spoken of Rousseau's expression 
 of the ideal before even stating the events in which 
 that ideal may be seen to have been an influence. 
 It is not altogether true that the philosophers made 
 the Revolution ; but it is true that by contrast 
 with the history of other ideals the ideal of the 
 Revolution, at least in France, preceded in state- | 
 ment the attempt at realization of it in fact.^ This 
 does not mean that the want from which the ) 
 ideal arose was not felt long before Rousseau or 
 
 ' Thus Locke's Treatise is an excuse for established 
 fact; but the Revolutionary 'excuse' was stated by 
 Rousseau before the fact of its partial realization. 
 L2
 
 164 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 other Revolutionary thinkers expressed it. The 
 Revolution was not the result of a political theory 
 but of definite distress. 
 
 The evils seen by Arthur Young are well known : 
 'the people almost as wild as their country, and 
 their town of Combourg one of the most brutal 
 filthy places that can be seen ; mud houses, no 
 windows, and a pavement so broken as to impede 
 all passengers, but ease none, — yet here is a chateau, 
 and inhabited ; who is this Mons. de Chateau- 
 briand, the owner, that has nerves strung for a 
 residence amid such filth and poverty ? ' ^ A 
 Chateaubriand when young inhabited that place 
 and later praised the old regime. And again, ' one 
 third of what I have seen of this province seems 
 uncultivated and nearly all of it is in misery. 
 What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments 
 and states to answer for their prejudices, seeing 
 millions of hands that would be industrious, idle 
 and starving, through the execrable maxims of 
 despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a 
 feudal nobility.' ^ The dumb rage of the peasantry 
 led to the Jacquerie ; but even in that brutal action 
 one may see the want out of which an ideal arises. 
 
 We may read the list'of grievances in the account 
 of all that was aboUshed in 1789. 'L'Assemblee 
 nationale detruit entierement le regime feodal. . . . 
 Le droit exclusif des fuies et colombiers est aboli. 
 . . . Le droit exclusif de la chasse et des garennes 
 ouvertes est aboli. . . . Toutes les justices seigneu- 
 riales sont supprimees sans aucune indemnite, . . . 
 Tous les citoyens pourront etre admis a tons les 
 
 1 Travels, September 1, 1788. 
 ^ Ibid., September 5, 1788.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 165 
 
 emplois et dignites. . . .' ^ This and much more 
 of the same kind exists as proof of the nature of 
 the want felt. It was economic but also political. 
 Financial distress and brutalizing poverty were 
 combined with obsolete administration and privi- 
 leges which turned all the energies of the com- 
 munity awry. Vaguely and for the greater number 
 unconsciously, a conception was moving men to 
 action, a dream that all might be well if privilege 
 was destroyed. There was hope in a king who . 
 would deliver his people ; but the deliverance was 
 delayed until patience was exhausted. 
 
 The mass of men are not interested in their rights 
 until they suffer physically and mentally. But all 
 the force of established government went to main- 
 tain this mass of suffering, until the dams were 
 broken and the flood overwhelmed the whole 
 obsolete system. Paris rose in insurrection, the 
 Bastille was taken, and popular assemblies voted 
 complete reform.^ Then the forces of Revolution 
 began to divide among themselves. Such an im- 
 mense tradition of obsolete abuses naturally gave 
 rise to innumerable plans of reform ; and fear, which 
 makes states as well as gods, began to force extreme 
 measures upon those who would have anything 
 rather than a return to the old evil. The sovereigns 
 who had been established by the Renaissance 
 allied themselves against the new France (1791) ; 
 and the people of the Revolution replied by raising 
 armies and at last, impelled by fear of civil warfare, 
 by the execution of Louis XVI (1793). 
 
 The whole effort was to realize equality of 
 
 ^ Courrier de Provence, August 8-10, 1789. Quoted in 
 liCgg, Select Documerits of the French Rev., i. 106. 
 * The bare right to vote was esteemed a great gain.
 
 166 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 political rights among all the inhabitants of France, 
 and this equality was to be extended by the de- 
 struction of privilege and caste in every country. 
 But the established government having been de- 
 stroyed, different groups grasped at the supreme 
 power. Paris was in the throes of extreme party 
 controversy and all France was in confusion, while 
 the armies of the Revolution passed the frontiers 
 (1793, 1794). 
 
 It was clear practically, though not yet in theory, 
 that without any settled government caste and 
 privilege might be destroyed but no one would be 
 any the better. Confusion and a strong army 
 led to the Directorate (1795) : that gave Bonaparte 
 prominence, and the result was the transformation 
 of the First Consul into the Emperor (1804). Thus 
 the gospel of equal political rights led to a sort of 
 military despotism. It had, however, achieved 
 something for the bourgeoisie and it remained as 
 an inspiration for the movement of 1848. 
 
 Limits of the Ideal. 
 
 But perhaps it is as well to state that the equaHty 
 at which the Revolution aimed was not a futile and 
 abstract equality of worth among all men. We 
 must not imagine that the Revolution failed to 
 make that real, for that it never attempted to 
 establish. The ideal of the Revolution does not 
 imply that all men have good brains any more than 
 that all men have long legs. Only the rhetorical 
 fool can imagine that he gains a victory over those 
 old enthusiasts by showing — what is perfectly 
 obvious — that men are not equal in ability, in birth, 
 or in moral character. No one ever said they were, 
 and perhaps it might have been less misleading if
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 167 
 
 the Revolutionary theory had asserted, not that all 
 men are equal, but that they are all similar. That 
 would have sounded like a platitude, but it would 
 not therefore have been a useless observation ; for 
 the fact is that the Revolution was protesting 
 against the continual f orgetfulness of precisely that 
 platitude. Political thinkers, statesmen, and law- 
 yers had really forgotten that, underlying the dis- 
 tinctions there was a fundamental likeness in all 
 men. The distinctions were given a prominence 
 which quite obscured the similarity ; so that in 
 practice the humanity of human beings was dis- 
 regarded. Some men were treated as beasts and 
 others as gods. The Revolution aimed first at 
 establishing that all were men. It may be said 
 that this is a fantastic exaggeration of the grievance 
 against which the Revolutionaries were protesting. 
 It may be held impossible to believe that thinking 
 men ever forgot the common humanity of all men. 
 It may not be possible to realize that our conception 
 of equality was not always current. But if there is 
 any difficulty, we need only think of the same sort 
 of pre-Revolutionary conceptions which are in 
 vogue to-day with respect to women. 
 
 In spite of Plato, in defiance of history, on a plea 
 of reference to ' facts ', it is actually possible for 
 many to-day even in civilized countries to consider 
 that sexual differences render insignificant or 
 negligible the common humanity of man and 
 woman. 1 It is indeed said that women because of 
 their sex are not competent to think or act in 
 political issues. It is urged in pseudo-scientific 
 terminology that the bodily structure of the female 
 
 • The pamphlet of Miss Jane Harrison, Homo Sum, is 
 an admirable continuance of Revolutionary literature.
 
 168 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 makes it impossible for her to enter into business 
 or politics. Not many years ago the same sort of 
 argument was used to show that their bodily struc- 
 ture made women incompetent in mathematics, 
 science, philosophy, or the higher branches of art. 
 But this reference to differences, involving a re- 
 pudiation of fundamental likeness, is precisely the 
 / attitude of the ancien regime. Exactly the same 
 was said of the differences in birth, wealth, educa- 
 tion or genius, all which showed that whole classes 
 of men were incompetent in pohtical issues and that 
 their interests would best be considered by others. 
 
 The arguments drawn from differences once 
 supported caste and privilege as they now support 
 the exclusion of women from politics. 
 
 Such antiquated and obsolete opinions I shall 
 not trouble to refute. It will be sufficient to 
 observe that if such arguments hold we must be- 
 lieve that a woman is more like a cow than like 
 a man. Sex must be more important than race ; 
 and the fact that the convolutions of the brain 
 in the human female are not unlike those in the 
 male must be neglected as insignificant because 
 women, like female cats, dogs or other mammals, 
 are able to bear young. 
 
 My point is that if many still do not recognize 
 in politics the common humanity of man and 
 woman, we can easily imagine how many in the 
 eighteenth century did not recognize the common 
 humanity even among male human beings. It 
 was therefore no platitude but a paradox at that 
 time to say that the labourer and the shopkeeper 
 should have equal political rights with the land- 
 owner and the courtier.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 169 
 
 Criticism of the Ideal. 
 
 We must now turn to criticism. The Revolu- 
 tionary ideal even in its best form implied certain 
 mistakes as to fact and certain other mistakes in the 
 ethical judgement of value. Quite apart therefore 
 from its exaggerations, from its futile embodiment 
 in the First Republic and its utter failure in the 
 Empire, it must be shown to be somewhat limited. 
 
 The mistakes in the expression of the Revolu- 
 tionary ideal are only too obvious. We can always 
 see the limitations of those who immediately pre- 
 ceded us more easily than of the ancients ; and 
 a modern revolt always tends to give birth to 
 romantic enthusiasm for the evils against which the 
 revolt was directed. The evil of the successful 
 revolt, which promised so much and achieved so 
 little, appears monstrous ; and the good it de- 
 stroyed in its war against abuses is exaggerated. 
 Thus the absurdities of Chateaubriand and Joseph 
 de Maistre have their place in the record of dis- 
 appointment which marks the development of 
 political ideals. Death masks the scowl of a 
 tyrant's face ; the ancien regime once dead seemed 
 kindly and serene beside the scarred and struggling 
 features of the new Republic. Even in England 
 men of the nineteenth century began to believe 
 in a golden Middle Age when all landowners were 
 benevolent, all villeins happy, when all the knights 
 were gallant and all the ladies beautiful. Thus 
 I take it as a sign of deficiency in the Revolutionary 
 ideal that Romanticism and Mediaevalism followed 
 hard upon it. Something was obviously felt to 
 have been omitted in the new conceptions of the 
 relation of individuals and something valuable was
 
 170 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 believed to have been destroyed. I do not say, of 
 course, that the romantic ideal showed any better 
 ethical judgement or implied any better knowledge 
 of historical facts than did the Revolution, but 
 clearly the kingships and empires of the later 
 nineteenth century and the sentimental literature 
 of the same date had some reasonable ground for 
 opposition to the revolutionary ideal. 
 
 Romanticism had its effect on political thought, ^ 
 but since it was praise of a golden age which had 
 obviously never existed it did not provide any new 
 political ideal. All its real strength lay in its 
 criticism of the exaggerations of the Revolution. 
 Granting therefore that there is something to be 
 said against even the best form of the Revolu- 
 tionary ideal, we must now proceed to say in what 
 points it seems to be most deficient. 
 
 First, the conception of the individual was mis- 
 leading. The talk of 'rights' as belonging to 
 ' man ' implied a neglect of the fact that the state 
 system is a natural growth.^ It was even said that 
 the organization of society was an artificial and 
 almost arbitrary means for preserving the natural 
 rights of man. Thus ' man ' isolated was regarded 
 as natural and society was thought artificial or 
 conventional. The Revolutionaries often opposed 
 the national sentiment they should have supported 
 even according to their own principles, because 
 they dreamed of an abstract cosmopolitanism and 
 neglected the fundamental distinctions of race or of 
 
 ^ In the opposition to Republicanism and the return 
 to military conceptions of Society. 
 
 ^ For detailed philosophical criticism see Bosanquet's 
 Phil. Theory of the State. I do not, however, go so far as 
 he does in attempting to make society a real unit.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 171 
 
 grouping. Napoleon used the national forces of 
 the_^^new France on the plea at first of dethroning 
 tyrants and freeing peoples, but eventually only to 
 subordinate all other peoples to French methods 
 and French despots. It is not fair perhaps to put 
 down to the Revolution the military despotism of 
 Napoleon, but it is perfectly clear that the leaders 
 of the Revolution thought too much of ' man ' and 
 too little of the distinctions between Frenchmen 
 and Italians, Germans or Englishmen. For even 
 though there is a fundamental likeness between all 
 men which was emphasized in order to destroy 
 caste and privilege, the exaggeration of the gospel 
 of equality weakened it. To admit likenesses ought 
 not to involve the denial of differences ; and the dis- 
 tinctions between races were much more important 
 than those between social classes in France itself. 
 The whole error arose from the conception of 
 society as a convention ; for that involved the 
 conception of a perfect or ideal man who was not 
 bound by inheritance or social relations, whereas 
 in fact society is ' natural ' and no individual is 
 isolated.^ 
 
 Secondly, the non-rational elements in all human 
 thought and action were neglected. The theorists 
 of the Revolution, with the prejudices of the 
 Enlightenment, exaggerated the importance of pure 
 reasoning or of consciousness in action. They did 
 not see that half the actions of every individual 
 have emotional causes and all have emotional 
 
 1 It will be observed that though I say the individual 
 is never isolated or ' atomic ', I am not willing to say that 
 the individual is unreal or even deficient in reality. 
 Society or the State is simply a reality of a different kind, 
 not of any more worth than the individual.
 
 172 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 
 
 effects, that actions are governed largely by the 
 laws of imitation, and that all our acts depend upon 
 and affect the artistic or religious atmosphere. 
 Hence it was that the Romanticists could protest 
 against the limited interests of the Revolution and 
 point to the art or emotional atmosphere of the old 
 regime as something good which had been lost.^ 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 The Revolutionary ideal therefore had its 
 deficiencies. It failed to be realized and it dis- 
 appointed its admirers even when half realized, not 
 only because men were unprepared for its splendid 
 elements but also because it had real weaknesses. 
 And now it has shuffled off its original form and 
 appears as the mildest of monsters. It involves 
 so little that is purely destructive now, and it has 
 been so corrected in its individualism and intel- 
 lectualism that almost any political party may 
 admit the equal political rights of all sane adults. 
 It is almost on the point of being taken for granted. 
 
 Still, however, in 'One man, one vote', in 
 'Adult suffrage for both sexes', the old voice of the 
 Revolution survives and moves civilized men ; and 
 in so far as these are not attained, revolutionary 
 conceptions are still ideals. But these cries are for 
 a few. The vast majority of those interested in 
 politics are not touched by them. And yet even 
 that majority is still moved by an ideal which we 
 may call revolutionary in so far as there is a con- 
 
 * It may seem wrong to accuse of intellectualism an 
 ideal so influenced by Rousseau the emotionalist ; but 
 it seems true that the admiration for constitution-making, 
 &c., and the decrying of taste as luxury are signs of the 
 old eighteenth century surviving even in Rousseau.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTS 173 
 
 tinual tendency to give the franchise more generally 
 or to redistribute votes so that representation shall 
 be more equal. ^ This is the result of the Revolution, 
 and it remains not only as a sign of what we hold 
 valuable among our acquired possessions, but also 
 as a sign of what we still think worth achieving. 
 In some sense equality of political rights is thought 
 to be desirable ; and we cannot be supposed to be 
 already in possession of it. Caste and privilege 
 still remain in many countries, and even in England 
 and the United States we may believe that they 
 exist under other names. 
 
 ^ Thus I take as a result of the Revolution the idea that 
 30,000 votes of a city-borough should not be represented 
 by one man while one man may also represent only 1,000 
 votes in a country constituency. Equality of voting 
 power is the modern form of the ideal of equal political 
 rights.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 We must now consider an ideal of comparatively 
 recent growth which concerns the relation of the 
 different groups into which humanity is divided. 
 Out of Renaissance Sovereignty combined with 
 Revolutionary Rights comes Nationalism. The 
 local independence of the sovereign State was 
 at last connected with the right of the inhabitants 
 to choose their own form of government ; and the 
 result has been the conception that every group of 
 sufficient permanence and with enough of a dis- 
 tinct tradition to have a ' national ' character 
 should have an opportunity for developing its own 
 forms of law and government. 
 
 I need hardly say that I am not supposing that 
 national characters are fixed ; for my present 
 purpose it is sufficient if the members of any one 
 group have habits of mind or customs which are 
 different from those of any other. A state- 
 ment of the present facts does not necessarily 
 involve a prophecy of the future. The tendency 
 of modern world-politics and world-commerce is 
 towards assimilating distant peoples, and it has 
 already produced a sort of international caste in the 
 nations of Europe. But at present there are dis- 
 tinct groups of men which are not to be distin- 
 guished as States nor as cities. These groups we
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 175 
 
 shall call nations, although the word is inexact 
 and has had many other meanings.^ 
 
 National differences may be supposed to be due 
 to (1) heredity and (2) environment .^ As to the 
 former — ' Century after century our departed an- 
 cestors have fashioned our ideas and sentiments.' ^ 
 In the list we might make of all human beings, 
 the dead far outnumber the living ; and the effects \ 
 of their thought and action are much more ini- I 
 portant politically than the thought and action of f 
 all the living put together. I mean, of course, that 
 these effects of the past constitute the majority of 
 political facts. 
 
 The existence of national characteristics in 
 features, habits of mind or body, language and even 
 dress, is an instance of the past living in the present. 
 We are grouped as we are because of what happened 
 to our forefathers ; and the ideal of a ' Parliament 
 of Man, a Federation of the World' is far off 
 because of the forces which separated humanity in 
 earlier times. If man had no history then we 
 
 ' Mill's definition is bad ; Rep. Govt., ch. xvi. What he 
 says would be in part equally true of almost any group 
 (City, Trade Union, &c.), and in part is a definition not 
 of a fact but of an ideal. ' A portion of mankind ', says 
 Mill, ' may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are 
 united among themselves by common sympathies which 
 do not exist between them and any others — which make 
 them co-operate with each other more willingly than with 
 other people, desire to be under the same government 
 and desire that it should be government by themselves 
 or a portion of themselves inclusively.' 
 
 ^ Mill puts down as causes: (1) Identity of descent; 
 (2) community of language and religion ; (3) geographical 
 limits ; (4) identity of political antecedents. Loc. cit., 
 ch. xvi. These are included in the list I give. 
 
 ' Le Bon, Psychology of Peoples.
 
 176 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 could begin without difficulty to arrange the world 
 upon the best plans conceivable ; for then all men 
 would be made according to one excellent defini- 
 tion, all turned out according to one pattern and 
 each easily to be understood by studying the other. 
 But each of us individually and each group of us 
 collectively is a result of the past : We are burdened 
 or we are benefited by our descent. 
 
 And with respect to environment we may speak 
 of natural and human surroundings. Natural sur- 
 roundings, climate, and the resources of the country 
 soon make considerable differences in any settled 
 state of society, although their influence has been 
 somewhat exaggerated by such writers as Buckle. 
 I am not now implying any doctrine as to ' racial 
 characteristics'; for I am inclined to believe that 
 no characteristic can be supposed to be permanent 
 .in any nation. Not even if Buckle was right and 
 the character of human inhabitants is completely 
 moulded by geographical and cHmatic conditions — 
 not even so is it possible to speak as though any 
 special virtue were the special possession of any 
 one race of men.^ For, as against the limitation in 
 Buckle's view, different races at different times 
 have inhabited the same place and one race has 
 developed and the other has not ; and again, the 
 same race in the same geographical surroundings 
 
 1 Cf. Buckle, Civilization ; cf. i. 43 : ' Hence arises 
 a national character more fitful and capricious, &c.' It 
 will be clearly seen that, although I do not deny a partial 
 truth in Buckle's concept of development, the whole thesis 
 of this essay implies that he neglected one of the most 
 prominent motive powers even in early history. I have 
 not troubled to show that the want from which the ideal 
 arises cannot come only from the geographical con- 
 ditions.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 177 
 
 has had different characteristics at different times. ^ 
 But in spite of the fallacies of the geographical 
 hypothesis, to call it by a short name ; and in spite 
 of the exaggerations of all who speak of racial char- 
 acter, it remains true that, as at present situated 
 and in their present development, one nation differs 
 from another. As one family differs in blood from 
 another, and as the group we call a nation is a more 
 or less permanent association of families, we may 
 suppose that one nation differs from another in 
 blood. The amount of this physical difference 
 will vary with immigration, commercial contact, 
 and travel ; but any nation which has been per- 
 manent for some centuries will differ from any 
 other partly because of the effects of natural 
 environment. 
 
 Next, by human surroundings I mean the intel- 
 lectual or emotional effect of man on man or family 
 on family. I take it that no one can consider 
 political issues with reference to individuals and 
 without any reference to the change all individuals 
 undergo through living in groups. This again has 
 been somewhat exaggerated by such writers as le 
 Bon and there is a tendency to mythology in the 
 use of such terms as the Crowd Mind or the Soul 
 of a People, although as poetry they are effective. 
 The best treatment of the social environment seems 
 to me to be McDougall's ; and in his work the 
 
 1 I am thinking (1) of ancient and modern ' Greeks ' 
 and (2) of English character as ' merry ' in the Middle 
 Ages and as 'shopkeeping ' in the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 It is clear that it is impossible to prove that Western 
 Civilization is ' higher ' than Eastern because ' the powers 
 of nature ' are not so great in Europe as elsewhere (Buckle, 
 vol. i, ch. iii). 
 
 1782 M
 
 178 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 individual still remains real, although the group is 
 recognized as a fact to be reckoned with. ^ ' National 
 characteristics', he says, 'are in the main [not 
 innate, but] the expressions of different traditions.' 
 Imitation is said to be in one sense the conservative 
 force, and, in so far as the few are often original, 
 imitation of them is an agent of progress. ^ 'The 
 life of societies is not merely the scene of the 
 activities of individuals ' : ^ and so we arrive at 
 the group with a distinct character of its own. 
 
 Besides mere physical relationship we have to 
 reckon with the unity of a tradition. Those who 
 live in continuous contact develop and sometimes 
 even produce a special conception of what is ad- 
 mirable in character or valuable in life, or of the 
 place which law and government should have. 
 Such conceptions are embodied in institutions 
 supported by custom and expressed in literature 
 and the other arts. 'Ce qui fait que les hommes 
 forment un peuple, c'est le souvenir des grandes 
 choses qu'ils ont faites ensemble et la volonte d'en 
 accomplir des nouvelles.' ^ A common memory 
 and a common ideal — these, more than a common 
 blood — make a nation. ^ 
 
 These, then, are the forces which make what we 
 now call a nation ; from them we may judge the 
 
 1 Social Psychology : especially Section II, ch. x, ' The 
 operation of the Primary Tendencies of the Human Mind, 
 in the Life of Societies '. Cf. p. 329. 
 
 = Ibid, p. 334. =■ Ibid. p. 351. 
 
 * E. Renan, Qu'est-ce qiCune nation ? Conf. faite en 
 Sorbonne 11 mars 1882. 
 
 * Thus we may speak of the Belgian nation (in spite of 
 differences within it of blood and language) because they 
 have risked the same adventures and have a common 
 intention as a separate group.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 179 
 
 nature of the group and its value as a power in 
 political development. The result of history has 
 been the formation of many such groups, implying 
 distinctions and differences which no sane political 
 thinker can refuse to recognize. They are present 
 as a sentiment or a vague emotion in the minds of 
 many who are by no means consciously National- 
 ists ; and this sentiment inevitably supports the 
 conscious ideal that these differences should be 
 maintained and developed. 
 
 The Ideal. Its present meaning. 
 
 We must now attempt to show on what ground 
 the conscious Nationalist of modern times would 
 promote and develop the divergent traditions of 
 different nations. Beginning with the bare fact 
 that groups of men do differ, what benefit can be 
 supposed to flow from the difference ? In the first 
 place, as the destruction of individuality may de- 
 stroy genius, so the attempt to make all groups of 
 men exactly alike in their customs or creeds may 
 destroy some special character of endurance or wit 
 which may be developed even in a small nation. 
 There is some special quality in every group which it 
 would be well for the sake of the whole of humanity 
 to preserve. But this can only be preserved if the 
 group has an opportunity for characteristic develop- 
 ment of its own laws and institutions. The evidence 
 of the past shows that when a race is deprived of 
 its own political life its work is less valuable, and 
 that when a race wins political independence its 
 art and science contribute to the general progress 
 of civilization. 
 
 The existence of many small independent states 
 has resulted in the past in the art of Athens or 
 M 2
 
 180 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 Florence, the philosophy and science of Greek 
 cities, and the International Law which arose among 
 the Dutch. The Nationalist would therefore argue 
 that each group with a civilized tradition has a right 
 to independent development in view of what it may 
 produce for humanity at large. The guiding con- 
 ception is not a mere sentimental admiration for 
 small states or for weakness ; just as not senti- 
 mentalism but pure reason directs that we should 
 not eliminate the individual weakling in case he 
 may be able to do more for the race than the most 
 healthy barbarian. So reason demands that we 
 should expect from a small state results at least as 
 valuable as any which may come from immense and 
 wealthy empires. 
 
 In practical poUtics, therefore, we should allow 
 every distinct national group to be a completely 
 independent state. For, in the second place, no one 
 method for organizing the relation of individuals 
 is correct universally. States should vary in their 
 methods of law and government, reflecting in their 
 variety the distinctions of human groups. Besides 
 independence, therefore, a characteristic develop- 
 ment should be supported, and the tendency to 
 assimilate due to the increasing ease of communi- 
 cation should be corrected. 
 
 Thirdly, the ideal would not imply the absolute 
 segregation of each group, for indeed a group, like 
 an individual, cannot develop in. complete isolation. 
 Nationalism would imply close relationship between 
 different groups ; but not for the elimination of 
 differences. That close relationship (alliance or 
 federation) would be for the more civilized develop- 
 ment of those very differences. Men are not neces- 
 sarily made like one another by being friends, for
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 181 
 
 if it is an intelligent friendsliip it promotes rather 
 than hinders individuality. Indeed, there is more 
 assimilation by direct hostility than there is by 
 friendship ; one imitates the foe for the purpose 
 of overcoming him. Savages are more like one 
 another than are civilized men. Thus I see nothing 
 in the ideal of Nationalism which is necessarily 
 opposed to the ideal of Imperialism. In practice 
 they are opposed because each is inadequately 
 conceived ; but if Nationalism can imply a close 
 relationship (even in the same state system) of 
 many races, so Imperialism can imply the recog- 
 nition (within the same state) of many different 
 interests. 
 
 Historical Origin of the Ideal. 
 
 Nationalism, however, must be understood by 
 reference to its origin. We must go back to a time 
 when geographical divisions separated men more 
 effectively than they do now; when a mountain- 
 chain was not tunnelled, a river not bridged ; when 
 railways and ocean liners did not change the very 
 meaning of space. Then people living on different 
 sides of a mountain-chain, a river, or sea, saw so 
 little of one another that in a few generations their 
 languages were mutually unintelligible and by 
 intermarriage or contact with different environ- 
 ments their physical features began to differ. 
 
 I must not be understood to suppose that there 
 ever was a homogeneous human race which was 
 then diversified by separation. The two tendencies 
 have been at work simultaneously — that of co- 
 ordination or assimilation and that of separation 
 or diversification ; and I am only taking apart into 
 its two elements a movement which is really one.
 
 182 MODEEN NATIONALISM 
 
 The progress of humanity is to be understood as 
 a resultant of these two almost opposing forces. 
 The moving of tribes tends to intermarriage and 
 assimilation, but as soon as any tribe becomes 
 agricultural diversification begins. In Western 
 Civilization the natural diversity of races was 
 counteracted by the Roman Empire ; and when 
 that great force for assimilation was destroyed, its 
 ghost lingered on during the Middle Ages, so that 
 in spite of differences in race the various peoples 
 of Europe still felt themselves one in religious 
 and political issues. Races had not yet become 
 nations. 
 
 The appearance of national character can be 
 dated almost exactly. It occurred at the Renais- 
 sance. The old Roman world had gone to pieces 
 a thousand years before ; but Western Civilization 
 still depended for such unity as it possessed in 
 the fifteenth century upon the roads, the official 
 language and the basal law of the Romans. Mean- 
 time, when the period of migration had passed 
 and people stayed for some generations in the same 
 place, the geographical features of Europe made 
 themselves felt. The roads went from bad to worse, 
 travel was less and less easy, and different climates 
 or soils modified the law and the language. Out 
 of the confused unity of the Middle Ages came 
 the definite separations of the Renaissance, and 
 men began first to feel what we now call their 
 nationahty. 
 
 First came the observed fact of difference, and 
 then the ideal of Nationalism was conceived. 
 The old historians used to write as though the 
 ideals of the Renaissance, independent states and 
 the self-development of the individual, had come
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 183 
 
 first, and then had come the Renaissance state 
 and the Renaissance prince. But clearly events 
 occurred in the reverse order. Nations were inde- 
 pendent before philosophers and politicians said 
 that they should be so ; individuals had freed 
 themselves from mediaevaUsm before artists and 
 poets claimed self-development as a right. I do 
 not mean that men already had what they aimed 
 at ; but what they had gave them the first hint of 
 the advantage of having more of the same kind. 
 As yet, however, the ideal was embryonic. We 
 may imagine it as the unborn child of the ideal of 
 Renaissance sovereignty ; for governmental inde- 
 pendence came before any clearly conceived 
 Nationalism. Accepting the fact of difference it 
 was now possible for nations to work out their 
 own futures. Not even in theory was it any longer 
 the business of an emperor or a pope to see to the 
 development of England or of France.^ 
 
 The Renaissance, however, divided Europe rather 
 into a collection of states than into nations. The 
 ideal of the time was governmental independence, 
 not group-development. And it was not until the 
 Revolution had come and gone that the long 
 slumbering national consciousness came to birth 
 as a new ideal.^ 
 
 What sort of ideal was then conceived ? First; 
 
 * But we must observe also that while the mediaeval 
 theory of unity was in vogue there were really no nations. 
 Geographical division had not yet fully developed the 
 distinctions between the groups of men who settled in 
 different parts after the great migrations, and if there 
 were local interests these were hardly recognized by 
 political thinkers. 
 
 ^ Cf. Morley, HiMori/ and Politics, p. 71 : ' National 
 sentiment changed to Political idea.'
 
 184 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 Nationalism meant the independent development 
 of each distinct group. Racial dialect had become 
 a literary and official language ; differences of 
 custom had become fixed in distinct systems of 
 law and government ; and all this was no longer 
 thought of in terms of organization as it had been 
 during the Renaissance. The new Nationalism 
 was based upon the common character of distinct 
 groups of people. The people became the centre 
 of interest ; they and not the government were the 
 nation. 
 
 Again, the differences of race had produced differ- 
 ences of religious ritual and belief. For a hundred 
 years before Luther came the Northern nations had 
 been restless under the mediaeval ecclesiastical 
 system. But the Church had been a real power, 
 whereas the Empire had not ; and so political pre- 
 ceded rehgious independence. At last, however, 
 the differences of sentiment had proved too strong 
 even for religious tradition, and Northern races had 
 begun their experiments in national religion. The 
 Age of nionarchs passed and the popular gospel of 
 Revolution followed ; but the work of the Renais- 
 sance and Reformation in dividing the religious 
 tradition was not undone, and Nationalism found 
 ready to its hand characteristic creeds in different 
 groups. 
 
 Through the centuries that followed the Renais- 
 sance, and until the Napoleonic era, Nationalism 
 was rather a sentiment than a programme, but the 
 sentiment was strong. It was felt as a real political 
 fact at the partition of Poland (1772). It gave 
 force to the Spanish resistance against French 
 government from 1806 until 1813. It produced 
 the defeat of Napoleon at Moscow and the revival
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 185 
 
 of Germany ; ^ and although it was disregarded by 
 the statesmen of the Congress of Vienna,^ it con- 
 tinued to grow until at last it became a definite 
 political ideal in about 1848. Thus, as Lord Morley 
 puts it, Nationalism 'from instinct became idea; 
 from idea, abstract principle ; then fervid pre- 
 possession ; ending where it is to-day, in dogma, 
 whether accepted or evaded ' .^ 
 
 Recent Activity of the Ideal. 
 
 In this last form, therefore, it must be further 
 described ; for, whether we oppose or not, it is one 
 of the greatest forces in modern politics. 
 
 Nationalism was in the first place revolutionary, 
 because Europe still bore traces of the crude dynastic 
 divisions of the Renaissance. In some cases one 
 nation forced its own institutions upon another, 
 as Austria upon the Italians. ' Europe bled white 
 by the man who was to have been her saviour was 
 again prisoner to kings whom she no longer rever- 
 enced.' ■* The association known by the name of 
 'Young Italy' was founded on 'the three insepar- 
 able bases of Independence, Unity, and Liberty — 
 that is, the Austrians must go, the various small 
 States must be united in one, and democratic 
 government with liberty of opinion must be estab- 
 lished '.^ But first 'Austria must go'; and so in 
 every country NationaUsm implied a shaking of 
 
 ^ Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation represent the 
 change from sentiment to programme. 
 
 ^ ' They defied the very force which had re-established 
 the old despotism.' Morley, History and Politics. 
 
 ' History and Politics, p. 72. 
 
 * Trevelyan, Garibaldi's Defence, &c., p. 7. 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 16. The quotation is from Mazzini's Manifesto 
 of Young Italy, issued in 1831.
 
 186 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 established governments, wliich were sometimes, as 
 in Italy, alien to the people governed, sometimes, as 
 in Germany, an inheritance from obsolete politics. 
 
 But Nationalism was also constructive. It im- 
 plied that each national group should and could 
 develop its own institutions and manage its own 
 affairs. Thus it was at once an assault on any 
 governmental oppression and a plan for reor- 
 ganization. The group was to choose, establish, 
 and maintain its own form of law and government. 
 The general principles of all such law or govern- 
 ment were drawn from what had been proved in 
 the Revolution ; and, speaking vaguely. National- 
 ism was democratic in all countries : but it implied 
 also that particular application of these general 
 principles should be made by each group for itself. 
 
 Nationalism also implied that divisions of the 
 same national group should be removed. A nation 
 with a united consciousness and the same tradition 
 should not be divided into a number of separate 
 states. Thus the Italian Kingdom and the German 
 Empire were formed through the conception that 
 peoples of the same speech or like customs should 
 have the same state-system. It is true that there 
 were distinctions between the parts of Italy and the 
 parts of Germany which Cavour and Bismarck 
 found it difficult to remove ; but the appeal to 
 national sentiment against what was so obviously 
 different as Austria in Italy or France in opposition 
 to the Germans proved effective. Sometimes the 
 democratic doctrines of Nationalism made it diffi- 
 cult for the upper classes to feel the national 
 sentiment ; ^ just as, in Bismarck's policy, the 
 
 ^ Cf. Trovelyan, Garibaldi's Defence, &c., p. 104. Of 
 the Republicans among the Nationalists : ' At worst the
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 187 
 
 prominence of war made the new revolutionaries 
 doubtful of the value of German unity. But in 
 spite of the differences of political programme in 
 which it was embodied, Nationalism progressed 
 by the appeal to common sentiments among peoples 
 who had been divided by arbitrary governments. 
 
 In Germany, for example, the very popular 
 sentiment which had made it possible for incom- 
 petent princelings to defeat in the end the great 
 Napoleon, as soon as this defeat was secured, was 
 suspected and opposed by statesmen. The German 
 race was awake and desired union, ^ but the mutual 
 jealousy of kings and dukes kept back that unity, 
 until at last Prussia found it convenient to use the 
 aspirations of the people for securing her own pre- 
 dominance. Nationalism secured its purpose, but 
 the price it paid was the sacrifice of its liberal and 
 popular elements. It is nonsense to speak of 
 Bismarck as the 'maker ' of Germany : he was, in 
 fact, a tool in the hands of the force he secured to be 
 using, and because the tool was blunt German 
 Nationalism was unable to attain its full develop- 
 ment.2 But it did at any rate destroy the obsolete 
 system of petty independent states. 
 
 Republic stood for Italy, and where one man was a zealous 
 Republican, ten were good Italians.' 
 
 1 The students of Germany were only voicing a common 
 sentiment in the movement which made Burschenschaften 
 and Turnvercinc powerful ; but statesmen did all they 
 could to repress Teutonic ambitions whicli later they took 
 credit for creating. The famous Karlsbad decrees (1819) 
 showed how much the princes cared for Nationalism. 
 
 '^ In exactly the same way Napoleon I used French 
 Nationalism, but one may also saj' that Napoleon was 
 the dangerous tool used by France. The tool runs away 
 with the hand which uses it, and Nationalism becomes 
 the support of militai'y domination.
 
 188 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 Thus also Greece rose again to consciousness of 
 a new destiny and the foreign oppression was cast 
 off. Language and blood had greatly changed 
 since the great days of Greece, but the memory of 
 great deeds was enough to waken even alien poets 
 to enthusiasm for giving the Greek race its own 
 political institutions. And we have seen in recent 
 years what constructive power this nationalist 
 ideal may have besides being a force for remov- 
 ing oppression or obsolete governmental systems. 
 For apart from defeat by Turkey in 1897 and 
 success in war since, the real success of Greece has 
 been in establishing a civilized and economically 
 important influence in Southern Europe. 
 
 In the confusion of politics in the Balkans, also, 
 we may reasonably suppose that Nationalism was 
 at work. There, too, the consciousness of race was 
 leading to a new organization of distinct groups. 
 The Treaty of Berlin (in 1878) recognized as con- 
 scious nations Roumania and Servia. But stranger 
 still, the Bulgarians, at first with Russian support 
 and later in defiance of Russia herself, 'developed 
 a strong civic and patriotic instinct ',i showing that, 
 in spite of Slav language and almost Magyar blood, 
 a ' peasant state ' can possess and develop a tradi- 
 tion and a character of its own. 
 
 The meaning of these events is to be understood 
 by reference to a political need and to the ideal 
 as a motive force in supplying that need. The 
 evils out of which Nationalism arises are dynastic 
 
 1 Rose, Devel. of the European Nations, p. 258 (ed. 1914) ; 
 ch. X, ' The Making of Bulgaria,' is practically a study 
 of the growth of the Nationalist ideal. The recent fate 
 of Bulgaria since the last Balkan war has only accentuated 
 the ' national ' character.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 189 
 
 and obsolete governmental systems, causing the 
 majority to feel that their interest or their character 
 is not represented by the administration under 
 which they live. Foreigners in possession give the 
 most tangible form to the evil ; but Nationalism is 
 also essentially democratic in theory, and therefore 
 it may be corrective of methods adopted by the 
 few even of one's own race. In most cases, however, 
 the few have contrived to pose as representatives 
 of the national character, so that Nationalism in 
 fact has not often been liberal. 
 
 The good perceived, which Nationalism seeks to 
 increase, is the distinction of fiational character 
 and the development of national traditions. Thus 
 a new principle of constructive policy is established 
 which has been given official recognition in the 
 recent statements of the EngUsh attitude towards 
 Belgium. 1 
 
 The Ideal Literature. 
 
 The literature of Nationalism is not extensive, 
 since we can hardly count as literature the pam- 
 phlets and chance references to national tradition 
 and character which have so often appeared. The 
 first clear conception of national character and the 
 part it may play is to be found in Vico ; and since 
 the last great prophet of Nationalism was Mazzini, 
 we may perhaps count this ideal as a contribution 
 made by Italy to the political tradition. Italy has 
 indeed suffered more than any other land from f or- 
 eigners,^ and perhaps it was the extremity of the evil 
 there which produced the finest form of the ideal. 
 
 ^ That is, it is accepted as an ideal that apart from 
 treaty a people conscious of one tradition should have what 
 government it chooses. Cf. Mr. Asquith's speeches, 1914. 
 
 ^ The expression of the evil is well known. It is not 
 anywhere, I think, more beautifully expressed than in
 
 190 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 In Fichte's Addresses there is a clear con- 
 sciousness of national character as playing a part 
 in history. And in Gorres' Germany and the 
 Revolution Nationalism is seen in its democratic 
 form.^ In Mill's Representative Government national 
 character is given a place ; and in Kenan's Qu'est- 
 ce qu'une nation ? the popular appeal is combined 
 with a keen perception of the meaning of tradition. 
 
 But the ideal of Nationalism is reflected most 
 clearly in the work of Mazzini. As an enthusiast 
 and a prophet he saw more clearly than his con- 
 temporaries, but the ideal he expressed was not 
 private. By contrast with the ideal of unity under 
 a sovereign Mazzini maintained that ' United Italy 
 can only be founded by the Italian people '. In the 
 Duties of Man he says that we can do nothing singly 
 for humanity, 'our watchword is Association'.- 
 'Natural division will take the place', he declares, 
 'of arbitrary divisions sanctioned by evil govern- 
 ments.' ' The countries of the peoples will arise 
 instead of the countries of kings and privileged 
 classes : and between these countries there will be 
 harmony and fraternity.' Thus first the law and 
 government must express the character of the 
 people and all inherited artificial divisions must be 
 abolished ; but secondly — and this was of immense 
 value in the eyes of Mazzini, a people did not exist 
 for its own advantage only. Nationalism implied 
 
 Filicaia's bitter sonnet : ' Italia, Italia . . . 
 
 Ch' or gill dair Alpi non vedrei torrenti 
 Scender d' armati, e del tuo sangue tinta 
 Bever 1' onda del Po gallici armenti.' 
 * This book was once powerful enough to be suppressed by 
 the Berlin Government. An English translation appeared. 
 ^ Duty of Man, ch. v ; the following quotations are 
 from the same work.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 191 
 
 for him not merely the rights but the duties and 
 functions of nations. 'God divided humanity 
 into distinct groups or nuclei, thus creating the 
 germ. of nationality.' 'Your country is the sign 
 of the mission God has given you to fulfil towards 
 humanity.' A nation therefore is great not by 
 reference to its size but to the 'idea' for which it 
 stands : ' country is not a territory ; it is the Idea 
 to which it gives birth '. 
 
 The ideal, therefore, in its highest form was 
 democratic and also involved the conception of 
 group-duties ; and even in the half-conscious 
 appreciation of the many nationalism implied 
 these two guiding hopes for a better future. 
 
 Criticism of the Ideal. 
 
 We must, however, turn to criticism ; for this ideal 
 also is limited. The deficiencies of Nationalism 
 seem to be chiefly, first, a narrowing of the political 
 outlook. Local development tends to become 
 village-politics, and the effort to maintain the soul 
 of a nation often results in producing a segregate 
 barbarism. This is not merely what might occur, 
 but what has occurred ; for dying languages have 
 been revived and have proved obstacles to human 
 intercourse rather than expressions of a character- 
 istic culture. Professed nationalists forget that, 
 in spite of the disadvantage in some cases, there 
 is a definite advantage in others for many nations 
 to be one state. ^ Small groups have undoubtedly 
 gained by being associated with others under the 
 same law and government. There is notliing 
 
 * This does not imply the false exaggeration of Lord 
 Acton, History of Freedom, where Nationalism is treated 
 as necessarily wi'ong and obstructive to pi-ogress.
 
 192 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 specially sacred about racial grouping ; but some- 
 times it is good and sometimes it is bad for the 
 group to have its own government. Small groups 
 in the Austrian Empire have gained in peace and 
 civiUzation by not having their own institutions ; 
 and in Switzerland we have an example of distinct 
 racial groups being better for being united in one 
 state. 
 
 The narrow politics of extreme Nationalism has 
 also often created group jealousy or group hostility. 
 Chauvinism in France once produced an almost 
 barbaric hatred of everything German, and every 
 race, growing larger, tends to develop its provincial 
 jealousy into what is called Imperial policy. Thus 
 Nationalism supports war and cramps progress just 
 as effectually as 'imperialism. Indeed, the two 
 names in their sinister meaning seem to refer to the 
 same very limited political outlook ; for what is 
 Nationalism in a small group becomes Imperialism 
 when the group is powerful.^ Nations which can 
 regard other nations as rivals are on the high road 
 to miUtarism and despotism, although their small- 
 ness and poverty may prevent the real character of 
 their Nationalism from showing itself. 
 
 Again, Nationalism has been connected with the 
 strange doctrine of non-interference which at one 
 time implied that it was no business of one group 
 of men if torture, disease, or tyranny were prevalent 
 in another group. As I propose to say in deaUng 
 with Imperialism, it is very difficult indeed to 
 decide when and how one group should concern 
 itself with the fortunes of another. Governing 
 
 ^ The arguments against Imperialism in J. A. Hobson's 
 Imperialism, in so far as they are against national predomi- 
 nance, are equally valid against Nationalism.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 193 
 
 others in spite of their own will, even if it be for 
 their own good, is an obsolete policy ; but, on the 
 other hand, no civilized community can regard with 
 indifference what are diseases in the social organism 
 of other communities. At least it is possible that 
 such diseases may spread, and mere self-love would 
 urge the community to interfere. 
 
 But it seems possible to go even further. A self- 
 respecting community can hardly conceive that it 
 exists for its own interests only. For the great- 
 ness of a nation is not measured by wealth or 
 power but by the kind of life it maintains ; and 
 a nation which stands for liberty or order or any 
 element of civilization cannot be satisfied unless 
 other nations too may share what is believed to be 
 of value. 
 
 Value of the Ideal. 
 
 What then is valuable in this ideal as regards 
 the future ? We may answer by distinguishing 
 the value of a nation if thought of separately from 
 its value in relation to others, that is to say, first 
 the relation between individuals of the same race 
 must be considered, and then the relation of 
 all the individuals of the same race to all those of 
 any other. Within its own boundaries a nation 
 should develop fully its own character. Just as 
 the individual should not model himself altogether 
 upon some one else, even though he may receive 
 hints and corrections from the study of others ; so 
 the nation should be conceived as having a separate 
 character, distinct from that of any other nation. 
 There is no reason why distinct national characters 
 should be opposed by so many idealists, who speak 
 as though a common humanity was our only moral 
 ground for action ; good individual morals do not 
 
 1782 N
 
 194 MODEKN NATIONALISM 
 
 imply that I should neglect what is characteristic 
 of myself, and so it is the duty of each group to see 
 to its own characteristic development. The rela- 
 tions between Englishmen should not be the same as 
 those between Frenchmen or Germans. . The value 
 of Nationalism, so far as it implies a relation of one 
 nation to the other, is but a fuller development of 
 the same value as that which each finds in indepen- 
 dence. For if each nation is to develop its own 
 characteristics, then each nation is valuable to every 
 other not as a rival of exactly the same kind but as 
 a contrast ; and humanity at large is benefited by 
 the preservation of so many distinct types. For 
 the human race is not at its best when every man 
 or every group is a copy of every other. Civiliza- 
 tion progresses by differentiation as well as by 
 assimilation of interests and character, and we 
 cannot afford to neglect a policy which may develop 
 differences in a world in which communication and 
 cheap manufacture may gradually level out all the 
 variety of the race. Thus in spite of its obvious 
 limitations, something remains of the ideal of 
 Nationalism — something which may illuminate our 
 political thought and guide our action. 
 
 It is clear, however, that until the village- 
 politics, the narrow outlook and the gi'oup- jealousy, 
 which accompany some forms of Nationalism are 
 destroyed, no real progress can be made. Before 
 developing to the full the characteristics of the 
 group to which they belong, men must understand 
 that such development does not necessarily imply 
 conflict with any other group ; and such under- 
 standing can only come from the rational considera- 
 tion of political facts. It must be seen that one 
 nation need not expand at the expense of another.
 
 MODERN NATIONALISM 195 
 
 any more than one family or one individual at the 
 expense of another ; although it must be admitted 
 that in fact such conflict is only too common. As 
 we shall see in a later chapter, development at the 
 expense of some other is only necessary if what one 
 has the other must lack/ and this again could only 
 be the case if there was a definite limit to the 
 supply of needs, as Malthus imagined. But in the 
 growth of appliances for utilizing Nature we may 
 see evidence for believing that the resources of the 
 human race may grow even more speedily than 
 our consciousness of new needs. And if this be 
 so, national groups may each have sufficient supply 
 without tearing one another piecemeal over some 
 rags and bones of conquest. Idealists may preach 
 peace and statesmen continue arbitration, but we 
 shall never arrive at the next stage in the develop- 
 ment of national groups until the average political 
 imagination has been more educated. Lack of 
 imagination keeps men enthralled to obsolete 
 situations. If they could but see themselves 
 differently they would soon be different, and when 
 the greater number of each nation can regard other 
 nations as co-operating and not as conflicting, then 
 the best Nationalism will be realized.^ 
 
 As things now stand, the Nationalism which was 
 the ideal of small oppressed or divided races has be- 
 come identified with Imperialism when the nation 
 has secured its position. The Italy which arose at 
 
 1 It is to be observed that I say ' lack ', not ' do without' : 
 we may do without many things which we do not ' lack ' 
 because our needs are otherwise supplied. 
 
 ^ This is not impossible, since already Yorkshire is able 
 to regard Sussex as friendly and Scotland is able to regard 
 England as co-operating. The next stage is for England 
 to regard Germany, &c., as co-operating in civilization. 
 N 2
 
 196 MODERN NATIONALISM 
 
 the call of Mazzini pursued the suppression of local 
 development in Eritrea, and still pursues it in 
 Tripoli. But if Nationalism implies anything, 
 surely it indicates the right of others to govern 
 themselves ; and it must gradually be understood 
 to mean that all national groups are to develop on 
 characteristic lines. Thus nations must be thought 
 of as friendly and not as necessarily hostile to one 
 another. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that armaments should 
 be abolished. They should not be abolished until 
 the need for them has disappeared ; and that 
 need can only be destroyed by the education of 
 the political imagination. But political facts at 
 present do not allow of our considering any such 
 far-off ideal ; since the majority in every nation 
 are still uncivilized, and many of ' the few ' in 
 every nation are obsessed with antiquated and 
 obsolete political conceptions. But even if 
 armaments must continue to grow, political 
 education may also progress in the direction of 
 showing how the resources of the Earth may be 
 shared by all the different groups of men. 
 
 It is evident that if the intelligence used for 
 outwitting other groups or overawing them by 
 increase of warlike implements were used to exploit 
 the resources of Nature, there would be more than 
 enough to supply the extremest desires for develop- 
 ment of all the nations. If diplomacy gradually 
 gave place to political thinking and strategy to 
 engineering, nations would each feel the need of 
 the other and man would use Nature for the 
 increase and not for the destruction of humanitv.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 We approach issues now which are more dan- 
 gerous for the use of reason because they are still 
 subjects for political controversy; and where parties 
 have adopted certain words as the expressions 
 of their programme, argumeirt is more common 
 than reasoning. As to liberty, order, or unity, 
 there is a general agreement ; and even if they are 
 not usually subjected to rational criticism, they 
 are supposed to be absolved from party interests. 
 No politician would dare to say that he opposed 
 order or liberty ; although he might for rhetorical 
 purposes contrast his ' true ' order with the mis- 
 representation of order among his opponents. All 
 are, however, supposed to understand, at least 
 vaguely, the meaning of order, and to regard it, at 
 least theoretically, as admirable. 
 
 But the case is different with Imperialism. Men 
 rage against it or rant in its favour, usually without 
 even an attempt to discover what they themselves 
 mean by the word. Thus reasoning is made 
 difficult ; and yet here its use is all the more 
 necessary than it is in what we may call the con- 
 ventional ideals of politics. 
 
 Imperialism is an ideal in the sense that some 
 desire to see established, or beUeve that there is
 
 198 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 already established, a system which may be 
 developed of relations between groups of men which 
 they call by this name. Those who approve of 
 such a system call themselves in England Im- 
 perialists. 
 
 Others again call by the name Imperialism a 
 system which, if it exists, they wish to destroy and, 
 if it does not exist, they desire to prevent. ^ To 
 these the word is unholy as it is holy to those 
 who call themselves Imperialists, but it would be 
 worth while to discuss whether these opposing 
 parties are thinking of the same system. What 
 is opposed is a system of oppression ; what is 
 maintained is a system of beneficent government. 
 As regards the political facts of the present day in 
 England, these two schools have been called the 
 bombastic and the pessimistic ; ^ the first are almost 
 Oriental in their language, and they tend to con- 
 sider vastness as in itself admirable, and the second 
 in the effort to be moderate neglect obvious facts. 
 
 I propose, therefore, first to express what seems 
 to be in the minds of those who advocate Im- 
 perialism. But I shall neglect entirely the senti- 
 ments of leader-writers in what are called 'Im- 
 perialist ' papers, since I am concerned to find the 
 reasons for which Imperialism may be maintained, 
 indicating by that name a single system of law and 
 government in many different lands and races. 
 
 Nearly all thinking Imj)erialists^ would recognize 
 
 ' The best example of this .school is to be found in 
 J. A. Hobson's Imperialism (published by Nisbct & Co., 
 1902). ^ Seeley, Expansion, p. 340. 
 
 ^ The contrast in the use of the word in modern times 
 as compared with ancient is made in Lord Cromer's work 
 on the subject, but he excludes the self-governing colonies
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 199 
 
 the dangerous associations of the word ' Empire '. 
 The Empire of Napoleon was formed by the con- 
 quering ambition of a miUtary genius, who used 
 the national enthusiasm of France for suppressing 
 the development of other nations. The Empire of 
 the Middle Ages was a ghost. The Empire of 
 Rome, admirable as it may have been in effect, 
 was formed by the subordination of a world to 
 a city. The Empire of Alexander was the unstable 
 formation of a brief success and accident. Earlier 
 Empires were chiefly systems for collecting tribute. 
 But with none of these does the modern Imperialist 
 desire to class the Empire he beUeves desirable. 
 Lord Cromer ^ has well stated the contrast between 
 the Roman and the British Empire. Both grew 
 without any definite policy of aggrandizement, 
 and even in spite of the opposition of one party 
 in the State ; but whereas civilizing was seldom 
 a conscious purpose with Rome, there has been 
 a continuous tradition within the British Empire 
 that government should be for the good of the 
 governed. Political morality is now higher, official 
 corruption is less, slavery has disappeared and, 
 owing to the advance of science, mortality is 
 lessened. 2 
 
 An Imperialism which is modern, therefore, is 
 
 and the fact of representative popular government in 
 England, so that some of the most important differences 
 between the old and the new Empires are entirely omitted. 
 Lord Bryce makes the contrast clearer in Studies in History 
 and Jurisprudence, vol. i. 
 
 ^ Ancient and Modern Imperialism, p. 25 et seq. 
 
 ^ Op. cit., p. 112. Famine and disease decimated the 
 Roman Empire. ' Nowhere ', says Cromer, ' does the 
 policy of modern differ more widely from that of ancient 
 Imperialism than in dealing with matters of this sort.'
 
 200 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 like the ancient in so far as it implies that vast 
 territories are under the same government ; but 
 it is unlike the ancient in allowing for more inde- 
 pendent local development, in not depending on 
 the tribute of dependencies, and in having within it 
 representative popular government. It must also 
 be added that earlier Empires have generally been 
 without any contemporary rivals, whereas the 
 modern Empire is only one among many. 
 
 The difficulties of establishing over vast areas 
 one system of law and government are also much 
 greater now than they were in ancient times. The 
 world is older, and whereas Rome, for example, had 
 to deal with dissentient but indefinite tribes and 
 vague worships, England has to face the existence of 
 distinct national groups and complete and exclusive 
 religious systems. ^ Again, languages are more fixed 
 and the assimilation of races is therefore much more 
 difficult now than it was for Rome. The areas also 
 are vaster now and the populations greater.- 
 
 If in spite of all difficulties many sincerely believe 
 that Imperialism is good, there must be reasons 
 which underlie the merely accidental acquisition 
 of territory by which all modern Empires have 
 grown. And without reference to its growth, we 
 may define a modern Empire as a vast territory 
 or many races under one government and with one 
 dominant partner.^ 
 
 * Cromer, op. cit., p. 91. 
 
 ^ Numbers, &c. may be found in J. A. Hobson's /w 
 perialism, p. 17. Cromer (op. cit., p. 1.5) gives 410,000,000 
 inhabitants and 11,500,000 square miles for the British 
 Empire. 44,000,000 are in the United Kingdom, 205,000,000 
 are Asiatic, and 48,000,000 African. Rome had 100,000,000 
 and 2,500,000 square miles. 
 
 ^ The presence of a dominant jjartner distinguishes an
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 2Ul 
 
 Origins of Empires. 
 
 The actual process by which such Empires have 
 been formed does not much concern us here ; since 
 it is, for my present purpose, more necessary to 
 understand what was and is thought desirable than 
 what has occurred. But it is worthy of note that 
 some Empires have been almost accidental in their 
 formation, some have been designed.^ France is in 
 Algeria, Belgium in the Congo, Germany in West 
 Africa, the United States in the Philippines, 
 Russia in Central Asia, and England in Egypt : 
 but in some cases accident, in others design, has led 
 to the present position. The British adventure in 
 Empire may be taken as typical of 0,ccident. In 
 'colonies' we found that men of our race had 
 settled many distant and hitherto sparsely in- 
 habited lands, and that they still desired law and 
 government of the type to which their forefathers 
 had been accustomed. Lord Durham's mission to 
 Canada in 1838 ended in the first clear establish- 
 ment of self-government for colonies. ^ As regards 
 ■ dependencies ' ^ the history of our adventure in India 
 is instructive. A trading company forced tribute, 
 under cover of British power, from weaker peoples.* 
 
 Empire from a Federation such as the United States was 
 before the Spanish War. 
 
 ^ More like the Roman than like Alexander's or 
 Napoleon's. 
 
 * Cf. Cromer, op. cit.,p. 17. I mean that before this there 
 was no clear principle as to the extension of the English 
 State-system. 
 
 ' Cf. Lewis, Government of Dependencies. Here the 
 vState extended and not the nation, but here too the flag 
 followed trade and not trade the flag. 
 
 * In the charter of 1686 they are 'to make peace and war
 
 202 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Permanent administration became necessary, and 
 the British State eventually established in 1857 
 'the principle which lies at the root of all sound 
 administration, that administration and com- 
 mercial exploitation should not be entrusted to 
 the same hands '.^ 
 
 Thus in an effort to have secure frontiers ^ or to 
 find land for surplus population we carried the same 
 law and government very far from its original 
 home. There have been political oppositions to 
 advance;^ there have been definite military checks.* 
 But we have almost blindly gone forward until at 
 last we ' woke to find that we had made ourselves 
 masters of half the habitable globe in a fit of 
 absence of mind '.^ 
 
 Such are the facts with respect also to the pres- 
 ence, for example, of the United States in the 
 Philippines ; but there has been another tendency 
 during the nineteenth century which exalts strength 
 and vastness. Carlyle is a forerunner of a certain 
 form of Imperialism,^ especially in his gospel of 
 
 with the heathen nations '. For the whole subject see 
 Seeley's Expansion, p. 11. 
 
 ^ Cromer, op. cit., p. 69. 
 
 * So France was jforced to march down to the Sahara, 
 and Russia into Central Asia. Cromer, p. 32. 
 
 ^ Hesitation marked the policy of Rome as of England. 
 For England Mr. Gladstone's policy is the chief example 
 of political opposition to an almost inevitable expansion. 
 
 ^ I follow the present tendency to judge the Indian 
 Mutiny as a military and not a national movement. 
 
 ° Seeley, Expansion of England. 
 
 ^ Cf. L^Imperialisme anglais, J. Gazeau. German 
 Imperialism (as in von Billow's Imperial Germany) is 
 based much more upon preconceived design than was ours. 
 This is perhaps simply due to the much later date at which 
 Germany began to act upon the outer world, but it makes
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 203 
 
 exceptional heroes and missions, and the same 
 romanticism seems to have affected Cecil Rhodes, 
 as it influenced Bismarck in the union of Germany. 
 
 The Empires which have been designed are such 
 as the German has been outside of Europe. A 
 definite plan was followed by the State itself of 
 finding a colonial market. For example, Dr. Peters 
 was sent in 1884 with blank treaty forms to the 
 African mainland opposite Zanzibar, and in 1885 
 the German Emperor extended his suzerainty 
 over the native chiefs, in spite of the fact that 
 Zanzibar was practically an English protectorate 
 and that English commercial interest had been 
 predominant in those parts. ^ In West Africa the 
 same process brought to the German State the 
 immense district of the Cameroons : the German 
 State definitely hoisted its flag in districts where 
 English commerce had the chief place. The native 
 ' kings ' had actually asked in 1879 for British 
 law to be established in the districts which by 
 diplomatic contrivance became German in 1885. 
 
 The contrast is clear. The English State re- 
 luctantly follows energetic commercial Englishmen: 
 the German State has attempted to create a com- 
 merce by extending its system of law and govern- 
 ment. With England the flag follows trade, and 
 with Germany trade, reluctantly, follows the flag.^ 
 
 the German writers incapable of understanding the absent- 
 mindedness of England. 
 
 ^ Rose, Devel. of European Nations, Partition of Africa, 
 oh. xviii. 
 
 ^ The aim of Germany has been partly ' glory ' and partly 
 ' cash ', but since England has not restricted trade to her 
 colonies where she has succeeded there is a gain for the 
 commerce of the world. Where Germany has come trade 
 is restricted. (Rose, ibid., p. 536.)
 
 204 MODERN IMPEEIALISM 
 
 The forces which have made modern Imperialism 
 are easily recognized. First, there is ease of com- 
 munication ; for it is a simpler matter now to go 
 from England to Canada than it was in the Middle 
 Ages to go from London to York. But where 
 communication is easy, language, custom, and law 
 tend to be the same. Mountains are tunnelled, 
 rivers bridged, and even the ocean may be a high- 
 way, so that the people of different localities are 
 not left to themselves as completely as they once 
 were. For although the majority are still as 
 stationary as ever, nevertheless they are in touch 
 with men who come and go, and they may write 
 letters or send telegrams continually. This alone 
 would militate against the growth of any new 
 national groups as distinct from one another as are 
 the old nations. 
 
 But with ease of communication goes an inter- 
 change of resources. At one time famine could 
 decimate one country while its neighbour had 
 plenty, and yet the difficulties of trade were such 
 that food could not be taken from place to place. 
 In our day every group depends for some of its food 
 and clothing on some other group, sometimes very 
 far distant.^ 
 
 And in the third place, among civilized people no 
 
 ^ The interchange of resources had been made a special 
 method for keeping or developing Empires. The German 
 Zollverein has been quoted a.s showing how a trade 
 agreement may support a political union. But there 
 were many other forces, not trade, which brought the 
 German States together, and in fact, so far as the British 
 Empire is concerned, Canada is politically united with 
 England, but its banking system is dependent on the 
 United States. Trade relations do not involve political 
 union, nor the other way round.
 
 MODERN TMPEKIALISM 205 
 
 group has its interests confined to the land it in- 
 habits. English capital is employed in the rail- 
 ways of the United States or in the Argentine, 
 French thrift makes it possible for Russia to borrow, 
 and every extension of territory in Asia or Africa 
 attempted by European nations is really due to the 
 need of protecting interests which have already 
 arisen in the new territory. I am not arguing that 
 the expansion of trade and the existence of larger 
 markets necessarily lead to the formation of 
 Empires : I say only that these are some of the 
 forces which actually did produce Imperialism. 
 First came the actual bond between peoples with 
 the same interest or an inherited bond made by war 
 and continued by special trading, and then came 
 the conception that such bonds bet'ween different 
 lands or even different races were good. Thus 
 with a ground in established fact the imagination 
 goes just beyond the fact and constructs an ideal. 
 Men see the two tendencies, one to the separation 
 and localizing of interests and the formation of dis- 
 tinct groups, and the other to the unification of 
 interest and the simplification of law and govern- 
 ment. Those who desire to maintain and develop 
 the second of these two tendencies are Imperialists ; 
 and the others are Nationalists. I am not now 
 comparing the two ideals, but only showing what 
 forces made the ideal of Imperialism inevitable. 
 
 Imperialism and Cosmopolitanism. 
 
 The recent tendency of trade is all in the direction 
 of delocalizing interests, and it follows that the 
 political outlook is also delocalized. Men begin 
 to understand and to feel that no group can be 
 isolated, and they further perceive the gain to be
 
 206 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 had from the increase of more intimate relations 
 between different groups. The result among 
 abstract thinkers and poetic enthusiasts is cosmo- 
 politanism, for it is undeniable that humanity at 
 large is now beginning to feel its common interests, 
 and trade and even custom now tend to pass over 
 diplomatic or governmental boundaries. We can- 
 not, even with the most exaggerated 'patriotism', 
 refuse to receive the benefits we may derive from 
 people of another tongue, so that the cosmopolitan 
 enthusiast is often opposed to Imperialism, although 
 the same force has made his ideal and that of the 
 Imperialist ; but it is reasonable that what should 
 most offend is the use of one's own argument to 
 maintain what seems to be an opposite conclusion. 
 The cosmopolitan hates the Imperialist for not 
 going far enough : the Imperialist despises the 
 cosmopolitan as feather-brained because he goes 
 too far. 
 
 CosmopoUtanism or Humanitarianism, ' The Par- 
 liament of Man, the Federation of the world', is too 
 ineffective an ideal at present for me to discuss it. 
 Its strength may be greater in the near future, but 
 at present it is not a political force. The smallest 
 hint of national or local interest is sufficient to dis- 
 perse it as completely as though it were smoke in 
 the wind of real passion. It is as yet too indefinite 
 even to be understood by the majority.^ 
 
 ^ This implies that the statements by such men as 
 Jaures, that Socialism could prevent national wars, are 
 not proved. In France the conflict between national 
 interests and cosmopolitan ideals is being fought out, 
 but so far the majority are not cosmopolitan. Very few 
 men are really able to grasp the common interests of man 
 as man, and these few have often weakened their effective- 
 ness by neglecting other and simpler bonds.
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 207 
 
 Imperialism is a sort of half-way house. It 
 expresses the delocalization of interests and the 
 wider horizon of modern political thinking, but it 
 does not go too far. Its horizon is still limited 
 by racial prejudice ; and that, as all politicians 
 would admit, is not detrimental to its effectiveness 
 nor to its present value. ^ The conceptions of the 
 average man grow slowly : he cannot at once move 
 from village-politics to cosmopolitanism. He ad- 
 mits that his interests are not confined to his village, 
 but he feels that his interests cannot be the same as 
 those of all other men. And in a sense, in spite of 
 'idealists', he is right. There is a real bond be- 
 tween people in different lands who have the same 
 language, law, and custom, which does not exist 
 between those who are merely connected by trade. 
 We cannot treat people of the same race, or even 
 with the same form of government, as though one 
 were nothing more to the other than are any human 
 beings ; and if we are 'to recognize national dis- 
 tinctions, we must also recognize those no less real 
 distinctions which may be called super-national. 
 
 Imperialism as an antidote to Provincialism. 
 
 Since every ideal arises from some perception of 
 an evil, we must now ask against what Imperialism 
 is a protest. The answer appears in the popular 
 phrase ' Little-Englander ', which, as a term of 
 
 * It is denied by Mr. J. A. Hobson (Imperialism, ch. i) 
 that there is any such half-way house between Nationalism 
 and Cosmopolitanism. He would regard Empires as 
 obstructing Cosmopolitanism, but it seems to me that 
 they do so no more than State-Nations. The present war 
 is just as much due to Nationalism as to Imperialism. 
 Small groups are just as obstructive to peace policy as 
 are large.
 
 208 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 abuse, appears to indicate that men so called desire 
 to limit the activities of England to a very narrow 
 sphere of local interest. The political taunt is as 
 valueless as are most forms of abuse, but it rests 
 upon at least a vague disdain of village-politics. The 
 jingo and the ' big-navy ' maniac appeal to a sort 
 of germinal reason which forbids all men to limit 
 their interest to their immediate surroundings, and 
 although we must here neglect the defence of 
 jingoism as a psychological aberration which is of 
 interest to the candid historian, we must allow that 
 there does exist a natural tendency to village-poli- 
 tics. Even attention to social distress may narrow 
 one's outlook ; and the attempt to confine one's 
 attention to what are called immediate needs and 
 local distresses may limit our power to deal even with 
 such distresses and to supply even such needs. The 
 wider outlook is not necessarily less practical, nor 
 are the best social reformers always those who have 
 no other interest than social reform. There is a kind 
 of liberal-minded narrowness which forbids us to 
 imagine any interests beyond the actual range of 
 our eyesight. In the name of independence we are 
 warned to distrust any generous sentiment which 
 may entrammel us in the affairs of distant peoples. 
 Our imaginations are cramped and our intellect 
 twisted by continual squinting at what is under our 
 nose. That such narrowness does exist may be 
 shown not only from the leaders in anti-Imperial 
 papers but in the news-columns of the Imperialist 
 papers themselves. A murder in Tooting will be 
 given more space than a revolution in South Africa ; 
 the dresses at a levee at Buckingham Palace will dis- 
 place the account of the Australian elections. And 
 of course the English papers are not the leading
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 209 
 
 examples of the tendency to village interests and 
 village scandal. In the United States the daily 
 papers are filled with ludicrous details called ' per- 
 sonal ', concerning persons whose importance to the 
 world at large is infinitesimal. France, Germany, 
 and Italy provide, in their popular newspapers, 
 examples of the same narrowness of outlook. 
 
 I recognize, of course, that this may be the 
 true end of newspapers — to provide us with local 
 scandal for use in conversation. But the point is 
 that the tendency to village politics exists and 
 Imperialism may in some way correct it. The 
 correction, however, cannot be made by the vague 
 sentiments of leading articles ; it must be based 
 upon knowledge of distant lands or diverse peoples. 
 For it is futile to ' feel Imperially ' if you ' think 
 provincially ', and how can any man think of larger 
 issues if he is unacquainted with any facts but those 
 of his village ? The effort of such an historian 
 as Seeley was intended to give power to the anti- 
 provincial tendency. In Germany and in France 
 there is the same sense that, whatever the reason 
 why vast tracts of Africa are under the same law 
 and government, their existence must be a funda- 
 mental fact to be considered in any political think- 
 ing. Even if we think that England may eventually 
 move out of India, the mere evacuation would make 
 an immense difference to the inhabitants of the 
 United Kingdom. And looking forward, ' If Russia 
 and the United States hold together they will dwarf 
 such European States as France and Germany, and 
 England too if England means only the United 
 Kingdom', 1 
 
 ^ Seeley, op. cit., p. 88. 
 1782 O
 
 210 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 The Case for an Imperial Policy. 
 
 We must now convsider the positive reasoning 
 which gives force to the ideal of Modern Imperialism. 
 Granting (1) that there are in existence vast groups 
 of men using in distant lands the same form of law 
 and government, and that (2) the forces which have 
 produced this situation are natural and may be 
 developed with advantage, and also that (3) the con- 
 trary tendency to provincialism is to be opposed : 
 our question is — What is hoped for that is implied 
 in the word Imperialism ? We are first to say the 
 best that can be said for Imperialism, as it is im- 
 plied, in admitting it to be an ideal, that it is not 
 altogether obstructive to progress ; and we may 
 then proceed to criticism.^ 
 
 It will be generally agreed that, other things 
 being equal, the greater the amount of territory 
 over which the same laws run, the better it is for 
 the inhabitants. Other things may never really 
 be equal ; for, of course, the same laws running 
 over many lands may lack adaption to local needs. 
 But of that we shall speak later. It does, in any 
 case, seem clear that there is an advantage in laws 
 with a very widely admitted validity. Thus for 
 purposes of trade it is an advantage that the law of 
 contract should be the same in England, Australia, 
 and Canada. Most merchants would admit that 
 trouble and expense would be saved if the same 
 laws held for France also and Italy. But that such 
 
 ^ Mr. J. A. Hobson attempts to give every credit to 
 Imperialists, but the best he can say of them is that they 
 are innocently misled. Their intentions may be admirable, 
 but their policy is altogether pernicious. I cannot, 
 however, admit that the policy is any more pernicious 
 than that of undiluted Nationalism
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 211 
 
 should be the case may be an impossible dream ; at 
 any rate it is reasonable to maintain and develop 
 that similarity of law where it does already exist. 
 Thus again much unnecessary confusion is created 
 in the United States of America from the fact that 
 the laws concerning patent medicines vary in differ- 
 ent States. A bottle of patent medicine has to be 
 certified by several different official stamps if it is 
 to be sent out for sale in many different States. 
 And this is but a small example of the restraints to 
 trade which arbitrary governmental divisions of 
 territory may cause. Thus, perhaps, in opposition 
 to some form of the Nationalist ideal, it may be 
 a gain for a group, even if distinct in character and 
 tradition, to be united to other groups under the 
 same law and government. There are common 
 interests even between distinct races which should 
 take precedence of local needs, and such local needs 
 may sometimes be 'best served by subordinating 
 them to a non-national State. 
 
 And I do not merely argue that the inhabitants 
 will make more money if the laws they live by are 
 valid for vast territories. The effect on life in 
 general is more important than the effect on their 
 pockets. For relations with distant people are 
 thereby rendered simpler. One is more easily able 
 to communicate with a greater number of other 
 men ; and the consequence of this again is both 
 a life of more varied interests and, because we can 
 all take the fundamental laws for granted, our 
 minds are freed for consideration of other issues. 
 But if one does not even know upon what common 
 basis one may deal with one's neighbour, much 
 time and thought is wasted on the mere prelimi- 
 naries to human intercourse, 
 O 2
 
 212 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Again, the fact that we can think and act in 
 connection with many different races, or at least 
 with our own race in many different lands, is a step 
 onwards in what may be called civilization. For 
 what distinguishes a cultured man from a savage is 
 the ability to 'extend himself', so to speak, over 
 more of the universe and to get more out of life. I 
 do not mean only that there will be more interests 
 and occupations and therefore more chance for the 
 individuality of a greater number of men. That 
 also is true ; but there will be as well a greater 
 wideness of mind in every man. I am well aware 
 that the anti-Imperialist distrusts the seeming in- 
 definiteness of one who turns his eyes away even 
 for a moment from the poverty or disease which is 
 perhaps on his doorstep ; but probably it would be 
 a gain even for social reform if the citizens of 
 a great state could think effectively of the really 
 vast powers of their law and government — not, of 
 course, for the purpose of boasting or self-gratula- 
 tion, but in order that they may feel the nature of 
 the instruments with which reform may be made. 
 There is a certain breadth of vision which is by no 
 means unpractical in the conception of the English 
 State as 'that new Venice whose streets are the 
 oceans '. 
 
 We have so far discussed the admirable elements 
 which may be found in the movement called Im- 
 perial. We have attempted to speak of the ideal — 
 that is to say, of the desire for a good which is 
 generally recognized. And the arguments for 
 Imperialism must be considered as valid for the 
 maintenance of some form of non-national or 
 super-national State even if we do not use the word 
 Empire.
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 213 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 But every ideal is embodied in a form which 
 cramps and may even destroy it ; and modern 
 ideals are no more absolved from this than were 
 ancient ideals. Liberty has been made to excuse 
 licence, and order has been made to justify 
 tyranny. So also Imperialism often shelters a pro- 
 vincialism which is all the more pernicious because 
 unrecognized. 
 
 It must be now our task to speak of the unjustifi- 
 able use of the word Imperialism ; or, if it be said 
 that this evil use is the only correct one, then we 
 shall have to admit that Imperialism is pernicious 
 - — obstructive to human progress and deadly to 
 rational politics. But I do not admit that' Imperi- 
 alism ' is altogether a word for ignoble ambitions, 
 and therefore I prefer to say that what is now to be 
 discussed is the misuse of the word.^ 
 
 Certainly Imperialism is often supposed to imply 
 that the inhabitants of an Empire are more civilized 
 than others, or that their civilization is more valu- 
 able than that of small nations. So that the Ger- 
 man or the Englishman may look with condescen- 
 sion upon the Dane or the Swiss. That they have 
 advantages I do not deny ; but to say that there- 
 fore they are superior is equivalent to saying that 
 a man who has the advantage of living in a very 
 large house is more admirable than the inhabitant 
 of a smaller house. The abundance of appHances 
 
 ' Here appears the danger of using a controversial 
 word for an ideal. It will be understood that I put 
 aside the question as to what ought to be the meaning of 
 ' Imperialism '. I simply malce it mean something with 
 good in it as well as bad.
 
 214 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 for living does not necessarily imply the more 
 excellent quality of the life of the owner. ^ 
 
 The egregious insolence of a Kipling may impress 
 the unthinking. A bombastic provincialism styling 
 itself ' Imperial ' may give assurance to human 
 animals who have hardly begun to understand 
 what civilization means, whose interests are con- 
 fined to what they call ' sport ' and whose enthu- 
 siasm can be roused only by the beating of drums. 
 Thus the uncivilized inhabitant of London or 
 Berlinis led to imagine that he is divinely appointed 
 to make all other men into an image of himself ; 
 and he believes it all the more readily in proportion 
 as he lacks all perception of what is really valuable 
 in England or Germany. For in a civilized country 
 there are always many who are uneducated or un- 
 civilized, and these are more eager than others to 
 condescend to ' foreigners '. 
 
 The somnolent gourmand of a fashionable club 
 reckons himself superior to the artist of India or 
 China ; or being still more ' Imperial ', if his club 
 be in London regards a German scholar as a savage, 
 and if his club be in Berlin regards an English 
 magistrate as a primitive tyrant. If this is Im- 
 perialism, how does it differ from village poUtics ? 
 Not, certainly, in its point of view ; only perhaps 
 in the universalism of its impertinence. 
 
 We have much to be proud of in Western Civiliza- 
 tion, much that ' the East ' may be benefited by 
 receiving from us ; but what precisely is it that 
 they may gain and we be most proud to give ? 
 We have the work of Darwin and Pasteur for the 
 freedom of mind and body ; that of Mommsen and 
 Gibbon for the understanding of our race ; that of 
 
 ' This is clearly stated by the ' Imperialist ' Seeley, op. cit.
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 215 
 
 poets without number, painters, and musicians, for 
 revealing the possibilities of life. And we gene- 
 rally give to benighted heathens locomotives, 
 electric light, and potted meat ; even if, in an occa- 
 sional revival of conscience, we limit our beneficent 
 importation of gin and forced labour. 
 
 A sane critic will not mistake the trader for 
 a representative of Western civilization, nor an 
 occasional poet for the average product of the East. 
 It is as easy to prove Eastern wisdom superior to 
 that of the West by comparing carefully-made 
 selections as it is easy for the cockney to imagine 
 himself civilized because he is a fellow countryman 
 of Darwin. Each attitude is impossible to main- 
 tain in face of impartial criticism. 
 
 Perhaps even allowing for our natural prejudices 
 and our inevitable lack of understanding, the civili- 
 zation to which we belong may seem very much 
 superior to any other. But suppose that it is 
 superior, its chief claim to superiority will be in 
 that its value will be perceived by those who do 
 not belong to it. 
 
 That claim is completely destroyed if force be 
 used to make others adopt it.^ Perhaps they are 
 blind to our excellences, but they will hardly be 
 made to see by a process of blindfolding them; 
 although of course they may be thus compelled 
 to say that they see in order to prevent further 
 ' enlightenment ' of this kind. 
 
 Next, Imperialism often implies that the customs 
 
 ^ This completely destroys any possibility of extending 
 Kultur by force (according to the von Bernhardi gospel). 
 But it also destroys the possibility of an Imperialism 
 which would blow into fragments half a savage tribe in 
 order to present to the other half the Anglicized version 
 of the Hebrew Bible.
 
 216 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 according to which we find it convenient to live are 
 so admirable for every one that we are called upon 
 to force them upon unwilling others who do not 
 recognize as well as we do how excellent we our- 
 selves are. But this, so far from being anti- 
 provincialism, is ultra-provincialism. It is village 
 politics in its highest form.^ 
 
 And we must needs observe that there is no in- 
 stance of Imperial law or government being the 
 result of a common consideration of the excellent 
 elements in the law or government of all the com- 
 ponent groups. That may be implied in the ideal ; 
 but practically Imperial law and government is 
 always the system which has been natural to one of 
 the component groups and is imposed by that 
 group on the others. It makes no difference that 
 the group thus imposing its own system on others 
 does so with the best of intentions and under the 
 impression that it is the finest possible. 
 
 Again, quite apart from the provincial spirit of 
 professed Imperialists, there is a tendency to sup- 
 press in the interest of an Empire the development 
 of local difTerences.2 I have already admitted that 
 such local differences may sometimes be obstructive 
 to the true development of the different localities 
 themselves; such would be the ground for assimilat- 
 ing the governm.ental or judicial systems of people 
 living distant from one another. But here I argue 
 that the valid objection to crude limitations of 
 trade or of interest by reference to small districts 
 
 ^ Prince von Billow's Imperial Germany is an instance. 
 He says (p. 104) that the Germans are not good at politics, 
 and the rest of his book is a proof of it. 
 
 ^ It is more than a ' tendency ' in the German treatment 
 of the Poles or the Russian treatment of the Finns.
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 217 
 
 is unjustifiably used as an excuse for suppressing 
 differences which are valuable both to the differing 
 peoples and to the world at large. No political 
 ideal can be reasonably used to act as a sort of 
 steam-roller of progress to blot out all the intricate 
 unevenness of the race in the interest of a crudely 
 unimaginative view of unity. And yet precisely 
 this has been done. Imperialism has more than 
 once rolled out the hills and dales into the flat 
 monotony of a soulless people, whose position is 
 regarded as progressive only because they have 
 ceased to write poetry or to aspire greatly and 
 know how to drive trams or dig coal. 
 
 If there is a point at which local interests must 
 give way to larger issues there is also a point at 
 which no issue however vast should trench upon 
 local interests. The group has a soul of its own, 
 though the group itself may be small and poor ; 
 and if one says to an individual, ' Your desire for 
 an income must give place here to the necessities of 
 the State, and you must pay a tax,' the indi\'idual 
 cannot urge his private interest as an excuse for 
 refusing. But if one says to the individual, ' The 
 State demands that you should have nothing but 
 food and clothing — no art, no pleasure, and no 
 ambitions,' then surely the individual may reply, 
 'Such demands can come only from what is no 
 State at all, in any sense in which I can use the 
 term'. So I imagine the small group or nation 
 which is forced to give up, in the name of Im- 
 perialism, its custom, its language, its law, and its 
 forms of government, ma}'' well object that such an 
 Empire is an unwarrantable insolence. Anj' Empire 
 which can be admitted by civilized and rational 
 beings must allow of local distinctions within it.
 
 218 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Lastly, with respect to tlie nation which is pre- 
 dominant in an Empire, the advantage of the 
 majority is often obstructed by the necessities of Im- 
 perialism. It may be dependent for maintenance 
 upon militarism, a strong official caste and secret 
 despotic government ; all of which are well-known 
 obstacles to free popular institutions. Further, 
 the financial advantage of Imperialist policy tends 
 to be confined to a few,^ for where the issues are 
 vast and complicated, private gain can be more 
 easily contrived under the guise of popular interest. 
 
 Such are the objections against Imperialism, or, 
 to put it more carefully, such are the limitations or 
 dangers against which a sane Imperialism should 
 contend. It will be noticed that these are all ob- 
 jections or dangers which menace any form of 
 Nationalism so soon as any group has become 
 more powerful than its neighbours. They are not 
 peculiar to Empires. A great State which main- 
 tains the same law and government in vast terri- 
 tories and among many races has its own greatness 
 to contend with if it is to be a benefit and not 
 a hindrance to civilization. 
 
 Federalism. 
 
 We come then to what Plato would call 'the 
 saving word '. It is Federalism.^ Only a few 
 
 * Cf. J. A. Hobson, Imperialism : (1) ' our modern 
 Imperialist policy has had no appreciable influence 
 whatever upon the determination of our external trade,' 
 p. 35. It is there shown by statistics that increase of 
 territory has not led to proportional increase of Imperial 
 trade. And again, (2) ' the business interests of the nation 
 as a whole are subordinated to those of certain sectional 
 interests that usurp control of the national resources and 
 use them for private gain ' (p. 51). 
 
 ^ So Cromer, op. cit.. p. 12, ' the true conception of
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 219 
 
 years ago the word was still without any concrete 
 political associations for the majority of English- 
 men ; but since the disputes concerning Ulster 
 much has been said about a 'federal solution'. 
 I am not, however, concerned with immediate 
 practical issues and I shall neglect entirely the 
 possible use to any of the English political parties 
 which the word Federalism may have in the near 
 future. I am concerned only with that type of 
 Imperialism which is based on a federation of 
 equals, rather than on the superintendence of one 
 of the component groups of an Empire. And the 
 use of the words I shall not trouble to justify ; 
 perhaps a federal Empire is a contradiction in 
 terms, perhaps on the other hand Federalism im- 
 plies too loose an organization — one of alliance 
 rather than of unity. But I use the word here 
 simply to express the fact that it is no longer 
 possible to consider that vast number of men, for 
 example, inhabiting Australia, Canada, England 
 and Ireland, not to mention Egypt and India, as 
 united in groups one of which must dominate all 
 the others. That would involve insolence, pro- 
 vincialism, and the suppression of local vitality. 
 The only possible way, therefore, of regarding the 
 whole vast group as one is by supposing that each 
 component group is united as an equal with the 
 others in a Federation. 
 
 federation is a necessary precursor ... to the successful 
 execution of a broad Imperial policy '. And Seeley says 
 that the greatest change in modern Empires is that 
 ' a federal system has been added to the representative ', 
 Op. cit., p. 348. In Sidgwick, El. of Politics, the theory of 
 Federal government is given ; and in Bryce, Studies in 
 History and Jnri.'ipnidpnce, details are given of Australian 
 government.
 
 220 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Equality of the component groups is the first 
 essential. I do not mean that all must be equally 
 wealthy or possess equivalent amounts of territory. 
 Still less do I mean that each must possess the same 
 organizations, the same character, or the same 
 military power. When we speak of the political 
 equality of individuals we do not mean that each 
 man is as wealthy or as powerful, or even as wise, as 
 every other. In the same way there is nothing 
 irrational in speaking of the political equality of 
 the component groups in a federal Empire. What 
 we mean by such a phrase is that each group is most 
 likely to know what is best for itself ; that none 
 may be treated as politically incompetent by any 
 other ; that each may express through its own 
 institutions, governmental or legislative, its own 
 conception of its own interests. 
 
 And since the concrete example of the British 
 Empire will be more cogent, let me refer to the 
 supposed difficulty against equality (1) in the case 
 of colonies (self-governing and other) and (2) in the 
 case of dependent nationaUties. First, it is con- 
 tinually supposed that England may regard the 
 colonies as children. But we must not be the 
 slaves of a metaphor : even if England is the 
 mother-country, children are not supposed to be 
 permanently incompetent to judge their own 
 interests. We do not live now in the patriarchal, 
 still less in the matriarchal state. In fact it may 
 be more than suspected that children may have to 
 look after the interests of their mother, since even 
 parents have been known to be incompetent. I do 
 not say that Canada will have to govern England 
 against its will for its own good ; but I say that 
 such a situation would be as reasonable as the
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 221 
 
 opposite, in which the people of England ^ are 
 supposed to look after the real interests of Canada 
 in spite of the will of the Canadians. The confer- 
 ences held in 1887 and 1902 were clear indications 
 that the great self-governing colonies are begin- 
 ning to feel their political equality with England.^ 
 Lord Bryce speaks with knowledge of "the sus- 
 picion which colonies are apt to feel of a sort of 
 patronage on the part of the mother-country'.^ 
 
 But surely, it may be said, some colonies may be 
 regarded as children. They are newly founded, 
 and they are literally dependent for supplies if 
 not even for good order upon 'the old country'. 
 I admit, of course, that not every chance group 
 may at once be regarded as politically equal to the 
 older groups. At that rate any haphazard collec- 
 tion of emigrants might speedily attain a political 
 power which none of them would ever reach by 
 remaining at home. The group which I am now 
 regarding as a ' colony ' is one which has been 
 permanent for many years. How long a perma- 
 nence will make the group distinct I must leave it 
 to practical politicians to decide. It is a question 
 of rule-of-thumb and discovery by trial and error ; 
 no general rule can be given. And the group 
 having been permanent must also have acquired 
 
 1 I say carefully not ' England ' but the ' people of 
 England ' because the real issue is as to the comparative 
 competence for political judgement not among the few 
 in each country but among the vast majority. It is at 
 least arguable that the average of competence for political 
 thinking is higher, among ' colonists ' than among either 
 the villagers or the city hordes of England. 
 
 ' At the second, eleven self-governing colonies were 
 represented. 
 
 ^ Studies, &c., vol. i, p. 552.
 
 222 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 distinct characteristics, — a self-consciousness of 
 itself as a group and a distinct complex of interests. 
 
 Secondly, as to what are called ' dependent 
 nationalities '■ — these are the results of historical 
 accidents, generally warfare— which of course never 
 proves, one way or the other, the political com- 
 petence of the contending groups. But whatever 
 the origin of the situation in such places as India 
 or Egypt ; or in the Cameroons with respect to 
 Germany, or Algeria with respect to France — such 
 a situation is a political fact which we cannot 
 neglect to consider. What are we to say of it ? 
 
 In this case also I see no obstacle to Federalism — 
 the political equality of the groups — if they are 
 clearly permanent, self-conscious, and possessed of 
 distinct interests. 
 
 This is clearly implied even in extreme Im- 
 perialism of the English type, as we may see in Lord 
 Cromer's admission. The Englishman, he says, 
 ' is always striving to attain two ideals, which are 
 apt to be mutually destructive — the ideal of good 
 government which connotes the continuance of his 
 own supremacy, and the ideal of self-government 
 which connotes the whole or partial abdication of 
 his supreme position. He is aware that empire must 
 rest on one of two bases — an extensive military 
 occupation or the principle of nationality.' ^ And 
 few Englishmen would be willing to contemplate 
 a purely military Empire. We should therefore 
 be driven to develop local self-government, and that 
 in the end must mean the federation of politically 
 equal groups. 
 
 The units of the federal system where they do 
 
 * Ancient and Modern Imperialism, p. 118.
 
 MODERN IMPERIALISM 223 
 
 not at present exist would be very difficult to 
 decide. For example, it is impossible to speak of 
 Indian self-government, as though ' India ' could 
 be at present a unit having a simple relation to 
 England. India is no more one than is Europe ; ^ 
 and although there is growing up a general Indian 
 sentiment, self-government based upon an identity 
 of interests between all the inhabitants of a con- 
 tinent is absurdly impracticable. The end pro- 
 posed, which it might take years to realize, would 
 undoubtedly be the self-government of the dis- 
 tinct parts of India ; and this would mean the 
 equality of right in deciding even to maintain any 
 union with England. So extreme a conception of 
 Federalism is naturally opposed by those who, like 
 Lord Cromer, still speak of 'our Indian possessions',^ 
 although I can never find in ultra-Imperialist 
 statements who 'we 'are and how we can possibly 
 ' possess ' the Empire. 'At bottom ', says Seeley, 
 ' it implies the idea of an estate ' to be worked for 
 our benefit ; and that conception, he confesses, is 
 'barbaric and immoral '.* Compromise will always 
 be the political excuse for incompetent and illogical 
 thinking ; but I see no way out of the difficulty 
 
 * There are 147 distinct languages in India and at 
 least five distinct types of religion, the chief of which, 
 Hinduism (having 207,000,000 adherents), has innumerable 
 varieties. See Cromer, Ancient and Modern Imperialism, 
 p. 122. 
 
 " Op. cit.,p. 127. So he says, ' the foundation-stone of 
 Indian reform must be the steadfast mairtenance of 
 British supremacy'. The proof of which is the belief 
 that at present to give over to other hands the suzerainty 
 would ' almost certainly ' lead to the extinction of civiliza- 
 tion in India. But in the long run, I think, even Lord 
 Cromer implies that we may have to hand on the torch. 
 
 ' Seeley, Expansion, p. 77.
 
 224 MODERN IMPERIALISM 
 
 which does not imply either the complete dis- 
 solution of the connection between England and 
 the constituent ' dependent ' nations of the present 
 Empire or an admission of these nations sooner or 
 later to political equality. 
 
 But what are we to say if the groups are clearly 
 not either permanent or self-conscious or distinct 
 in interests ? It is clearly impossible to regard the 
 Zulus as having any political consciousness or 
 definite and distinct political ambitions. I trust 
 that I do not misrepresent the Zulus ; for I know 
 them, I confess, only from books. But I use them 
 only as examples ; and if they are more self-con- 
 scious as a group than I suppose them to be, let 
 the reader think for himself of some other ' un- 
 developed ' race. Of these it seems reasonable to 
 suppose that they will be subordinated of their 
 own will, if they are really lacking in all that I have 
 supposed to be essential to the component equal 
 groups of a federal Empire. The subordination 
 must, however, be felt to be to their own interest. 
 
 The subject is an endless one, big with immediate 
 consequences in England, France, Germany, and 
 the United States. These composite Empires exist 
 and I have tried to show that they are not alto- 
 gether detrimental to progress if the dangers I have 
 noted can be avoided. Imperialism if it is to 
 develop must be reconciled with Nationalism, and 
 there seems no possibility of this except through 
 Federalism.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 The Modern Social Problem. 
 
 The relation of groups which we have so far 
 considered under the headings of Nationalism and 
 Imperialism is only one of the two most pressing 
 problems of modern politics. We are always being 
 reminded that the relation of the individuals com- 
 posing these groups is also worth much thought. 
 And indeed it may be cogently shown that what is 
 called international policy, or even regional adminis- 
 tration, would be an easy matter if all was well in 
 the relation of individual to individual. But all 
 is not well. I do not propose to say that everything 
 is wrong, nor to give, in detail, evidence of the 
 many things that certainly are wrong. It is true 
 that one cannot appreciate an ideal without feeling 
 the want from which that ideal arises, so that who- 
 ever is wholly satisfied with the life he and his 
 fellows lead has no conception at all of what is 
 producing social unrest. But with the satisfied 
 it is almost impossible to deal, for if they have 
 not read such books as Rowntree's Poverty or the 
 plays of Mr. Galsworthy, or seen evil with their 
 own eyes, they are not in a position to under- 
 stand even ancient history.^ And if they have , 
 heard or seen the facts and are still satisfied, they 
 
 1 Cf. also The World of Labour, G. D. H. Cole, and 
 Round about a Pound a Week, by Mrs. Pember Reeves ; 
 but the statement of the evils is endless in modern literature. 
 Cf. in verse, W. W. Gibson, Daily Bread. 
 
 1782 P
 
 226 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 are beyond the reach of political reasoning — they 
 are what the Greeks would have called 'idiots', 
 being concerned only with private pleasures and 
 pains. It is impossible to recite all the evils 
 from which both Individualism and Socialism take 
 their rise. It is sufficiently well known that in 
 civilized nations not half the population is able 
 even to live comfortably — much less to develop all 
 human capacities ; and half the population does 
 not derive even the barest benefits from the 
 elaborate organizations of modern government. 
 The Individualist would say, therefore, that the 
 individual must be given equal opportunities, and 
 the Socialist that government must extend its 
 organization to benefit more than the propertied 
 class. The facts are the same for both Indi- 
 vidualist and Socialist, and to these we must briefly 
 refer before attempting to state the ideals of each. 
 In merely economic terms, half the income of 
 each European nation is used for the benefit of 
 about one-sixth of the population. Such general 
 statements are, of course, valvieless without detailed 
 information, but the evidence of them will be found 
 elsewhere.^ For England the figures given in Mr. 
 Chiozza Money's Riches and, Poverty have not been 
 seriously challenged by his opponents. I quote this 
 book, however, not as an authority, but as an indi- 
 cation of the direction in which men now look to 
 
 ^ The distribution of wealth in France is said to be of 
 this kind : Of the 11,000,000 who are in direct receipt of 
 'income, 9,509,800 have under £100 per annum; 1,303,000 
 have between £100 and £400 per annum ; 183,800 have 
 from £400 to £4,000 per annum ; and 3,400 have over 
 £4,000 per annum. (A. de Lavergne et Paul Henry, 
 La Ricliesse de la France. ) For other countries the dis- 
 tribution has not been worked out.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 227 
 
 find the nature of a political need. There it is 
 said that, according to the income-tax statements, 
 five and a half million people take every year 
 £909,000,000, and the remaining thirty- nine million 
 take £935,000,000. This means that incomes are 
 so unevenly distributed that about one-seventh of 
 the population takes half the national income,^ 
 and this disproportion tends to increase in the 
 present organization of society. Now even if 
 the figures usually given are exaggerated and the 
 present situation gives to a great many in every 
 country sufficient opportunity for civilized life, 
 the economic situation needs to be considered, since 
 it has never seriously been considered in all the ages 
 preceding the nineteenth century. It is not argued 
 that every one should have the same amount of 
 income, nor can it be proved that differences in 
 income are altogether pernicious. But so great 
 a maldistribution, especially if it is increasing, 
 clearly needs consideration. And further, it does 
 seem to be connected with evils which are funda- 
 mental. Lack of income involves malnutrition, 
 and that reacts upon the next generation. Thus 
 Mr. Rowntree concludes 'a labourer is in poverty 
 (secondary poverty being defined as earnings in- 
 sufficient for maintenance of mere physical effi- 
 ciency if any portion is absorbed in any other 
 expenditure) and is therefore underfed (a) in 
 childhood, when his constitution is being built up, 
 (&) in early middle life, (c) in old age. Women are 
 in poverty during the greater part of the period 
 that they are bearing children.' ^ ' The chief cause 
 of deaths from debility, atrophy, and premature 
 births are to be found in the evil environment and 
 * Riches and Poverty, p. 44. 2 Po-verty, ch. v. 
 
 P2
 
 228 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 malnutrition of the mother during pregnancy.' ^ 
 'It is probable that of the 1,200,000 births "^per 
 annum, as many as 300,000 are in necessitous 
 families. We cannot afford to allow 300,000 
 children to be starved before and after birth every 
 year.' ^ Of the other direct effects of these econo- 
 mic facts much may be said and much has been 
 said. I shall only add that it is simply academic 
 nonsense for us to lament the deficiencies of our 
 own productions in comparison with the sculpture 
 of Greece, the law of Rome, the architecture of the 
 Middle Ages, or the literature of the Renaissance, 
 while under our noses is the fact that we are ham- 
 pered by a mass of incompetence — incompetence 
 which is not due to birth or lack of brains or virtue, 
 but simply to partial starvation.* Not that in the 
 stress of material need we should forget the deeper 
 and more humane interests of art and knowledge, 
 but we must begin at the beginning ; and we can 
 hardly expect a higher civilization until a greater 
 proportion have attained the bare requisites of 
 human life. 
 
 The Individualist Ideal and Exceptional Ability. 
 
 I turn now to the two great ideals which express 
 our modern conception of how this human life is to 
 be attained; and, first, of Individualism. I propose 
 to state as a beginning, vaguely, what is implied in 
 the ideal so called. It may roughly be distinguished 
 from Socialism as being chiefly concerned with the 
 
 1 Riches and Poverty, p. 175. * Ibid., p. 184. 
 
 ^ Mr. Rowntree {Poverty, ch. vii, in fine) shows how, 
 even if we set aside the physical and mental suffering of 
 the present condition of workeis, malnutrition is speedily 
 destroying even their efficiency as workers.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 229 
 
 full development of each individual considered 
 separately. I shall afterwards proceed to say what 
 the first clear statements of Individualism were, and 
 to criticize what seem to be the limitations of this 
 ideal. 
 
 There is no one who thinks at all who does not 
 admit that the opportunities for the full develop- 
 ment of capacity are very limited in the case of vast 
 numbers. But every one is born with a certain 
 amount of ability, either for making roads or for 
 making poetry. To develop that ability is perhaps 
 possible for a very few, or at least it seems so ; and 
 for the vast majority there is no hope. An occa- 
 sional genius will be combined with a strength of 
 character which will make it possible for a poor 
 man to do what he feels he can do best, but the 
 vast majority are soon levelled down to inarticu- 
 late copies of an hypothetical ' average ' man by 
 the bare necessity for food and clothing. Thus 
 ' individuality ' becomes less and less common as 
 we move forward ; and the Individualist may 
 very well doubt if ' progress ' exists when all are 
 becoming nonentities. 
 
 It is not, however, a question of charitable feelings 
 for the limited circumstances of our neighbours : 
 for one may argue that in the present state of 
 society too few are able to develop all that is in 
 them. This is at first sight an exaggeration, since 
 many have wealth and freedom and abundant 
 opportunities for many experiments. It might be 
 urged that these at least can develop their capaci- 
 ties to the full. 
 
 Since every one nowadays pays at least a lip- 
 service to democracy, it would be dangerous to 
 attempt to justify the evils of a social system on
 
 230 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 the ground that after all the system did allow a few 
 to reach their fullest development. Yet even this 
 has been attempted by the followers of Nietzsche. 
 ' The much too many', among whom, I suppose, 
 are included all who cannot agree with their master, 
 exist only for the sake of the ' blonde beasts ' who 
 are supermen. 
 
 But if the Nietzschean ideal only means that the 
 type of individual we conceive to be ' best ' to-day 
 ought to be bettered and probably will be bettered ; 
 and, further, if it means that the beginning of 
 improvement is always in a small group and not 
 in humanity at large, then I see no objection to 
 regarding this as a reasonable, if exaggerated, form 
 of Individualism. Man is indeed 'a bridge and not 
 a goal '. The future may develop a race as far 
 superior to us as, we hope, we are superior to the 
 anthropoid apes. And it is true that progress is 
 always made first by a small group which leavens 
 the lump. In science, in art, and even in the use of 
 appliances for ordinary life, a few discover and use 
 what afterwards may become a universal possession. 
 
 Individualism, therefore, is perfectly right in in- 
 sisting that exceptional ability should be given its 
 chance. To hold back the few because the many 
 cannot keep up with them would be a policy detri- 
 mental even to the many ; and this is no abstract 
 and unreal possibility, for continually the man of 
 ability in a Trade Union, for example, is prevented 
 from progress on the ground that those who have 
 not such ability would be ousted in the struggle for 
 employment.^ I am not here concerned with the 
 
 ^ e.g. Sidgwick, Elements of Politics, p. 552, &c., the 
 criterion of a ' bad workman ' is different for a master 
 and for an organizer of a trade union.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 231 
 
 right of the majority of workraen to consider their 
 own prospects. That is a further question. It 
 remains in any case clear that no society can pro- 
 gress if the exceptionally gifted are always being 
 levelled down to the average mediocrity. The 
 cult of incompetence is sufficiently common now- 
 adays for us to feel that something needs to be 
 said as to the gain for the whole community in the 
 full development of the exceptional few. No one ^ 
 maintains that the weaklings should be unpro- 
 tected ; but that is one thing, and the deliberate 
 support of incompetence at the expense of ability is 
 another. We have special opportunities for the 
 mentally deficient, and few advantages are given 
 to the exceptionally able. It might be maintained 
 that these were able to look after themselves and, 
 I suppose, extreme individualism would imply that 
 they can, but unfortunately they are not left to 
 themselves. They are forced by circumstances to 
 sit at office stools or to dig coal, when they might 
 be advancing science or art. Nor is it reasonable 
 to fling a child into the midst of an elaborately 
 organized society and to suppose that the child 
 is absolutely free to make use of all that is best 
 in him. 
 
 Thus Individualism is an ideal, and not a mere 
 complacent regard for the present structure of 
 society. It implies that something must be done 
 to give more opportunity for the full development 
 of every citizen. It is an appeal in the first place, 
 in the interests of the whole community, for special 
 consideration for the exceptional. It is a protest 
 
 * Except perhaps Nietzscheans, who are not able to 
 realize that they would be the first to disappear if their 
 criterion of value were accepted.
 
 232 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 against the modern tendency towards mediocrity 
 and assimilation : for the fact that we all tend more 
 and more to dress alike is a sign that we are all tend- 
 ing to think and to act alike. But Democracy, if it 
 is opposed to Plutocracy or the Aristocracy of birth, 
 cannot be opposed to an Aristocracy of intelligence. 
 Indeed, the whole race grows in the development 
 of its exceptional men. Thus even with respect 
 to the few, the present social structure seems to 
 demand more individual variety ; and the few who 
 by wealth or birth are able to develop themselves 
 are but a fraction of those who are born exceptional. 
 
 Individualism and the Claim of the Weak against the 
 Strong. 
 
 With a wider outlook, nevertheless, we must admit 
 that, in a society where the greater number cannot 
 develop their real capacities, no one can effectively 
 develop his own. Nor is there any paradox in this. 
 For those who seem by wealth and position to have 
 every opportunity of self-development are really, 
 but subtly prevented : the near contact with others 
 who have few or no such opportunities limits the 
 opportunities even of these few ; and if these shut 
 themselves off from all such contact, they at once 
 cut off half of their own opportunities. The chief 
 basis for the self-development of a human being is 
 social contact with others ; and the development 
 of one is dependent on the development of those 
 with whom he is in contact. Therefore a society 
 in which a few are fully developed is a contradic- 
 tion in terms. The under-development even of 
 a few will permeate and obstruct the development 
 of all the others of the same group. The under-
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 233 
 
 development of that group will affect the develop- 
 ment of other groups, and so from a small evil the 
 whole race will be affected. This sounds fantastic 
 until it is applied to concrete examples. Let us, 
 therefore, see what the effect is of the fact that 
 a large percentage of ' civilized ' human beings 
 are without security of food and clothing. They 
 are continually in ill health or are compelled to die 
 prematurely : their children are worse. They are 
 preoccupied with the brute needs of the savage, 
 and have neither time nor opportunity for any- 
 thing which we may regard as civilized interests. 
 Their physical weakness makes their work inef- 
 fective and unintelligent ; the work badly done 
 affects even the most securely well-fed millionaire 
 or the most unworldly artist. It limits, therefore, 
 the opportunities even of the few who have what 
 are called ' advantages ' ; and the continual con- 
 tact with the undeveloped makes it necessary even 
 for the intelligent to come down from their heights 
 in order barely to be understood. Groups of men 
 thus permeated by under-development are always 
 kept at the intellectual level of savages when it is 
 a question of rivalry between their group and any 
 others. That is to say, the only rivalry they can 
 conceive is that of brute strength or such low 
 cunning as may outwit their neighbours.^ 
 
 Now if we go further and observe that such 
 under-development tends to increase,^ we shall see 
 
 1 ThLs is one, at least, of the fiindameiital causes of 
 warfare. No rivalry is appreciated by the uncivilized 
 except that of brute force ; but the majority in most 
 ' civilized ' nations are not able to devote their attention 
 to anything more than the acquisition of food and clothing. 
 
 * This would be proved by considering the effect on 
 the children of the undcr-developraent of the parents.
 
 234 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 that here is no problem for charity. We need 
 something more radical. Prevention, not cure, is 
 what we must plan, for the disease we may cure 
 by charity has already produced a thousand new 
 diseases and the process goes on too quickly for 
 any doctoring of the social sores. Unless, then, 
 we discover some means of preventing this under- 
 development, the whole structure of our present 
 society will decay, as a dying body does. 
 
 Individualism, in demanding, first, the free 
 opportunity for full development of every member 
 of the group, has with it all the best thought of 
 our time. Contrasted as it may seem to be with 
 Socialism, the ideal implied in both is at least in this 
 the same : both desire a fuller development of all 
 men. Such is the common ideal as it at present 
 exists ; and on the side of IndividuaUsm which is 
 to be contrasted with Socialism it implies that our 
 guiding conception must be the producing of more 
 and more competent, free, and fully developed 
 individuals. This in all Individualism, even in its 
 more limited modern forms, further implies that 
 every sane adult is the best judge of his own interest, 
 and that the common welfare is best attained by 
 the intelligent pursuit by each of his own interest. 
 
 History of Individualism. 
 
 The history of this ideal is comparatively short, 
 for although in a sense it is implied in ancient 
 Athens and in the Renaissance gospel of self- 
 development, it has acquired its present charac- 
 teristics practically since the beginning of the 
 
 uot only through their physical inefficiency, but through 
 their intellectual incompetence.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 235 
 
 nineteenth century. In spite of the proved incompe- 
 tence of all governments during the period preceding 
 the French Revolution, a pathetic faith survived 
 in the possibility of a perfect government. 'The 
 Rights of Man ' were its basis and ' the people ' its 
 only embodiment. But, quite unexpected by the 
 philosophers, there came the Industrial Revolution 
 which destroyed the last remnants of the mediaeval 
 caste system. Markets became larger as com- 
 munication became more easy ; and this again 
 produced the factory system, in which vast 
 numbers of men, women, and children worked at 
 machines, and with capital not owned by them- 
 selves. 
 
 This is not the place to describe in detail the 
 transformation of life that resulted from the new 
 Industrialism. It is sufficiently clear that new 
 wants were felt, since the situation of vast num- 
 bers was wholly new ; and every want was 
 opposed by the weight of an absolute govern- 
 mental tradition. 1 
 
 The deeper wants of the multitude were as yet 
 inarticulate, and a school of interpreters arose who 
 said that the one necessity was complete freedom 
 for the individual. It is true that for these econo- 
 mists the individual mentioned was the mill-owner, 
 who felt himself hampered by the remnants of an 
 old tradition : and the result was a gospel of 
 'laissez-faire' in which the proved incompetence of 
 past government was used as a reason for the strict 
 limitation of all government. 
 
 * Then in England feudalism survived, for example, in 
 Leeds in 1839, when the city had to pay £13,000 for 
 permission not to grind its corn in the mill of the lord of 
 the manor.
 
 236 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 The conception guiding the policy of 'laissez- 
 faire',^ however, was by no means irrational, and 
 no one ever supposed that all regulation would be 
 avoided. It is not unreasonable to suppose that 
 the real interest of the community will be best 
 attained by the intelligent pursuit by each of his 
 own interest ; at least it is just as reasonable as to 
 suppose that the real interest of each will best be 
 attained through the direction by some one else of 
 the business of each. 
 
 The extreme ' orthodox ' economists did never- 
 theless exaggerate the policy of trusting to nature. 
 The general tendency to a childlike belief in the 
 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' — 
 a belief as childlike as the older trust in Providence 
 — led to the adoration of natural processes. Men 
 were told to leave Nature to itself, and they soon 
 discovered that the standards apparently adopted 
 by this very unethical and brutish nature were not 
 such as a civilized man could accept. Even the 
 physical scientists discovered that what nature pro- 
 duced might not be morally good. 
 
 The general reaction against the adoration of 
 natural processes and the cult of brute strength or 
 low cunning was in part the result, in part the 
 cause of the perception that all was not going well 
 in the new industrial system. Sentimentalists 
 like Ruskin may have exaggerated social evils ; ^ 
 
 ^ Defined by Sidgwick, El. Pol., p. 137, as the rule of 
 ' letting people manage their affaii-s in their own way, so 
 long as they do not cause mischief to others without the 
 consent of others '. 
 
 ^ Clearly there is no harm in factory chimneys or rail- 
 ways, although they seemed to be connected with the 
 poverty and mediocrity of life which Ruskin reasonably 
 attacked.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 237 
 
 but there was evidence enough that ' laissez-faire ' 
 would soon fling civilization back into the brute 
 struggle for food. A genius who was physically 
 weak might be rejected by nature ; but Slan could 
 not afford to watch passively while such a genius 
 was destroyed : and this was but an extreme case 
 of what was happening in the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century. So on every side 'laissez-faire' 
 began to be suspected, and reformers demanded the 
 regulation of industry. 
 
 But even after the extreme gospel of ' laissez- 
 faire ' was exploded and it was seen that there must 
 be some governmental restriction for the methods 
 of manufacture, the tendency continued in the 
 direction of suspecting governmental interference. 
 Thus, in the language of Individualism, much more 
 is made of the limits of government than of the 
 sphere of government ; and all government is 
 spoken of as restricting rather than as developing 
 the governed, so that interference is made to seem 
 a greater danger than carelessness. As regards the 
 individual, more seems to be said of his rights than 
 of his duties, largely because Individualism in part 
 inherits the conceptions of the French Revolution: 
 and indeed Individualism grew up before the 
 present tendency to study the group spirit or social 
 psychology. The language of Individualism thus 
 often creates a prejudice against it; and its classical 
 statement in Mill or Sidgwick seems, in many in- 
 stances, obsolete ; the result of which is that many 
 writers on social and political issues to-day treat 
 the ideal itself as obsolete. ^ But I think that we 
 
 1 This, I confess, seems to me to be the case in the 
 otherwise admirable rendering of Spencer and Mill in 
 Bosanquet's Philosojihical Theory of the State; not sufficient
 
 238 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 may allow for the deficiencies in the statement of 
 the ideal by its earlier advocates, and, setting aside 
 criticism for the present, we may attempt to under- 
 stand that conception of Individualism which is 
 still effective. 
 
 Perhaps also it is not beside the point here to 
 remark that the tendency to oppose our immediate 
 predecessors has led recent writers into the opposite 
 exaggeration of underrating the value of the indi- 
 vidual in political thought and action. It is true 
 enough that no individual is ' atomic ' — none com- 
 pletely cut off from his fellows — and that the abso- 
 lute individual is an abstraction. But Mill himself 
 knew that. On the other hand, it is dangerous to 
 speak as though the individual were in any sense 
 unreal or ineffective by comparison with the crowd- 
 mind, or the State, or the soul of the community.^ 
 The individual remains a fundamental reality, as 
 separate, in some sense, from every other : and the 
 State is a company of individuals, perhaps as real 
 as the individuals, but by no means more real. 
 
 With such preHminary warnings we may turn 
 to consider the literature of Individualism. I think 
 
 allowance is there made for the inherited language which 
 never quite expressed at least Mill's, if not Spencer's, 
 Individualism. Note, for example, Mill's effort to explain 
 how all action is really other-regarding and none is wholly 
 self- regarding (in Liberty). 
 
 1 Thus in Bosanquet's Philosophical Theory, the Real 
 Will plays the part of a sort of superhuman Deity ; as 
 happens often in the Hegelian discussion of the State 
 in Hegel's Philosophy of Mind. This seems to me quite 
 misleading ; for even though the Hegelian says he has 
 kept in view the reality he has transcended, in effect he 
 has forgotten the individual in a ' higher Unity '. This 
 metaphysical fiction becomes pure mythology in such 
 a writer as Le Bon.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 239 
 
 it is not merely provincialism to imagine that the 
 chief examples of this are to be found in English. 
 As the Revolutionary classic is French, the Nation- 
 alist gospel Italian, and the Socialist programme 
 German, so the first expression of Individualism is 
 English. Spencer, Mill, and Sidgwick have each 
 given something of universal importance to the 
 tradition of political ideals in Western civilization. 
 
 Literature of Individualism. Herbert Spencer. 
 
 The most striking expression of Spencer's in- 
 dividualism is in an article on ' Specialized Adminis- 
 tration', published in 1871. ■"■ It is a reply to 
 Huxley's objection that 'the body physiological' 
 would decay if each cell were left free to follow its 
 own interests. Spencer repUes that he is not an 
 anarchist, but holds that ' within its proper limits 
 governmental action is not simply legitimate, but 
 all-important '.^ Conflicting interests are to be 
 ' balanced ' by government in ' the preventing of 
 aggression '. Huxley's metaphor is shown not to 
 involve that the interest of the separate cells is 
 in any way opposed to the common interest of 
 all,^ but rather the contrary. And it is shown by 
 historical examples that State regulation has kept 
 back banking and other industrial developments. 
 Also Spencer truly says that no credit is given 
 by the opponents of Individualism to the natural 
 effects of fellow feeling or social altruism. These 
 also would naturally limit selfishness without any 
 
 * In the Fortnightly Review, December 1871, and in 
 Essays, vol. iii, p. 401. 
 
 ^ Loc. cit., p. 417, and he refers to ' the Duty of the State ' 
 in his Social Statics, eh. xxi, and in his Essay on ' Over 
 Legislation'. ^ Ibid., p. 421.
 
 240 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 special governmental interference : but government 
 remains essential for 'negatively regulative control'. 
 The ideal, therefore, is a state of society in which 
 individuals are left as much as possible to their 
 natural reasoning and feelings, these being con- 
 ceived to promote the general interest of all where- 
 ever each is a civiUzed and sane adult. But 
 Spencer afJected the progress of Individualism 
 even more by his scientific than by his ethical 
 judgement. He not only said that the decrease of 
 government ought to occur, but that it actually 
 did occur. ^ He said that history showed the 
 gradual decrease of governmental interference 
 from the primitive, through the ' militant ' to the 
 ' industrial ' organization of society. If, as in 
 extreme forms of Socialism, individuals are ' under 
 regulation ', prevented from competing and com- 
 pelled to co-operate, there is no industrial organiza- 
 tion but only a continuance of the more primitive 
 militant type.^ But the latest developed society 
 is that with 'a relatively narrow range of public 
 organizations and a relatively wide range of private 
 organizations'.^ Plasticity and economic autonomy 
 are the results. Contract takes the place of status, 
 and peace that of war. The individuals are more 
 
 ^ Of course Spencer, like all evolutionists, cannot avoid 
 calling historical change (a scientific fact) by the name 
 of 'progress', which implies an Ethical judgement ; and 
 so he was practically influenced in his view of what had 
 occurred by his judgement as to what ought to occur. 
 But even his history is defective. The province of govern- 
 ment has changed, but it has not been restricted ; and 
 again, the province of government is even more directive 
 and less merely ' regulative ' than it has been. 
 
 * Political Jnstitutions, p. 604, edit. 1885. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 613.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 241 
 
 various in kind ^ and, despite the defects, such have 
 been in fact the results of the new organization 
 which has in Western Europe taken the place of 
 mediaeval militancy. 'The limitation of State 
 functions is one outcome of that process of special- 
 ization of functions which accompanies organic and 
 super-organic evolution at large.' ^ Thus, as Marx 
 proved not only that Socialism should come, but 
 that it must come, so Spencer proved that the 
 exact opposite — Individualism — not only ought to 
 be estabUshed but must in the natural course of 
 evolution be established. 
 
 Each school pointed to historical facts as sup- 
 porting their conception of progress and their ideal. 
 The Hegelian Absolute was made to countenance 
 Socialism, while Darwinian Evolution gained credit 
 for Individualism. 
 
 Literature of Individualism. J. S. Mill. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the most splendid statement 
 of the ideal is to be found in Mill's Liberty.^ There 
 it is said that with respect to actions having no 
 direct influence on others the individual needs (1) 
 liberty of thought and expression, (2) liberty of pur- 
 suits and tastes (i.e. to do what he likes), and (3) 
 liberty of combination, ' The only freedom which 
 deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 639. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 659. This is obviously false. State functions 
 have not been progressively limited, but have increased. 
 vSpencer did not see that the activity of the individual 
 could increase and at the same time the activity of society, 
 since he falsely supposed that one excluded the other. 
 For a complete refutation of Spencer's history, cf. Durk- 
 heim, Div. de Travail social, p. 180 et seq. 
 
 ' Published in 1859. 
 1782 Q
 
 242 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 in our own way so long as we do not attempt to 
 deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to 
 obtain it.'^ Mankind are greater gainers by suffer- 
 ing each other to live as seems good to themselves 
 than by compelling each to live as seems good to 
 the rest. The purpose of such freedom is, of 
 course, the complete development of the capacities 
 of each. 
 
 But, we may argue, the individual may not know 
 what is good for him. Mill replies by asking 
 whether any one is likely to know better : if the 
 individual is ignorant, the society of his time is not 
 likely to know much more.^ ' It is hard ', says Mill, 
 ' to get a boot to fit a foot ; how much harder it 
 would be tQ discover a kind of Government which 
 would suit the individuals concerned.' Next, the 
 individual has more evidence as to his own case 
 than any one else, and again therefore he is better 
 able to judge what is good for him.^ But finally 
 and fatally the principle that some one else knows 
 what is good for the individual destroys the variety 
 and originality which is the life-blood of the State. 
 There is no explaining to the unoriginal what value 
 that may have, for, as Mill says, 'if the mass could 
 see what originality could do for them, it would not 
 be originality '. And consider the opposite danger 
 to that we might risk in allowing the individual 
 to decide his own case. We might indeed attain 
 improvement, but ' the spirit of improvement is not 
 always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing 
 
 ^ Op. cit., Introd. 
 
 ' The assumption of some Socialists (e. g. Mr. Sidney 
 Webb) that ' the State ' would know best, is hardly 
 proved by history, nor is it indicated by recent legislation. 
 The passage referred to in Mill is in ch. iii. 
 
 ^ Ch. iv, init.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM . 243 
 
 improvements on an unwilling people. ... The 
 only unfailing and permanent source of improve- 
 ment is liberty, since by it there are as many 
 independent centres of improvement as there are 
 individuals.' ^ The consequence would be that by 
 increasing the support and sustenance rendered by 
 Government to individuals all would be weakened. 
 Treat a man as an invalid and you make him 
 one : suppose he does not know what is best for 
 him and you make it impossible for him ever 
 to discover. 
 
 Has society, then, no power of guidance over the 
 individual ? Mill says not in the case of a sane 
 adult. Society must exert itself in educating ; 
 education should be enforced but not provided : ^ 
 and ' if society lets any considerable number of its 
 members grow up mere children, incapable of being 
 acted upon by rational consideration of distant 
 motives, society has itself to blame for the con- 
 sequences '. The sane adult is to be supposed to 
 be able to judge what is best for himself. The 
 guiding conception is clear. It is a protest against 
 the modern tendency to assimilation of all men, 
 which really involves the levelling down of all 
 originality and the State maintenance of incom- 
 petent mediocrity. The faith of the Individualist 
 implies that men are not as bad as they have been 
 painted, and that they do not need to be constantly 
 worried to do right or to help each other. The 
 tendency to exalt the sphere of government ' con- 
 
 ' Ibid., in fine. 
 
 * Ibid., ch. V. A general State education is a mere 
 
 contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one 
 
 another ; but one system might be maintained by the 
 
 State as a sort of model to the many voluntary institutions. 
 
 Q2
 
 2U INDrvmUALISM 
 
 verts tlie active and ambitious into hangers-on 
 of the government ' ^ and dwarfs the whole popu- 
 lation by depriving most of power. The State 
 should rather aim at a decentralization and dis- 
 semination of power, while a central bureau of in- 
 formation should deprovincialize by educating or 
 instructing (but not governing) the local authorities. 
 Thus Mill is influenced by the ultimate ideal of 
 a community of individuals each having real 
 governmental power and all sharing the best know- 
 ledge of the time. Power can only be shared, he 
 thinks, by being decentralized and knowledge can 
 only be shared by being centralized. The end will 
 be the fullest possible development of all the 
 faculties of all the individuals in the community. 
 
 Literature of Individualism. H. Sidgwick. 
 
 A more complete rendering of Individualism is 
 given in Sidgwick's Elements of Politics? He 
 begins by speaking of 'the individualistic mini- 
 mum of governmental interference' which for sane 
 adults implies the maintenance (1) of personal 
 secmity, (2) of private property, (3) of fulfilment of 
 contracts. The statements which follow are of in- 
 terest chiefly because the possible objections against 
 Individualism are considered ; and a further ex- 
 pression is given of the underlying conception of 
 the self-development of each in a civilized state. 
 In a sense Sidgwick's Individualism is limited, but 
 it might also be said that this was the true modern 
 form of the old doctrine. An example of the 
 development is to be found in the treatment of 
 
 » Ch. V. 
 
 * Ch. iv-viii. The book was published in 1891. 
 
 ill
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 245 
 
 property. Although private property in land 
 (i. e. the right to exclusive and permanent use) is 
 regarded as closely connected with Individualism, 
 no objection is made to the princifjle of 'Land 
 Nationalization '. 'It must be admitted that 
 private property in land involves a substantial 
 encroachment on the opportunities of applying 
 labour productively which, were it not for such 
 appropriation, would be open to individuals now 
 landless. On the other hand, appropriation at 
 least for a term of years ^ is required, on the prin- 
 ciple of utilitarian Individualism, to stimulate and 
 reward the most energetic and enlightened appli- 
 cation of labour to land.' In these circumstances 
 ' the only practicable application of the individu- 
 alistic principle is to allow appropriation but to 
 secure adequate compensation for the encroach- 
 ment involved in it'. He goes on to say that if 
 a better bargain for the community can be made 
 by letting and not selling the land. Individualism 
 would support letting.2 Such a rendering of In- 
 dividualism clearly involves the departure from 
 the atomic individual with a fringe of rights. The 
 social interest of every individual is frankly recog- 
 nized. 
 
 The details of Sidgwick's conception cannot be 
 discussed here, since my purpose is simply to dis- 
 cover the guiding ideal. This still remains indi- 
 vidualistic, although he speaks of the necessity 
 of socialistic interference.^ 'That the common 
 
 * Not necessarily for life. 
 
 * Elements, p. 69. 
 
 * El. Pol., ch. X. Socialistic as compared with ' Parental 
 Interference', by which an individual is coerced in his 
 own interest.
 
 246 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 welfare is likely to be best promoted by individuals 
 promoting their private interest intelligently ' 
 remains nevertheless *to a great extent true '.^ 
 Thus he rejects 'all large schemes for reconstruct- 
 ing social order on some other than its present 
 individualistic basis '. The uses of socialistic 
 interference, or the coercion of individuals for the 
 good of the community ^ are in regulating and even 
 owning means of communication (railway, post 
 office, &c.), fundamental utilities (water, land, &c.), 
 and in the correction of the tendency of wealth 
 to accumulate in the hands of the few. The 
 State must even directly spend money in behalf 
 of the poorer classes 'to secm-e efficiency and 
 mobility of labour ' or 'to bring within reach of all 
 some share of culture ' ; ' and in so far as this is 
 done without such heavy taxation as materially 
 diminishes the stimulus to industry and thrift of 
 the persons taxed, this expenditure of public money, 
 however justly it may be called sociaUstic, appears 
 to me defensible on the grounds of individualistic 
 theory as the best method of approximating to the 
 ideal of individualistic justice '.^ 
 
 French and Russian Anarchism. 
 
 But in a more extreme form, in spite of the de- 
 velopment of Socialism, and in spite of valid objec- 
 tions to its older form. Individualism continues as 
 an ideal. ' As such it holds up for the goal of action 
 
 1 FA. Pol, p. 139. 
 
 ^ Distinguished from Socialism (p. 147), which is sup- 
 posed by Sidgwick to involve redistribution of wealth, or 
 common ownership (p. 151), and which would involve 
 weakening of energy and vigilance (p. 152). 
 
 ^ El. Pol., p. 156.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 247 
 
 a community of free and fully developed human 
 beings who need less external regulation in pro- 
 portion as each intelligently directs his own con- 
 duct. And this seems to imply as a still further 
 ideal a state of society in which no external regu- 
 lation at all is necessary. There have been some 
 writers who have expressed even this view. Anar- 
 chism, as it is called, deserves to be considered as 
 a political factor in so far as its guiding conception 
 is very nearly that of extreme Individualism. It 
 is ineffective only because it disregards much too 
 many facts in the present state of society. 
 
 Anarchism is a sort of Utopian Individualism. 
 It is not unreasonable as an ideal, if we allow that 
 ' an ideal is not a goal, but only a mark of direction' ,i 
 for we may well imagine that the more civilized 
 men become the less external government they will 
 need, and the ideally civilized man is he whose de- 
 sires are all directed by his intelligence so cultivated 
 that he can judge the true value of his actions. Thus 
 Eabelais' Abbey of Thelema had as a motto, ' Fais 
 ce que vouldras '. Men who are free desire what 
 is right. And if the same freedom were possible 
 for all, that would be Anarchism. The strangest 
 misrepresentation of this ideal is that which, for con- 
 troversial purposes, implies that the philosophical 
 anarchist is disorderly .^ The true conception of 
 Anarchism implies the faith that if men were left 
 
 ^ Karl Pearson, Grammar of Science. 
 
 ^ This is due, of course, to the pernicious misrepresen- 
 tation of morality which poses as 'moral instruction', 
 according to which what it is right to do is necessarily 
 disagreeable. External force is, therefore, foolishly 
 conceived as the only safeguard of order and not internal 
 rationality.
 
 248 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 alone they each would keep out of the other's 
 way. Proudhon was the first to attack the con- 
 ventional idea of government.^ He asserted that 
 the aim of government is to make men able to do 
 without government ; the individual with perfect 
 self-control would need no constraint, but would 
 be perfectly free. Bakunin next^ elaborated the 
 basis of Anarchism in the conception that all would 
 be well if each man knew the law of nature and of 
 human nature, and lived in accordance with that. 
 The means he suggested gave colour to the popular 
 view of an anarchist, since he held that a violent 
 attack and the destruction of all present govern- 
 ment would result in the free arrangement of men 
 according to nature and without internal regu- 
 lation. 
 
 Prince Kropotkin developed further the same 
 theory in a generous, if fantastic, vision of the 
 direction in which civilization is moving.^ The 
 popular conception of Darwinism implies a con- 
 tinual hostility between individuals ; but in 
 ' Mutual Aid ' Kropotkin showed that the tendency 
 of individuals is towards friendship and association. 
 
 * His saying, ' Property is theft ' has become trite. 
 He first used the word ' Anarchism ' as the name for an 
 ideal. His greatest power was exercised during the revolu- 
 tionary period about the year 1848. Anarchism is close 
 to Socialism in advocating the common possession of all 
 land. It is to be contrasted with it on the question of 
 organization. 
 
 ^ Bakunin (1814-76) was active in the German Revolu- 
 tion of 1848. He suffered many years' imprisonment, 
 and, although in theory a Socialist, opposed Karl Marx in 
 the International. 
 
 * After arrest in 1874 he escaped from Russia in 1876. 
 At Lyons, in the famous Anarchist trial of 1883, he was 
 condemned to five years' imprisonment.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 249 
 
 Thus anarchist faith in human nature is very great, 
 and perhaps it is not more difficult to prove reason- 
 able than any other faith. 
 
 It will be seen that although Individualism as 
 a political ideal is in great part English, its Utopian 
 form is French and Russian. Psychologically it 
 may be easily understood that all forms of govern- 
 ment must seem terrible to Russians, and the 
 French have often produced, as in the case of 
 Rousseau, violent protests against their political 
 tendency to bureaucracy and centralization of 
 power. Anarchism, however, does not need any 
 detailed criticism here, since it is not an ideal which 
 is politically very effective at present and it seems 
 to the majority wildly impracticable.^ We may 
 therefore turn our attention to the deficiencies of 
 even the practical forms of Individualism. 
 
 Criticism of Individualist Ideals. 
 
 In criticism of the whole tendency, one may urge 
 that as an ideal Individualism involves the neglect 
 of the social causes and social results of action. Of 
 these we shall speak in the following chapter, for 
 Socialism is in part an attempt to correct this 
 mistake. There is always a natural impulse to 
 
 ^ I mean to the tliinking majority. I do not count the 
 majority who shudder at the name 'Anarchist ' or 'Atheist', 
 for shuddering is a substitute for thought. 
 
 That the progress of civilization, although it involves 
 a growth of free individuals, does not therefore involve 
 a lessening of law or of the power of society, is obvious. 
 Thus the ' scientific ' hypothesis of some anarchists is 
 nonsense in so far as they seem to imply that the more 
 individuality there is the less law. Cf. Durkheim, Div. de 
 Travail social, p. 183.
 
 250 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 look after one's interests, and altliough sentimental- 
 ism may indeed exaggerate our duty to our neigh- 
 bour, nevertheless, in an ideal to be worked for, 
 there is more need to emphasize the social effect 
 of our action than the effect upon ourselves. If, 
 therefore, an ideal is to be a correction of a per- 
 nicious tendency, and the present tendency is 
 towards selfishness and an unenHghtened egoism. 
 Individualism should be opposed as gi^ang strength 
 to the very evil which needs most to be eradicated. 
 Indeed, the Individualistic writers, like Mill and 
 Sidgwick, do not really understand the egoism of the 
 average man; their own egoism is so enlightened, 
 their action is so intelligently governed, that they 
 may indeed do good to the community by pursuing 
 what ihetj know to be their own higher interest. 
 But, as in the case of Socrates, a personal charac- 
 teristic cannot be made a rule of morality. For 
 Socrates, if he knew what was good, there was no 
 hesitation in doing it ; and so for the ideal indi- 
 vidualist there is no exclusion of the interest of 
 others in thinking of his own. But the majority 
 have no such wide views, and we can hardly allow 
 them to discover by bitter experience (generally 
 the bitter experience of others) that their own good 
 is best achieved by aiming at that of others. This 
 objection to Individualism therefore implies not 
 that it is wrong, but that it is inadequate as an ideal 
 for the present needs of a semi-civiUzed community. 
 Again, Individualism suffers from the ' atomism ' 
 of the philosophy of the early nineteenth century. 
 The individual is not a separate atom surrounded 
 by a hedge of rights. In fact all the rights of the 
 individual are dependent upon his duties ; and 
 the exaggerations of the French Revolution as to
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 251 
 
 the 'rights of man' are misleading.^ No modern 
 individualist, of course, would deny the social 
 relations of every individual ; but even with this 
 proviso, Indi^ddualism suffers from the uncon- 
 scious metaphor of atoms. It is often supposed, 
 even when it is not expressly stated, that we can 
 treat the State as a mere collection of individuals. 
 The illustration at the beginning of Hobbes's 
 Leviathan is typical, since the monstrous State is 
 there drawn as a collection of diminutive citizens.^ 
 Not that the individual should disappear ; but 
 the State or the group must be thought of as an 
 organic wdiole and not an arbitrary coming together 
 of consenting individuals. The individual, whether 
 he wills it or not, belongs to a natural association 
 through his family, which he may call his nation. 
 He has, that is to say, a character which is given all 
 its meaning and value by the tradition into which 
 he is born ; and even if he may transfer his alle- 
 giance he cannot change his blood. The atomic 
 individual, without race, relatives, or tradition, is 
 an obsolete abstraction of the eighteenth century, 
 which survived into the nineteenth century only 
 because of the extreme fear of grandmotherly 
 supervision. But since the criticism of this de- 
 ficiency of Individualism is involved in the argu- 
 ments we shall have to consider for Socialism, 
 I need not pursue the matter further here. 
 
 * Cf 'Bosemquet, Philosophical Theory of the State. In this 
 book will be found an admirable refutation of ' atomic ' 
 Individualism, although the Hegelian State which is 
 connected with it seems fantastic. Because no individual 
 is isolated, it does not follow that all individuals are only 
 constituent elements in a sort of super-mind. 
 
 * e. g. the frontispiece to the Cambridge edition.
 
 252 INDIVIDUALISM 
 
 The same must be said of the other objection to 
 Individualism, that the free competition which 
 allows free combination turns into its economic 
 opposite 'Monopoly '.^ There is some ground for 
 the socialistic contention that Individualism has 
 led directly to Trusts and 'big businesses', and that 
 a system which produces such evils is beyond cure 
 and should be abolished. The usual opposition is, 
 however, exaggerated, and I can only see that In- 
 dividualism is mistaken or limited in giving support 
 to the tendency which really abolishes the free and 
 fully developed individuals who are conceived by 
 the Individualists themselves to be the ideal. The 
 Individualist conception of free competition seems 
 indeed to be mistaken. 
 
 Result. 
 
 It remains only to be said that Individualism as 
 an ideal has a very great future. Its limitations 
 and mistakes of the past are obvious enough, but it 
 has survived them. The individualist Economists 
 and utilitarian philosophers who advocated free 
 contract and unrestricted competition were really 
 maintaining the very system which was extin- 
 guishing individuality. Here is certainly one of 
 the comedies of history. The advocates of indi- 
 viduality were hard at work in the effort to make 
 utterly impossible the realization of the ideal they 
 advocated. And to this day Individualism suffers 
 from its unfortunate and mistaken advocates of the 
 early nineteenth century, and it can obtain little 
 credit as an ideal because of the means with which 
 
 1 Sidgwick, El. Pol, p. 582 (ed. 1897). He calls this 
 ' the most deep-seated weakness and most formidable 
 danger ' of Individualism.
 
 INDIVIDUALISM 253 
 
 this ideal was foolishly connected. Its fear of Law 
 and Government was due to a mistaken theory in 
 Political Economy. There are other and more 
 far-reaching restrictions than the restrictions of 
 Law. If the restriction of Law is removed, the 
 restrictions involved in the very structure of 
 society become all the more powerful ; and indeed 
 the socialist might argue that Law is a removal of 
 natural restrictions, not the addition of more. For 
 he who is born under-fed, lives ill-clothed and with 
 no capital behind him, is very much restricted. 
 His opportunities for ' free competition ' and ' free 
 contract ' are absolutely non-existent. What sort 
 of freedom of contract has one who must make 
 a contract or die of starvation ? 
 
 To do full justice to Individualism, therefore, we 
 must separate its soul from the accidental form iu 
 which it was first embodied ; and we must see, in 
 a dream of the future, the civilized State, an 
 association of individuals as far more developed 
 than the best of us now as these are better than the 
 primitive barbarians, our ancestors. 'The worth 
 of a State in the long run is the worth of the in- 
 dividuals composing it ; and a State which post- 
 pones the interests of their mental expansion and 
 elevation to a little more of administrative skill 
 ... a State which dwarfs its men in order that they 
 may be more docile instruments in its hands even 
 for beneficial purposes — will find that with small 
 men no great thing can really be accomplished.' * 
 
 ^ Mill, Liberty, in fine.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOCIALISM 
 Prelimmary Remarks. 
 
 It is of an ideal that I propose to speak. Not the 
 programme of any Socialist party but the concep- 
 tions that lie behind all such programmes are my 
 present subject. For just as it is possible to dis- 
 tinguish Mohammedanism from Christianity with- 
 out discussing the details of the two creeds, so it 
 seems to me possible to consider the Socialist 
 attitude of mind without a complete statement of 
 the programmes implied in that attitude. The 
 life which men conceive as desirable may be dis- 
 cussed not altogether indeed without reference to 
 their method of attaining it but without attending 
 chiefly to such methods. 
 
 We are to consider therefore the end — -the situa- 
 tion which is desired, not the means which may be 
 taken to arrive at it. We are to find this as an 
 inspiration moving present-day politicians, and 
 then to say, if we can, how it has arisen. 
 
 But first Socialism does not usually contain any 
 reference to the relation of groups : in fact, as we 
 shall see, one of its weaknesses is its tendency to 
 treat individuals of entirely different groups as 
 more similar than they are. For the discussion of 
 the relations between one Englishman and another 
 is treated as equivalent to a discussion of the rela- 
 tions between one Frenchman and another ; that
 
 SOCIALISM 255 
 
 is to say, the character of the groups which we call 
 States or nations is neglected. It is, however, 
 quite legitimate to neglect this character for special 
 purposes : for such purposes we may neglect the 
 fact that this individual is an Englishman and con- 
 sider him only as a man. That there is some 
 common element in the inhabitants of all nations 
 we must allow ; and for our present purpose we deal 
 with that. It is of man then in his relation to his 
 fellow man that Socialism first speaks. 
 
 This for my present argument involves that we 
 are not to discuss the relation of group to group, 
 but we are to consider only the relation of members 
 of any group to one another. I do not wish to say 
 'the relation of man to man', because, although 
 I abstract from the facts of nationality, I do not 
 wish to forget that groups exist and that there is 
 really no man who is only a man without being 
 an Englishman, a Frenchman, or of some other 
 race. An abstraction is misleading only if it is 
 unconscious : I use an abstraction, but I propose 
 that it should be always consciously regarded as 
 such. With that proviso it is possible to discuss 
 the Socialist ideal of the relations between man and 
 man, and to neglect at first the objections which 
 may be made to speaking of economic relations or 
 those of social caste without reference to the im- 
 mense importance of groups whether national, 
 regional, or simply domestic. 
 
 The Ideal : General features. 
 
 This then is the tendency in modern political 
 thought which we may count socialistic. It is 
 said that we are under -developed on our social 
 side, that we incline to think much more of tha
 
 256 SOCIALISM 
 
 consequences of our action upon ourselves than of 
 the consequences upon others. But of course only 
 a sentimentalist would suppose that others are any 
 more important than ourselves or that we should 
 not think of our own individual interests. Allow- 
 ing therefore that there is no real distinction be- 
 tween true egoism and true altruism, and that the 
 distinction of acts as self-regarding or other-regard- 
 ing is almost valueless, let us suppose that it would 
 do no great harm to-day if more people did think 
 of the social consequences of their action.^ 
 
 Now I take it that the situation desired by the 
 Socialist is one in which this attitude has become 
 common, in which each member of the group feels 
 himself to be part of a whole, not in exceptional 
 fits of sympathy for the poor or pride in his country, 
 but naturally and normally. We are accustomed 
 at times to pride ourselves on the achievements of 
 our countrymen or to feel the distresses of our 
 neighbours, and at other times we slip back into 
 our narrow reckoning of private pains and plea- 
 sures. But it is surely not too much to hope that 
 the sense of solidarity should increase, whether the 
 group to which we belong be considered to be the 
 whole human race (as it was for the great Socialists) 
 or the small group of which the average man is 
 aware. And a society in which this social sense 
 was more highly developed would undoubtedly be 
 very different from ours in its organization and in 
 
 ^ Obviously I cannot discuss the meaning of altruism in 
 this place, but I wish it to be clear that although Socialism 
 may be found in a modem sentiment towards social 
 interests, it is not fair to connect Socialism with modern 
 ' sentimentalism '. Unfortunately professed Socialists of 
 the academic type tend to sandals and long hair and the 
 improvement of their unoffending neighbours.
 
 SOCIALISM 257 
 
 its freedom for the majority of individuals. In the 
 developed social sense then is to be found the 
 ultimate ideal of Socialism and not in any special 
 organization which would be the result of this sense. 
 
 It may seem strange that I should find the 
 socialistic ideal in a sentiment so obviously common 
 to many who are not professed Socialists and not 
 in the programme of any Socialist party ; but in 
 the first place I am now concerned with the most 
 general influence of the ideal in present politics, and, 
 next, I wish to contrast the ultimate ideal with the 
 means suggested for attaining it. I know very well 
 that the socialistic ideal is generally considered to 
 be a sort of mechanical Utopia in which every man 
 has been given a number and registered by his 
 thumb-mark in exchange for having sold his soul 
 to the State. ^ But even in new worlds so obviously 
 deficient in the interest of the old the real moving 
 conception, the ideal, is a state of society in which 
 the social sense will be real and rational, powerful 
 and instructed. Such an ideal may be vaguely 
 approved by many who are not Socialists, but it is 
 to the great Socialists of the past that we owe its 
 present power, and only in the programme of pro- 
 fessed Socialism do we find it clearly and frankly 
 embodied. The ideal then involves a new state 
 of society in which the individual shall feel and 
 know himself to be part of an organic whole. 
 
 This involves a statement, the truth of which 
 I shall take for granted, that the results of action 
 even on one's self are really to be put to the credit 
 not only of the agent but of the whole group. So 
 
 * The reference is obvious, but of course I do not 
 accuse Mr. Wells of ever having confused the manufacture 
 of an organization with the creation of a social soul. 
 
 1782 R
 
 258 SOCIALISM 
 
 that we must not be misled by sentimentality as 
 to the ' results of honest labour ' or ' the rewards of 
 individual geniu,s '. As action has social effects, 
 so results have social causes. The credit for 
 earning a large income should not rest merely with 
 the individual financier, but with the circumstances 
 which make such earning possible ; and this is only 
 an abstract method of saying that the credit is due 
 in part to the other individuals of the same group. 
 The labour of the millions of poor has literally made 
 it possible for the few to be rich not only by direct 
 work in the production of wealth, but also in the 
 continuous peace which alone makes it possible for 
 the financier or the merchant to exercise his ability. 
 I do not wish to maintain here that a larger reward 
 is due to those whose labour has produced the 
 wealth in any group ; for my present purpose it is 
 sufficient to acknowledge that the united labour of 
 the group makes wealth and no individual is an 
 isolated cause of such wealth. Two fundamental 
 facts are therefore implied in Socialism. Action 
 has social results, and results (individual wealth 
 or well-being) have social causes ; but if these facts 
 are considered, the aspiration which we may call 
 socialistic is that such social results and causes 
 should be made more conscious and developed. 
 Action, it is said, should have more and better 
 social results than it has ; and more credit should 
 be given to the social causes of any increase in 
 wealth or well-being. Men are not isolated in 
 working : the result of work is as much due to the 
 many who produce as to the few who direct ; ^ and 
 
 ^ All through I am taking it for granted that no benefit 
 should accrue to those who do nothing either for organiza- 
 tion or production ; but I am unwilling to say of any one
 
 SOCIALISM 259 
 
 just as we cannot count precisely the value of the 
 individual's pull when many are moving a large 
 weight which could not be moved if each pulled 
 singly, so we cannot fairly distribute the results of 
 social labour by reference to the separate intelli- 
 gence or strength of each. 
 
 Such, in general terms, is the ideal which is at 
 present modifying political action — an ideal which 
 really governs many who would by no means call 
 themselves Socialists. Our problem now is to dis- 
 cover more meaning in this ideal by tracing its 
 early development.^ 
 
 Historical Origin of the Ideal. 
 
 One of the direct causes of Socialism was the 
 increase of communication between different 
 nations. As soon as it was possible to disregard, 
 even for trade purposes, the rivalry of the groups to 
 which two individuals belonged, as soon, that is, 
 as individual was really able to treat with individual 
 across national boundaries, comparisons began to 
 be made .2 Literature completed what trade had 
 begun and people began to compare the situation 
 in other countries with that in their own. The 
 result was the emergence of the consciousness of 
 class. 
 
 that he or she does absolutely nothing for the whole State. 
 The socialist criterion of 'useful work ' is often very crude. 
 To be ornamental may be useful, and some expend much 
 labour on this. 
 
 ^ It is fortunately not necessary for me to trace the 
 events or the literature in detail, since this has been 
 admirably done in Thomas Kirkup's History of Socialism 
 (publ. by A. & C. Black, 1900). 
 
 ^ The visit of French workmen to the London Exhibition 
 of 1862 was a direct cause of the formation of The Inter- 
 national, vide sub p. 262. 
 
 R2
 
 260 SOCIALISM 
 
 But what classes were found when the com- 
 parison had been made between different nations ? 
 There were, of course, the remnants of the mediaeval 
 caste in the landowning system : there were the 
 distinctions of the Renaissance in the towns, where 
 'Society' was opposed to the 'bourgeois'. But 
 the most obvious of all the divisions of men into 
 groups was the division which separated those who 
 worked with their hands from those who lived upon 
 the manipulation or the mere inheritance of Capital. 
 The term 'working-man' was a new invention, 
 marking a new perception of fact. Labour was 
 opposed to Capital in popular thought ; and irre- 
 spective of national boundaries the contrast began 
 between politics and social reform. For it seemed 
 futile to think of liberty and order and other high- 
 sounding words when a large percentage of the 
 members of so-called civilized nations had not even 
 the security of food and clothing. By contrast 
 with Individualism, the socialist ideal involved 
 a comparison of class with class, not of individual 
 with individual. 
 
 The sentimental socialists of 1835 proposed the 
 estabUshment of co-operation among this 'labour- 
 ing ' class. The name Socialism seems to have 
 originated in that year ^ when Robert Owen 
 founded the Association of all Classes in all Nations. 
 And for some time the tendency was to organize 
 the labourers according to a co-operative principle ; 
 the discontent expressed in Chartism being a sign 
 meanwhile of the new feeling of the labouring class. 
 
 The discontent grew with the perception that 
 industrial progress had brought no advantages to 
 the class upon whom the whole of the new industry 
 * Holyoake, Hist, of Co-operation.
 
 SOCIALISM 261 
 
 depended ; but as yet there was no new ideal con- 
 ceived which might guide the slowly awakening 
 proletariat. Not until the popular movements of 
 1848 and the appearance of literary expressions 
 of grievance and suggested remedies was there any 
 powerful Socialism. But the forces which went to 
 the making of Socialism were not literary, nor even 
 the genius of individuals. These did something, 
 but much more was done by the silent formation 
 among masses of wage-earners of a spirit of 
 solidarity. It was natural that this sense of a com- 
 mon interest should first take the form of class 
 rivalry; but its positive side was not hostility to 
 other groups so much as a strong social sentiment 
 within one group. This needed only to be expressed 
 in order that the new step should be made, and its 
 expression was made in philosophical or scientific 
 Socialism. 
 
 The scientific socialists became prominent in 
 1848 and the following years. During this time 
 the influence of Karl Marx was most significant, 
 for in his great book ^ he attempted to show that 
 inevitably in the development of society the 
 socialist ideal as he conceived it would be realized. 
 It remained only to hasten the accomplishment of 
 that desirable end. And in sach a thesis we can 
 see clearly the influence of the evolutionary theory 
 expressed for history by Hegel and for science by 
 Darwin. There was in the air, even before Darwin 
 wrote, a new feeling as to the flexibility of social 
 
 * Das Kapital. The first volume was translated into 
 English and edited by Marx's friend Engels (publ. by Swan 
 Sonnenschein, 1887). In the introduction Engels refers 
 to its being called 'the Bible of the Working Classes', 
 and he says that it is an ' adequate expression of its 
 condition and of its aspirations '.
 
 262 SOCIALISM 
 
 structure. Men became conscious of the immense 
 changes which had taken place in feudalism and 
 industrialism, and it was felt generally that yet 
 greater changes might establish an entirely new 
 system of the relations of man to man. But the 
 crude ' Darwinism ' (unfairly so called) which pro- 
 voked an admiration for ourselves as the ultimate 
 results of natural selection was corrected by the 
 ethical criterion of value always present to socialist 
 writers. It was felt that ' Nature ' could not be 
 left to herself ; that the fittest to survive in the 
 eyes of a Nature of brute force were not the fittest 
 in the eyes of a civilized man. Thus while admit- 
 ting development, Socialism deliberately advocated 
 a modification by human foresight of the ' natural ' 
 course of development. 
 
 It is to be noticed therefore that in all early 
 Socialism, both the sentimental (Owen) and the 
 scientific (Marx), the recent discovery of the wage- 
 earning class (the proletariat) led to a conception 
 that the ideal was a subordination of all other 
 classes to this. Marx indeed said that the ultimate 
 victory of this class was for the good of all and 
 would result in the destruction of all class; but 
 class-war had a very prominent place in the 
 methods, and class-victory was almost the ex- 
 pressed ideal of the earlier Socialists. 
 
 The prominence of class-consciousness in early 
 Socialism is most clear in the history of ' the Inter- 
 national'. This was a society of 'working-men' 
 founded in London in 1864, which held its first 
 congress in 1866 at Geneva. Then it was agreed 
 that land and the means of communication should 
 be owned by the State and worked by associations 
 of labourers. By co-operation the working-men
 
 SOCIALISM 263 
 
 should own the machines and ' capital ' should not 
 filch from 'labour' its due reward. The further 
 details need not concern us here, if we recognize 
 that in the conception of labour's reward and other 
 such there was moving a vague aspiration towards 
 a more ' social ' constitution of industry. But the 
 ' class ' conceptions were always limiting the ideal. 
 
 In spite of the vigorous work of Karl Marx in its 
 behalf, the International did not survive 1873. 
 Schism divided the members, some of whom were 
 really Individualists, and until 1889 there were no 
 international meetings, although since that date 
 they have occurred regularly.^ 
 
 The next stage was reached when it was seen 
 that a system and not a class must be opposed. 
 Great men like Karl Marx had always seen this ; 
 but the vast majority tended to confuse opposition 
 to a system with hostility to a certain number of 
 wealthy individuals.^ 
 
 The gradual change in the socialist ideal came 
 about through the perception that class-war led 
 nowhere, and that the ultimate supervision of the 
 whole group over the work of each was implied 
 in any conception of co-operation as opposed to 
 competition. Like all other ideals, that of Socialism 
 changed as it grew, for its great founders could 
 not foresee all the implications of what they sug- 
 gested. And as it grew it branched out in many 
 
 * Cf. Ramsay Macdonald, The Socialist Movement, p. 240. 
 
 ' Jean Jaures may be taken as a type of the newer 
 Socialism. His death at the hands of an unintelligent 
 ' student ' (August 1914) a few days before the European 
 War is symbolic both of the misunderstanding of Socialism 
 by the half-educated ' upper ' class and of the prevailing 
 ignorance of International (not Anti-national) ideals of 
 Societv.
 
 264 SOCIALISM 
 
 different directions, in this also not being different 
 from order or liberty ; since different ages and 
 different groups in the same age have different 
 immediate needs and therefore appreciate different 
 elements in the same ideal. Thus, as it is often 
 said, German Socialism is demanding what even 
 ' Liberals ' in England take for granted ; or again, 
 that in the United States Socialism is demanding 
 much more than in England. The ideals vary 
 because the needs are different ; but the ideals are, 
 none the less, of the same kind. It is now clear 
 that Socialism, though still difficult to define, 
 because it is a growing tendency, not an established 
 creed, is quite a definitely distinguishable political 
 phenomenon. The programme of Socialists in 
 different countries may vary, since the evils com- 
 plained of are different ; but there is a common 
 ideal. This common ideal, in its most ultimate 
 form and putting aside questions of organization, 
 is that the relations of man to man should be so 
 arranged that the results of labour may be more 
 evenly distributed than they are at present. Or if 
 this seems too definitely economic a statement 
 of the ideal, we may say that it implies the fuller 
 recognition of the common or social sources of 
 wealth in the more social or more distributed use 
 of wealth. Whether this should be done by cen- 
 tralized action of the State or by more local govern- 
 ment or by the division of society according to 
 trades, the ideal is the same. Thus it is not 
 necessary for my present purpose to discuss the 
 different methods advocated by State Socialism or 
 by Guild Socialism or by Syndicalism. The ultimate 
 ideal which is common to all these is a motive force 
 to vast numbers of men and women to-dav, and
 
 SOCIALISM 265 
 
 these are by no means all ' proletarians ' in Marx's 
 sense of the word, nor does the ideal any longer 
 imply an undervaluing of intellectual as opposed to 
 manual labour. 
 
 As for the expression of the ultimate ideal of life, 
 I do not think that the works of William Morris are 
 still valid. In spite of their Socialism they are too 
 vague and, in suggested details, too unpractical 
 to be effective indications of what Socialists desire. 
 Thus The Dream of John Bull and News from No- 
 ivhere are not so clear an expression of the socialist 
 ideal as, for example, the speech of Pericles is of 
 the Athenian. But Utopias are not uncommon 
 nowadays, and it will be easy for any one to find 
 pointed expression of the end to be aimed at in 
 such books as Mr. Wells has produced. ^ Since he 
 has so clearly and concisely expounded the ideal, 
 I need only refer to its general features. 
 
 By contrast with our present society that desired 
 would be much more orderly. The confusion and 
 waste of life and labour are to be abolished, and 
 in their place is to be an organized State system 
 with equal opportunity for all.^ It is nowhere 
 supposed that all are equal, for opportunity is only 
 made equal in order to discover by trial which of us 
 are better than others. Thus the Socialist State 
 would contain an aristocracy of intelligence. Only 
 •the competent would govern or administer, and 
 only the competent pursue private avocations. The 
 
 * New Worlds for Old and A Modern Utopia are the best 
 expressions of this form of the socialist ideal. 
 
 ^ Hence the contrast of Socialism with Individualism 
 in giving more place to Government ; in which Socialism 
 seems to me to bear signs of its birth in Germany. In 
 England we under-rate, in Germany they over-estimate. 
 Government.
 
 266 SOCIALISM 
 
 result would be a fairer distribution of the goods of 
 life, because none would be hampered by the circum- 
 stances of his birth, except in so far as these might 
 involve a natural deficiency of character or intellect. 
 
 There are obvious limitations in the conception, 
 but I do not know if these are the limitations of 
 Socialism itself. They may be due only to the 
 prejudices of the writer. There is, however, a 
 general tendency in the description of the socialist 
 ideal by all writers to overrate the ' engineering ' 
 intellect. Those who feel the deficiencies of the 
 present structure of society are generally those 
 who also, by accident, overrate the value of what 
 is called 'Science'. They are obsessed with the 
 extent of our mechanical ' progress '. They lack 
 perception of those more intricate and perhaps 
 more subtle qualities which are connected with the 
 Arts ; and of course they are right to despise the 
 dilettante sentiments of the inactive collector or 
 patron. But I do not see why the test of com- 
 petence, even for governing, should be so pre- 
 dominantly 'scientific'. Science has done much 
 for men, but — I speak heresy — Art has done more ; 
 and even government is as likely to be an Art as 
 a Science. 
 
 With this limitation of view must be con- 
 nected the prejudice common to all but Fabian 
 Socialism in favour of work done with the hands. 
 When the ' reward of labour ' is considered, very 
 little credit is given to the intellectual labour of 
 organizing and none at all to such labour as pure 
 research or teaching.* The 'Fabian Essays in 
 
 * Even Mr. Dickinson seems to suffer from a senti- 
 mental over-estimation of the value of scavenging. Cf. 
 
 Justice and Liberty.
 
 SOCIALISM 267 
 
 Socialism ' attempt to correct the crudities of the 
 earUer ' Scientific ' Socialism ; and there has been 
 an abundant crop of Utopias, more or less valuable, 
 all indicating the general tendency in a desire for 
 more real social feeling and a more effective social 
 use of wealth. 
 
 The Socialism of Karl Marx. 
 
 In spite of more recent literature, however, the 
 great work of Karl Marx remains the most trenchant 
 expression of the socialist ideal. His view of 
 history is limited and his description of historic 
 change is too Hegelian in its simplicity. His 
 admiration for the Middle Ages is due to the 
 Romanticists ^ and his rather crude exaggerations 
 are admitted by his followers.^ But when the 
 worst is said, Das Kapital remains a book as great 
 as most of those classics to which I have referred 
 in former chapters as statements of ideals. He 
 writes thus of the ultimate guiding conception : 
 ' Let us picture a community of free individuals 
 carrying on their work with the means of production 
 in common, in which the labour power of all the 
 different individuals is consciously applied as the 
 combined labour power of the community. . . . The 
 total product of our community is a social product. 
 One portion serves as fresh means of production 
 and remains social. But another portion is con- 
 sumed by the members as means of subsistence. 
 The mode of this distribution will vary with the 
 
 * This is repeated by Mr. Hyndman in his Historical 
 Basis of Socialism in England. The mediaeval life there 
 described is rather fantastic. 
 
 * This has been done in E. Bernstein's Die Voraussetz- 
 ungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemocratie. 
 Cf. Kirkup's History of Socialism, p. 314.
 
 268 SOCIALISM 
 
 productive organization of the Community and the 
 degree of historical development attained by the 
 producers.' ^ The greater part of the book is 
 a statement of facts with a view to showing the 
 evils of the existing system and also the forces 
 which inevitably will transform this system into 
 the ideal implied in the passage I have quoted. In 
 the bourgeois form of society the means of produc- 
 tion have the mastery over man. The many are 
 expropriated,^ and labourers are changed into 
 proletarians. Capitalism next expropriates the 
 individual capitalists: 'one capitalist kills many' : 
 the monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the 
 mode of production. Labourers are taught to co- 
 operate in factories and workshops, and at last they 
 learn to co-operate for their own interest in revolt. 
 ' What the bourgeoisie produces are its own grave- 
 diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat 
 are equally inevitable ' : and in the last stage a new 
 society will be established without class-conflict 
 and with social action for social good.^ 
 
 Present Statement of the Ideal. 
 
 Such in summar}^' form is the attitude of Marx 
 towards the ideal. In its chief features it expresses 
 the generally accepted ideal of all jjresent Socialists 
 and it involves three conceptions, what is to be 
 abolished, how it is to be aboHshed,and what is to be 
 established instead. The system which must be 
 abolished is called Capitalism. It is an arrange- 
 ment of the relation between individuals by which 
 
 1 Capital, p. 50. English trans. ^ p. 787. 
 
 ^ ' This state docs not re-establish private property, but 
 gives private property based on co-operation and the 
 possession in common of the land and means of production,' 
 p. 789.
 
 SOCIALISM 269 
 
 a small class has almost all the wealth ^ derived 
 from capital. No one, of course, proposes the 
 abolition of capital, since that would be equivalent 
 to abolishing men's hands in the process of improv- 
 ing men. Capital is a necessary, natural and, even 
 for the extreme Socialist, an admirable force.. 
 What is opposed is Capitalism, that is, the appro- 
 priation of capital for the interests of a small class. 
 For the abolition of this two forces are working 
 which should be developed: (1) the concentration 
 of capital and the formation of ' big businesses ' 
 which are really owned socially although only by 
 * a very few ; and (2) the organization of men for work 
 together, either in the production by each of a part 
 of a manufactured whole or simply for the voicing 
 of the interests of a special trade. The socialistic 
 ideal implies therefore a judgement of value as to 
 the different tendencies in social evolution. There 
 is a tendency towards socialization and a tendency 
 towards more private or segregate ownerships ; 
 and the former tendency is to be maintained as 
 progressive. Thus in the actual situation of to-day 
 the Socialist sees the beginning of the realization of 
 his own ideal, although he is aware that without 
 the action of men natural forces would not inevit- 
 ably bring the new society into existence. 
 
 The desirable result I have already described as 
 a state of society in which social causes of wealth 
 would be allowed to have social results. At 
 present, by contrast, it may be said that these 
 social causes having produced wealth, the wealth is 
 segregated by mistaken and pernicious methods so 
 
 ' Including, of course, under the name wealth all the 
 resources for the higher human interests, art, travel, &c. 
 It is thas not a purely economic issue.
 
 270 SOCIALISM 
 
 as to flow only in a very limited channel, thus 
 cramping and confusing its own course and leaving 
 vast tracts unfertilized and desert. We may 
 imagine a new society in which the springs would 
 be free and the streams would be so directed that 
 the whole land would be made more productive. 
 
 Finally, by contrast with Individualism in so far 
 as this implies the freedom for development of each 
 individual, the socialistic ideal involves that each 
 shall be given every opportunity to fulfil that 
 function for society of which he is most capable. 
 The point of view is different ; the ultimate ideal 
 is the same. 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 But however splendid the ultimate ideal, some- 
 thing must be said by way of criticism : for the 
 socialistic ideal, like every other, has its limitation 
 and it is often expressed with great crudity. 
 
 I do not deny the extremity of the evils from 
 which the ideal of Socialism arises ; nor do I deny 
 that the only remedy is a replacing of the whole 
 economic political system by another. It may be 
 that we shall be driven to such extreme measures ; 
 but even so, the problem would still remain — what 
 new system is better ? And that problem is not, 
 as I think, sufficiently solved by present Socialism. 
 
 In the first place, international Socialism inherits 
 the cosmopolitanism of the French revolutionary 
 thinkers. It neglects too much the existence of 
 groups. The individual is considered as having 
 a higher or a better reality than the family or the 
 State or the social class. But all such groups 
 appear to be 'natural ' : they are the results of 
 natural forces directed,perhaps half-consciously, by
 
 SOCIALISM 271 
 
 the ethical judgements of many generations. I do 
 not mean, of course, that they are therefore above 
 criticism, but I do mean that the criticism directed 
 against them must be slightly less crude than that 
 common among professed Socialists. The tendency 
 towards an abstract cosmopolitanism has indeed 
 been an obstacle to the success of socialist propa- 
 ganda, and rightly ; for the average man half con- 
 sciously feels that he cannot neglect the existence 
 of the group to which he belongs, even if in the last 
 resort he has common interests with all other 
 human beings. 
 
 Distinction of race and tradition (nationality) 
 exists not merely by ' natural ' selection but by 
 ethical direction, and it is good that it should exist. 
 Distinctions of law and government (states) exist 
 in the same way, and it has been and is a gain that 
 they should exist. So much Socialist writers at 
 present would admit ; ^ but I shall have further 
 to say that the same is true of family and of social 
 class. Not only do they exist by ethical direction 
 in the past as well as by natural force ; but it is 
 good that they should exist. The words ' higher ' 
 and ' lower ' classes are, no doubt, very crude as 
 distinctions ; but it seems to me that it is a gain 
 that a class or groups having artistic or cultural 
 interests should exist, even at the price of the 
 existence of private capital with some attendant 
 
 ^ Cf. Jaures, Studies in Socialism (Socialist Library, III), 
 p. 6. ' In the present state of humanity, where our only 
 organization is on the basis of nationality, social property 
 will take the form of national property.' Thus the greater 
 Socialists did not need the war to show to them that nations 
 were real forces ; but they wrongly thought the people 
 had risen above ' race exclusiveness ' (the savage idea of 
 nationality).
 
 272 SOCIALISM 
 
 evils. How much evil and how much good is the 
 result of any system must be the ultimate issue. 
 No one can suppose that any one system has all the 
 good results and any other all the bad. 
 
 Next, as against all forms of State Socialism, the 
 variety and intricacy of the present system should 
 not be so abruptly dismissed as evil. Confusion is 
 indeed an obstacle to civilization, but so is an 
 artificial simplification of the natural luxuriance 
 of social development.^ Even if such luxuriance 
 is uneconomical, it might be worth while to pay for 
 variety ; but I do not think that local difference 
 and a certain amount of competition has been 
 proved even to be wasteful. It is no proof to show 
 that waste exists, for a certain amount of co-opera- 
 tion also exists, and the waste might as easily 
 be proved to be due to co-operation as it is to 
 competition. 
 
 Further, the ideal organization of society by the 
 mastery of the State over all the means of pro- 
 duction seems to me to imply the existence of 
 a large official caste with no competition to fear. 
 I do not know what changes in officialism the 
 realization of the socialist ideal might accomplish ; 
 but from our present point of view the multiplica- 
 tion of officials must be regarded with suspicion. 
 If society, once socialized, were never to change 
 again, then perhaps the State officials would be 
 altogether useful ; but if history would not end 
 even at the coming of Socialism, then the official 
 
 ' Thus Mr. Wells complains continually that many 
 small firms are supplying milk to cities, which could 
 be more economically and more healthily done by one 
 organization. The issue has to be decided on its merits, 
 but there is no special advantage in the single as opposed 
 to the plural.
 
 SOCIALISM 273 
 
 caste being hostile to further change, we shall be 
 enslaved to the servants we have appointed. We 
 shall have given to this caste the best brains of 
 the community and the organized force of society ; 
 and it would be much more difficult to revolt 
 against such a tyranny than it was against personal 
 despotism or oHgarchy. The argument of Mill is 
 still good. 
 
 'If every part of the business of Society which 
 required organized concert on large and comprehen- 
 sive views were in the hands of the Government, and 
 if Government offices were universally filled by the 
 ablest men, all the enlarged culture and practical 
 intelligence in the country, except the purely 
 speculative, would be concentrated in a numerous 
 bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest of the com- 
 munity would look for all things — the multitude 
 for direction and dictation in all they had to do, 
 the able and aspiring for personal advancement.' 
 And again, 'the governors would be as much the 
 slaves of their organization and discipline as the 
 governed are of the governors' .^ Thus the civilized 
 state would be converted into a rigid military body, 
 not perhaps for fighting but certainly for the sup- 
 pression of all further development.^ 
 
 As for the various forms of Guild or Trade 
 Socialism^ in which social action is based upon 
 
 ^ Liberty, ch. v. 
 
 ^ The reference is obvious to Aristotle's distinction 
 between a state and an army : for an army makes men 
 more similar, a state more various. 
 
 ' Cf. National Guilds, by A. R. Orage. The abrupt 
 statement in the text is not to be considered a treatment 
 of the whole argument, which is very valuable in (1) the 
 proof that labour is not a commodity, and (2) in its attack 
 on wage-slavery. But in spite of the assertion (p. 275) that 
 the new Guilds would be quite unlike the mediaeval, 
 1782 S
 
 274 SOCIALISM 
 
 distinction in occupations, I think the final condem- 
 nation of this is written in the history of the trade 
 guilds of the Middle Ages. Existing at first for the 
 good of the community at large, in the end the 
 guilds destroyed the cities in which they were 
 powerful by pursuing private ends and excluding 
 all competition with their methods.^ Again, the 
 interests of an Englishman are not necessarily the 
 same as those of a Frenchman because they both 
 happen to be shoemakers. The artificial simplifi- 
 cation which is' the weak element in every single 
 scheme for social reconstruction is to be found here 
 also ; and it is only made more obvious when we 
 are told, as in certain Syndicalist writers, that no 
 reasons need be given for remodelling the present 
 system since ' elan ' and ' intuition ' are more valid 
 guides than intelligence.^ 
 
 All such criticisms and many more have been 
 foreseen and replied to by professed Socialists, and 
 Socialism itself is changing its form so rapidly that 
 very soon, no doubt, these criticisms will no longer 
 be of any value. I give them, however, rather as in- 
 dications of the w'eakness in the socialistic ideal than 
 as conclusive proof of error in Socialism. The ad- 
 mirable tendency to more social feeling and to the 
 more social use of the results of social action may 
 be exaggerated, to the detriment of individual and 
 group variety ; and we may lose sight of the fact 
 
 it is admitted that they would be monopolies, and this 
 gives force to my objection. 
 
 * The argument is sketched in G. Wallas's The Great 
 Society. The guilds did not kill London, because other 
 forces counteracted their selfishness ; but they killed 
 York and Norwich. 
 
 * Sorel is, I suppose, the sanest exponent of the anti- 
 rational prejudice in matter of Social reform.
 
 SOCIALISM 275 
 
 that there is an inalienable and distinct core of 
 personality in each man which it is the purpose of 
 civilization to develop and not to suppress or even 
 to subordinate. 
 
 If we could imagine an ideal at once individual- 
 istic and socialistic, such would be the effective 
 ideal for most thinking men. For if on the one 
 hand we tend to isolation and selfishness, on the 
 other we tend to lose our individualities in the 
 flood and complexity of 'The Great Society'. 
 This Society is an organic whole ; and as in a tree 
 the health of the cells in leaf and root is the health 
 of the whole organism, so also in society, without 
 distinct individuals with full, free and various 
 development, the whole decays no less than it 
 would without interdependence between its com- 
 ponent parts. The Individualist is right in aiming 
 at the variety of individuals, and so is the Socialist 
 in impressing on all their common interest ; for the 
 fullest development of each is to be found in the 
 performance of his function in the life of the whole. 
 
 We have thus in Sociahsm all the features of 
 a living political ideal. It is effective quite outside 
 the ranks of professed Socialists ; it survives all 
 the criticism and even the proved failure of socialist 
 programmes ; for the end may survive as a hope 
 even when the means first adopted to attain it have 
 been shown to be ineffective. Further, like all 
 other ideals it has its roots in a need and is born 
 of the perception of something actually existing 
 which is worth development. And like all other 
 ideals also its embodiment will probably prove its de- 
 ficiencies ; for there is no panacea for human needs, 
 and other dreams will follow the realization even of 
 the most glorious that we could now conceive. 
 S2
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Nature as a factor in political change. 
 
 We have so far seen that the motive forces in the 
 formation of the present have been in part the con- 
 ceptions which men have had of what is desirable. 
 But before speaking of these ideals in general it is 
 well to acknowledge the presence of the many other 
 forces which have gone to make the present what 
 it is and will undoubtedly transform the future 
 whether we desire it or not. Besides the plans 
 made by men and their attempts to gain their ends, 
 vast natural forces are always at work with which 
 the historian of Society and the practical politician 
 have to deal. For a knowledge of the present 
 political situation must involve some acquaintance 
 with the laws of psychology, individual and social, 
 the laws of economic change, and perhaps also the 
 laws of geography and biology. Man is not isolated ; 
 and at every step he is influenced by the mass of 
 different realities around him. And if for special 
 purposes we consider man without reference to the 
 rest of the Universe, we need always to remind 
 ourselves that innumerable forces which we have 
 not noticed have worked and are working to trans- 
 form man himself. We may, however, neglect the 
 larger forces at work and consider only as immedi- 
 ately important the effects of climate, country, or 
 natural products. These again may be left to the 
 economists, and we may consider only the effects of
 
 CONCLUSION 277 
 
 man on man. But when we have made our last 
 abstraction and when we have man only under our 
 microscope, then we begin to observe that man is not 
 really master even of his own desires. We are not 
 free except within very narrow limits to choose what 
 we shall desire. The natural forces, geographical, 
 biological, or economic, which made Athens what it 
 was, also forced upon the Athenians the desire for 
 liberty as they conceived it. And to-day the 
 social organization which some are so eager to 
 transform is not altogether the result of the con- 
 scious work of individuals in the past but is in part 
 produced by the same natural forces. Indeed, 
 even when we have managed to direct such forces 
 as we desire, our realized desire becomes a natural 
 force and is to be reckoned among the other forces 
 which transform us according to laws quite inde- 
 pendent of our will. For suppose we manage to 
 redistribute incomes in even a small state so that 
 every citizen shall be economically equal, at once 
 this situation begins to have natural results, 
 whether foreseen or not, which are not all due to 
 our free choice. This obviously is simply a state- 
 ment that we live in a world which ' goes of itself ', 
 and it may be thought to be platitude. But it is 
 a platitude often forgotten by the reformer, as the 
 power of ideals is forgotten by the ultra-conser- 
 vative. 
 
 There is a tendency to stability which even the 
 revolutionary can do very little to oppose. If he 
 speaks all day against the established order, never- 
 theless he cannot eat or move or clothe himself 
 without adding his support to things as they are. 
 Therefore there is no danger of a complete over- 
 turning of the present structure of society.
 
 278 CONCLUSION 
 
 On the other hand, there is a tendency to change 
 which even the conservative cannot resist. If he 
 copies his forefathers most exactly, yet house and 
 clothes decay and his food is always a little different, 
 and the very language in which he praises the good 
 old times, by the use of which he hopes to keep 
 things as they are, insensibly changes its meaning 
 even when he uses it. Therefore there is no danger 
 that we shall ever be troubled for long by the same 
 difficulties. The natural tendencies to stability 
 and to change exist quite independently of the 
 efforts of reformers or conservatives. 
 
 Allowing therefore for the immense number of 
 facts over which our ideals have little or no influ- 
 ence, we may now turn our attention to certain 
 general features of the ideal as we find it opera- 
 tive. 
 
 Modern Ideals as Innovating Forces. 
 
 The ideals which I have described in the last 
 four chapters are all 'modern', in the sense that 
 they are of recent birth and are more prominently 
 at work in practical politics than are the older and 
 more generally accepted conceptions of what is 
 worth working for. It may be well therefore to 
 say something of the relation of one to the other. 
 In them we may see the division of political pro- 
 blems into those which deal with groups and those 
 which deal with individuals. For, first. Nation- 
 alism and Imperialism obviously lead to a re- 
 arrangement of group relations. They are in 
 appearance opposed. Nationalism intends the 
 separate development of each group independently, 
 and there is an exaggerated form of the ideal which 
 is opposed violently to any attempt to give the
 
 CONCLUSION 279 
 
 same state-system to different national groups. 
 Imperialism intends the combined development of 
 many different groups ; and this also leads to an 
 exaggerated conception of the need for one group 
 to impose its own system on others. But in their 
 true forms these two ideals are not contradictory: 
 they are complementary conceptions of the best 
 relationship of groups. For clearly all who are 
 able to think of facts and not of phrases agree that 
 each group should have its character preserved 
 (Nationalism) but that there is great gain in a very 
 intimate relationship under the same law and 
 governmentof many different groups (Imperialism). 
 Which groups should be united and which kept 
 separate would then be decided by practical judge- 
 ment as to the results (good and bad) of the working 
 of that situation which we have inherited. 
 
 In the second place the two ideals of Indi- 
 vidualism and Socialism deal with the relation of 
 individuals. To the Individualist the less organi- 
 zation there is the better ; for the truly free 
 man does not require to be forced to do his duty. 
 In Individualism we have a reflection of the 
 English tradition ; and in its exaggerated form 
 the English prejudice against all Governments 
 and the English suspicion of any one who is 
 interested in what is not 'his own business '. But 
 to' mind one's own business ' is an impossible ideal 
 in a world in which every act has social results. 
 
 The Socialist, on the other hand, desires more 
 organization ; for the majority of men depend on 
 institutions and not upon continual personal judge- 
 ments as to what it is best to do. In Socialism we 
 have a reflection of the German tradition ; and this 
 also is exaggerated by the German prejudice in
 
 280 CONCLUSION 
 
 favour of officials and the German fear of being 
 isolated as an individual. But institutions are 
 cramping unless the informing spirit of individual 
 judgement and individual action keeps them con- 
 tinually developing. And the result is that we are 
 driven to say that Individualism and Socialism are 
 complementary conceptions of the way in which 
 the relations of individuals should be arranged. 
 That both have a predominantly ' economic ' view 
 of political relations is due simply to the date at 
 which both appeared ; for just as in the Middle 
 Ages political ideals were coloured by religion so in 
 the nineteenth century politics was alnfiost reduced 
 to economics.! The problem of the twentieth 
 1 This mistake is admirably corrected in Durkheim's 
 Division du Travail social, cf. p. 402. 'Si la division du 
 travail produit la solidarite, ce n'est pas seulement parce 
 qu'elle fait de chaque individu un echangiste, comme 
 disent les economistes ; c'est qu'elle cree entre les hommes 
 tout un systeme de droits et de devoirs qui les tient les 
 uns aux autres d'une maniere durable. De meme que 
 les similitudes sociales donnent naissance a un droit et 
 a une morale qui les protegent, la division du travail 
 donne naissance k des regies qui assurent le concours 
 paciiique et regulier des fonctions divisees. Si les econo- 
 mistes ont cru qu'elle engendrait une solidarite suffisante, 
 de quelque maniere qu'elle se fit, et si, par suite, ils ont 
 soutenu que les societes humaines pouvaient et devaient 
 se resoudre en des associations purement economiques, 
 c'est qu'ils ont cru qu'elle n'affectait que des interets 
 individuels et temporaires. Par consequent, pour estimcr 
 les interets en conflit et la maniere dont ils doivent 
 s'equilibrer, c'est-a-dire pour determiner les conditions 
 dont lesquelles I'echange doit se faire, les individus seuls 
 sont competents ; et comme ces interets sont dans un 
 perpetuel devenir, il n'y a place pour aucune reglementation 
 permanente. Mais une telle conception est, de tous 
 points, inadequate aux faits. La division du travail ne 
 met pas en presence des individus, mais des fonctions 
 sociales. Or, la societe est intercssee au jeu de ces
 
 CONCLUSION 281 
 
 century is to transform its political ideal by refer- 
 ence to other, non-economic, interests of man in 
 society. And while that is being done it becomes 
 increasingly apparent that we must organize more 
 adequately (Socialism) and give freer play to 
 individual ability (Individualism). For the State 
 is tyrannical which is not held together by the free 
 individual sentiment of all its citizens ; and the 
 State is a confusion if its organization is felt to be 
 a mere inheritance and not a definite new means 
 to reach the new conceptions of what is valuable 
 in life. 
 
 Ancient Ideals — their Present Influence. 
 
 But other ideals besides those of recent birth are 
 at work in changing the present situation. The 
 achievements of the past are the basis for change, 
 and, as I have argued, the meaning of such achieve- 
 ments may be more fully understood by considering 
 what men desired than by a record of battles or 
 great men or group habits. Every age therefore 
 may be supposed to have contributed something 
 to our political inheritance not only in its achieve- 
 ment but in its ideal ; and if the ideal has been the 
 soul of the achievement, on the other hand the 
 accomplished fact has always shown certain defici- 
 encies in the conception of what is desirable. The 
 ideal itself has seemed to be corroded by being 
 
 demieres ; suivant qu'elles concourent regulierement ou 
 non, elle sera saine ou malade. Son existence en depend 
 done, et d'autant plus etroitement qu'elles sont plus 
 divisees. C'est pourquoi elle ne peut les laisser dans un 
 etat d'indetermination, et d'ailleurs elles se determinent 
 d'elles-memes. Ainsi se forment ces regies dont le nombre 
 s'accroit a mesure que le travail se diviso et dont I'absence 
 rend la solidarite organique ou impossible ou imparfaite.'
 
 282 CONCLUSION 
 
 embodied, and some have spoken as if the ideal 
 itself was untouched by the limitations of the 
 political programme which has been its expression. 
 I have preferred, however, not to give that vaguer 
 meaning to the word ideal which such a statement 
 would imply ; for then the ideal would simply 
 indicate the indefinite desire for something better. 
 It is not merely 'something better ' but a definite 
 state conceived as better which has really moved 
 men to action ; and the political programme which 
 has resulted has often shown that the state con- 
 ceived was not as desirable as was at first imagined. 
 The basis then for our present action is the ideal, 
 partly achieved and partly, even when achieved, 
 seen to be deficient ; but something of the original 
 conception survives and gives us the motive for 
 further action. What survives in this sense is the 
 ancient ideal, corrected and modified, developed in 
 various ways, but still active among us as it was 
 among our ancestors. A civilized race is one 
 which not only accepts the achievements of the 
 past but is moved by the ideals which have been 
 shown by experience to be of value ; and although 
 some states in the relationship of individuals and 
 groups which were once thought admirable are 
 proved undesirable, there are other situations long 
 ago conceived to be good which, in spite of failure 
 and deficiency, still continue to be so judged. 
 
 Development of Ideals. 
 
 I do not suppose that Liberty or Order will ever 
 seem undesirable, and therefore some ideals may 
 seem to be immortal ; but even they are immortal 
 only at the cost of being transformed from time to 
 time. And when one looks back into the past the
 
 CONCLUSION 283 
 
 liberty for which men laboured in Athens seems 
 strangely different from that which we now desire. 
 We may think of it as only so different as the child 
 is different from the grown man ; or it may be 
 that the difference is as great as that between a 
 father and his child. In either case it is clear that 
 among our inheritances from the past no improve- 
 ments of our machinery can show any changes so 
 great as the changes that come over the desires , 
 of men. 
 
 This then is in part the meaning of the word 
 development when it is applied to political ideals. 
 The essential needs of man have not altogether 
 changed in the short period to which I have referred 
 since Athens first won liberty for herself : but 
 these needs have been felt in difierent ways. Thus, 
 I suppose, with the two great words Order and 
 Liberty we may make a record of all hi,story, 
 since they express the two opposite desires which 
 complete the ideal conceived by every age. But 
 Order is developed as Unity and Imperialism and 
 vSocialism, and Liberty appears in different ages 
 as Nationalism or Individualism. And each 
 new child of Liberty or Order itself grows 
 through many forms and gives birth to other 
 children. Thus Revolutionary Rights give birth 
 to Individualism as well as to Socialism. 
 
 There is development and perhaps progress, the 
 laws of this development can be discovered and 
 from them judgement may be passed on the tenden- 
 cies of the present : but the law is not a simple one 
 of two opposites being always reconciled in a single 
 compromise, and the problem is so complex that 
 a correct judgement on present tendencies is not 
 easily made.
 
 284 CONCLUSION 
 
 The connection between different ideals can only 
 be understood by the study of historical fact, and 
 no general law of Logic or 'Philosophy of Mind' 
 will show how, for example, Athenian Liberty is 
 connected with Roman Order. ^ Sometimes two 
 complementary ideals are contemporaneous, some- 
 times the individualizing or separating ideal 
 follows, sometimes it precedes the grouping or 
 uniting ideal. The order of historical sequence 
 is not that of logical opposition and synthesis. 
 
 General statements can, however, be made, and 
 one such as to the nature of the ideal in history 
 I have attempted to make, the truth of which is 
 dependent upon the facts to which I have referred. 
 In so far as such general statements constitute a 
 ground for expecting them to be true of the future, 
 in that far we may speak of an historical law of 
 ideals ; but this law will then be only a statement 
 of what has occurred and will contain no ' necessity' 
 in the older sense of the word, in as far as necessity 
 was supposed to govern the future. The evidence 
 with which I have dealt would not disprove the 
 possibility of entirely new development of political 
 ideal and practice. We may, for all I know, have 
 reached what mathematicians would call a point 
 of discontinuity in the curve of development ; but 
 even then the past would govern our future not only 
 as an achievement but as a surviving ideal. 
 
 ^ The Romans also desired Liberty and the Athenians 
 Order. The distinction that I have made is one of elements 
 in present experience and those elements I have connected 
 with historical events set out in order of time ; but 
 although some ideals (e.g. Nationalism) could not have 
 come before others (e. g. Revolutionary Rights), I do not 
 think that one can say, looking forward, that Nationalism, 
 for example, had to follow.
 
 CONCLUSION 285 
 
 It will be noticed, also, that I have spoken of 
 ideals and not of one ideal, because of the definite 
 meaning I have given to the word. In a sense the 
 state desired is one, but it is not therefore simple ; 
 and even if there is a fundamental agreement 
 between Socialists and Individualists, Nationalists 
 and Imperialists, as there is some common desire 
 in the hope for Liberty or for Order, yet the distinct 
 elements in the state desired must be kept separate 
 or we shall become sentimental Utopians, such as 
 are unwilling to disagree with others because they 
 do not wish to think out clearly what they them- 
 selves desire. 
 
 Political Issues and Political Practice. 
 
 It remains to be said that in reasoning about 
 political facts two questions have been kept dis- 
 tinct. One is 'What in the present situation is 
 right and what is wrong ? ' and the other is ' What 
 is the remedy for wrong or the means for develop- 
 ing the right ? ' The study of politics should 
 increase our capacity for diagnosing social disease 
 or recognizing social good.^ The statement of 
 facts must be accompanied by ethical judgement, 
 and we must be able to see that what at first sight 
 seems evil may turn out to be good, or what at first 
 sight seems good may be really evil. The ethical 
 judgement needs training just as much as the 
 capacity for observing or stating facts, and often 
 a good statistician or an honest recorder of the 
 
 ^ Since party-politics is based on suggesting remedies 
 tlie tendency in practical politics is pathological. The 
 successful speaker generally says more about the evils 
 than about the good in the present situation.
 
 286 CONCLUSION 
 
 existing circumstances is quite incompetent to 
 judge social good and evil. All sorts of ready 
 platitudes pass current for such judgements since 
 few have any real grasp of the test of events or acts 
 according to their far-off consequences. Ethical 
 judgements of value are not inspired or intuitive : 
 they are correct or incorrect according to certain 
 evidence. Now in answering the question ' What 
 is wrong ? ' the opinion of the majority is a useful 
 guide ; for the patient is often the most skilful 
 exponent of his suffering. But the case is different 
 when we wish to discover a remedy. 
 
 In answer to the question ' What is the remedy 
 for social disease ?' the opinion of the majority is 
 of only secondary importance ; for the suggesting 
 of remedies is the office of specialists.^ These are 
 the physicians of the body poHtic. They must 
 suggest the remedy by reference to their more 
 general study of political issues ; for the patient 
 can very seldom suggest the remedy for his own 
 pain. And yet even here the expression of opinion 
 by the majority seems to be necessary — this is 
 what makes some form of democracy essential to 
 
 ^ I am supposing that professional politicians are 
 specialists who know the subject, and I think it is true 
 of England, Germany, France, and Italy ; even in America 
 the ignorance of political philosophy among professional 
 politicians is less crass than the ignorance of the voting 
 population. Or we may suppose that the members of 
 a Cabinet are the real specialists in suggesting remedies 
 (cf. Graham Wallas, The Oreat Society, p. 276). 
 
 It may also be supposed that Government officials are 
 the real specialists since they consider all the evidence 
 and decide on remedies independently of party-prejudice 
 (op. cit., p. 285). But the caste-mind and the official spirit 
 make the real issues to be decided difficult to see, and 
 official decisions are worse than those of Parliament.
 
 CONCLUSION 287 
 
 civilization. For when the specialist has suggested 
 a remedy and it has been tried, it remains for the 
 patient to say whether he feels better. In a bene- 
 volent despotism the despot may, for the good of 
 the people, administer social remedies and the 
 patient may have no power of saying if the remedy 
 is killing him. It is so also in any rule by an 
 aristocracy, even the most intelligent — the whole 
 of society may suffer through not being able 
 effectively to complain against the medicines 
 administered for its benefit. Here also then the 
 opinion of the majority is valuable as the best 
 practical statement of political judgements. 
 
 But the problems being complex no one remedy 
 or panacea is likely to be effective ; and the study 
 of ideals will suggest how many different evils may 
 exist and how many different treatments may be 
 necessary. With a fuller historical knowledge 
 some modern plans for social reform would have 
 been seen to have already failed long ago,i and 
 other remedies would be suggested which have 
 never been given an adequate trial. 
 
 Now the number and variety of answers to the 
 question ' What is the remedy ? ' give a reasonable 
 ground for the existence of political parties. It 
 seems good that this remedy should be advocated 
 by one body of specialists and this other by another; 
 and although much may be said against the narrow- 
 ness of 'party', exactly the same may be said 
 against any body of specialists who are not com- 
 pletely agreed on a complex issue. Abstractly it 
 may be possible to conceive of specialists who would 
 
 * This is the case with Syndicalism, which, as Mr. Graham 
 Wallas points out {The Great Society, p. 327), was tried and 
 failed in the Guild System of mediaeval cities.
 
 288 CONCLUSION 
 
 know everything ; but we have not even found 
 these in the simpler issues of physical disease. ^ 
 
 I do not say that every political party has a 
 reasonable remedy to suggest ; I say only that such 
 a suggestion would be a good ground for the exis- 
 tence of a party .2 Until the remedy is applied the 
 party may well continue to advocate it, and its 
 various members may well continue to point out 
 its advantages. Doubtless there is the further 
 danger of the doctor's maintaining himself on the 
 illness of the patient. It may pay a party-poli- 
 tician to neglect the interest of the patient in view 
 of the position of his clique ; but I see no reason 
 to suppose that political specialists are more dis- 
 honest than any other specialists, although I admit 
 that there is more room for quackery in politics 
 since the problems are more complex and our 
 ignorance more complete than in the case of 
 medicine. 
 
 It would follow from this that parties should be 
 more flexible, should exist for advocating one 
 principle only, and that there should perhaps be 
 many parties each in existence for a short period. 
 But party-tradition is also reasonable, in so far as 
 most partial remedies are applications of a few 
 general principles. On this ground we may explain 
 the existence of parly-governmeM which involves 
 the opposition between two parties only ; for it is 
 clear that all political remedies for social evil can 
 
 1 All attacks which I have seen on the party system 
 seem to imply that we know what should be done but 
 that party -politicians will not do it. But I am not so 
 confident that any one knows so much, and I am absolutely 
 certain that the opponents of the party system do not. 
 
 ^ A party may conceivably exist by saying ' Nothing 
 is wrong '; in which case no remedy would be necessary.
 
 CONCLUSION 289 
 
 be reduced either to the principle of Order or to 
 that of Liberty. Thus the ideals of which I have 
 traced the history are among the formative forces 
 even in the practical politics of to-day, and in spite 
 of the deficiencies of our political machine some 
 reasons may be given for reforming it rather than 
 abolishing it. Indeed, the disagreements upon 
 which parties and party government flourish may 
 well be advantages for preserving criticism and 
 opposing the dogmatism of any clique. 
 
 The demand for specialists to suggest remedies 
 has led among other things to Cabinet government, 
 and this is dangerous just so far as, the Cabinet 
 being the doctors, the patients may be refused an)'' 
 power of rejecting the medicines prescribed or even 
 saying that they are no better for the use of them. 
 The power to express disagreement is valuable. 
 
 The fact remains that, in spite of disagreement 
 due to a different view of the facts or to different 
 suggestions of remedy, there is a general agreement 
 on many issues ; and it would be a great disadvan- 
 tage if in the heat of party-controversy we lost sight 
 of these fundamental principles. The practical or 
 professional politician is more concerned with the 
 disputed issues than with such principles ; but to 
 the majority in a democracy they are more impor- 
 tant than this or that piece of legislation, and even 
 the professional politician will give no force to his 
 party-programme unless he draws such force from 
 the fundamental principles upon which all civilized 
 men are agreed. 
 
 As instances of such principles I may cite the 
 conception that all government should be for the 
 benefit of all the governed. In default of this it is 
 generally admitted that government should be for 
 
 1782 T
 
 290 CONCLUSION 
 
 the benefit at least of the majority. Sucli is a prin- 
 ciple with respect to the relation of individual to 
 individual. And as for the relation of group to 
 group, it would be generally admitted that apart 
 from the common needs of their common humanity, 
 each group is likely to be benefited in a different 
 way. This is the general principle of regionaUsm 
 or local government. Many other such funda- 
 mental principles could be found ; and it is most 
 important that those with political power, however 
 limited, should not lose sight of them in the atten- 
 tion to details during elections or in the forget- 
 fulness of all political issues which comes over the 
 majority when no election is pending. 
 
 Of politics in general it remains to be said that 
 the situation at present cannot be regarded as 
 altogether admirable ; and even if a" few are able 
 to admire it, they also must consider in what 
 direction they would desire it to change, for change 
 it will. There is no help for it. Every age must 
 labour at the making of ideals ; unless we are to 
 return to the blind acquiescence in natural force 
 which, although it seems to be advocated by 
 a modern philosophy, is hardly more than a return 
 to primitive barbarism. But to make the ideal and 
 to labour for it, knowledge is as requisite as good 
 intentions. It may be that men and women of good 
 will are most admirable, but they are dangerous 
 if they are ignorant. And in political action 
 knowledge is even more required nowadays than 
 good intentions. It is a wide issue and I cannot 
 here discuss it ; but one might reasonably prefer 
 to be guided by intelUgent villains each seeking 
 his own interest, rather than by well-intentioned 
 fools who continually cared for the interest of
 
 CONCLUSION 291 
 
 others ; for no man can seek his own real interest 
 without in some way attaining that of others, and 
 no man can make up by good wishes for his ignor- 
 ance of facts. Political education is what is most 
 needed ; political purity may be left to take care 
 of itself. 
 
 T 2
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 
 
 The subject is so closely related to others that 
 it seems necessary to define its limits. The merely 
 verbal definition is not enough; for the problem is 
 not to discover in what sense we shall decide to use 
 the sound ' politics ', but to distinguish one body of 
 faints from another. It is necessary, therefore, to 
 point out the general body of facts to which what 
 I have called Politics refers, and next to distin- 
 guish among those facts the smaller class called 
 Ideals. 
 
 A. Politics. 
 
 Politics is the study of the relations existing 
 between individuals and between groups.^ It 
 is concerned with law and government as the 
 organization of individual relations or those of 
 trade groups ; and with peace and war in so far as 
 these are changes in the relationship of such groups 
 as Nations or States. 
 
 It involves a knowledge of facts, as does every 
 portion of the study of human relationship ; and 
 since no present fact is isolated in time, some history 
 must be introduced. But it is primarily con- 
 cerned with moral judgements on these facts, which 
 cannot be valuable without special knowledge of 
 
 * I need riot point out that ' to be interested in Politics ' 
 may be to be concerned with facts or with the study of 
 such facts.
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 293 
 
 morality. The historian as such has no right to 
 pass moral judgements, but does so only in as far 
 as he has inherited or accidentally arrived at certain 
 moral criteria. ^ Thus Politics is, primarily, a 
 science of moral judgement on the facts of relation- 
 ship between individuals and groups. 
 
 Politics is closely connected with Economics,^ 
 but the economist need not be a good political 
 thinker ; for Economics deals only with the value 
 of work or of commodities, and Politics involves 
 an interest also in such desires as that for liberty, 
 which cannot be supposed to have an altogether 
 economic value. There are many who would make 
 of Economics the ultimate explanation of all 
 human action ; but, in the first place, it is unlikely 
 that any one science will explain all varieties of 
 action, and in the second, if the field of investiga- 
 tion is made too large. Economics will lose all its 
 quality as an exact science. It is impossible to sup- 
 pose that economic want is the only motive force 
 in history ; or, for example, to suppose that the 
 desire for liberty or the programme of nationalists 
 can be explained altogether in economic terms. 
 Liberty or even Virtue may have a cash value. 
 It may, in some unknown situation, pay to be 
 honest ; but even so, one could not explain all that 
 Liberty, or Virtue, or Order, or even Nationalism, 
 
 ^ This is obviously the case with Treitschke, who, as an 
 historian, claimed authority for moral judgements which 
 are simply primitive. The English readers may find 
 them in Selections from Treitschke' s Lectures on Politics, 
 translated by A. L. Gowans, or in The Political Thought oj 
 Heinrich von Treitschke, by H. W. C. Davis (Constable). 
 
 * Originally, aa in Mill, &c., the two are confused. The 
 very phrase ' Political Economy ' indicates a confusion. 
 Cf. Sidgwick, Elements of Politics, p. 3.
 
 294 APPENDIX I 
 
 means by referring only to cash-values. The 
 relations discussed in Economics then are those 
 of trade or profession — such as may roughly be 
 classed as industrial ; but political relations are 
 those of law and government in general. 
 
 Politics therefore is different from Economics in 
 being concerned with the organization of Society 
 for the purpose of obtaining a life which is fine in 
 quality. 1 Or if the phrase is preferable, the interest 
 ' of the political thinker is the maintenance and 
 development of civilized life, and that not chiefly, 
 and certainly not exclusively, with reference to 
 the mere supply of material want upon which all 
 civilization must depend. 
 
 Religion also in its present state is concerned 
 with social organization, at any rate since it has 
 been confused with morality. But the relation of 
 man to man and of group to group in religious 
 organization is of a different kind from that called 
 political. The exact difference between a State 
 and a Church it is not necessary to discuss. If we 
 identify the two, then we destroy one or the other ; 
 if we keep them distinct, it is difficult to distinguish 
 their interests. But for my present purpose 
 political facts are those which are involved in the 
 betterment of human life, called the progress of 
 civilization, material, intellectual, and emotional. 
 If a Church is concerned only with this and not 
 
 ^ This is simply to adapt Aristotle's phrase that the State 
 exists for ' life ' in order to move forward to ' the good 
 life ' [Pol. i. 2. 8). Again, ' the State exists for the sake 
 of a good life and not for life only' (ibid. iii. 9. 6). I need 
 hardly point out how different this conception is from 
 that of Treitschke, for example, to whom the State seems 
 to exist for the aimless exercise of ' power ' (of. Selections, 
 p. 11).
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 295 
 
 with any ' other ' Hfe, then I should be inclined 
 to call its business political. 
 
 Lastly, there is a study of social relations called 
 Sociology, of which Politics is one branch or depart- 
 ment ; for in Politics we refer to civilized commu- 
 nities living under settled government, and in 
 Sociology all forms of human association are part 
 of the subject-matter. Undoubtedly the primitive 
 forces which make and transform early associations 
 continue to be active in political communities,^ but 
 these are not peculiar to political life. 
 
 Politics therefore must be distinguished from 
 Economics, Ecclesiasticism, and Sociology. It is 
 the study of civilized organization for temporal benefit 
 in other than merely material needs. ^ Political facts 
 may be divided into two kinds : first, the relation 
 of man to man, and secondly, the relation of group 
 to group. In the most general sense Politics is con- 
 cerned with the relation of man to man in civilized 
 society ; but we find such society organized 
 into distinct groups (families, townships, regions, 
 nationalities, and states). The separation of the 
 two kinds of political facts is, of course, abstract 
 and for the purpose of study only ; since we should 
 not altogether neglect the nature of the group in 
 discussing the relation of the individuals within it, 
 nor should we forget that individuals are real when 
 we speak of the intercourse between States. But 
 we may hypothetically separate the two issues, 
 
 * Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, for such forces as 
 Sex, &c. 
 
 ^ This definition is intended to imply a wider reference 
 than that merely to Law and Government, since a great 
 part of Social Organization is not embodied in Law or 
 in Government.
 
 296 APPENDIX I 
 
 and discuss first the relation of individual to in- 
 dividual and, next, the relation of group to group. 
 Under the first heading, if we were discussing in- 
 stitutions, would appear the facts of contract or 
 individual crime or the distribution of wealth. 
 These all may be considered apart from the 
 peculiarities of national or state circumstances, for 
 there are general principles which apply to all men 
 in every group. On the other hand, we must 
 recognize as political facts the existence of groups 
 either of free association (Trade Unions, &c.) or of 
 natural growth (Families, Nations, &c.) ; and the 
 study of the relation of such groups to one another 
 forms another part of politics. 
 
 Knowledge of such facts may be again of two 
 kinds — it may be ' scientific ' or it may be ethical ; 
 that is to say, it may involve only a statement 
 of facts which have existed or do exist, and in 
 that sense it is descriptive although we may also 
 classify and compare. That is the purpose of 
 Political Science,'^ whether the principle of develop- 
 ment be introduced or not, so long as there is no 
 question of ' progress ' or any comparison of facts 
 as good and bad. But political facts may also be 
 studied with a view to comparing their ethical 
 values ; and in this case we should be concerned 
 not merely with the question whether such facts 
 did or do exist, but also with the question whether 
 or not it was or is good that they should so exist. 
 And this is the purpose of Political Philosophy,^ 
 
 1 The distinctions, &c., here made are partly due to 
 Sidgwick, see the Elements of Politics, ch. i, and the Intro- 
 duction to The Development of European Polity. 
 
 2 Thus Sidgwick, El. Pol., p. 12. ' The study of Politics 
 as I shall treat it is concerned primarily with constructing
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 297 
 
 which implies a knowledge of what ought to be or of 
 an ethical standard. That there is such a standard 
 and that it may roughly be described in Utilitarian 
 terms, I take for granted ; since in spite of much 
 philosophical criticism, 'the greatest happiness of 
 the greatest number ' remains the best single and 
 popular, if inexact, rendering of what most men 
 desire who are concerned at all with political issues. 
 But the conception would have to be much more 
 closely defined if one were concerned chiefly with 
 the discovery of what ought to be the situation in 
 a civilized community. Here, however, I need only 
 make it clear that the existence of some standard of 
 what ought to be is one among many political facts. 
 Even if political philosophy is the discussion of 
 such a standard, the discovery of what standards 
 have been accepted^ and of how they govern action 
 would be important quite apart from the ultimate 
 comparison of them all or the suggestion as to a 
 supreme or Utopian Society. We have therefore as 
 material for the use of reasoning in this matter : (1) 
 the relation of individuals, (2) the relation of groups, 
 (3) the succession of events, and (4) the influence 
 of ethical standards, and doubtless many other facts 
 which may be intimately related with these. 
 
 on the basis of certain psychological premises the system 
 of relations which oiught to be established among the 
 persons governing and between them and the governed 
 in a society of civilized men in the last stage which has 
 yet been reached in the progress of civilization.' It will 
 be noticed that in what follows, in spite of my debt to 
 Sidgwick, I have not given such prominence to the idea 
 of government as he has. That is only one of the many 
 relations between civilized men. 
 
 ^ This is the subject of Freeman's Comparative Politics ; 
 but I have not dealt with standards which have existed 
 and are no longer effective.
 
 298 APPENDIX I 
 
 B. Ideals. 
 
 Such are the facts of politics ; but among the 
 various facts are some which are called ideals : 
 that is to say, the things or states desired, which 
 would imply a modification of law or government, 
 or, in group relations, a modification of existing 
 circumstances. 
 
 Positively therefore an ideal is, first, a plan in 
 an individual mind. We must rule out of exact 
 history such phrases as ' the crowd mind ' or ' the 
 collective mind ' although they may be valuable 
 for rhetoric and poetry. When several people 
 desire the same thing, their ideal is one, but their 
 minds are still distinct. When several people in 
 a crowd behave differently from the way in which 
 each would behave when by himself, we must not 
 suppose that any new Spirit or Mind is present ; 
 for it is to be explained by the different circum- 
 stances in which each man then finds himself. He 
 is influenced by the presence of the crowd, but he 
 remains himself. ^ 
 
 But in simple fact no individual is isolated. 
 Every man is influenced by some others, even if he 
 is not at the moment in a crowd. The bare fact 
 that the house next door is inhabited has its part 
 in the formation of each individual's character, 
 knowledge, and desires ; and thus there is hardly 
 any permanent ideal, hardly any desirable state, 
 which moves the separate individual. We are 
 all helped or hindered by our neighbours. An 
 
 1 The proof is in McDougall's Social Psychology, in 
 opposition to the wild statements and uncriticized meta- 
 phor of such writers as Le Bon.
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 299 
 
 ideal is therefore a conception of what would 
 satisfy such a want as can only be felt by many 
 men influenced one by the other. I omit here all 
 transient wants giving rise to momentary ideals 
 and all poetic visions of better things which have 
 not actually been understood or felt as motive 
 forces in remodelling any existing situation. The 
 statement of the ideal in literature is, of course, 
 always personal, but some such statements are 
 expressions of common sentiment and others of 
 private enthusiasm.^ 
 
 Of ideals there are many kinds. For men may 
 follow an artistic or a religious or an athletic ideal. 
 They may be impressed with the necessity for 
 town-planning, no longer believing in the natural 
 beauty of the city jungle. Or they may all agree 
 to go to church on Sundays in order to feel more 
 exalted. Or they may be undergraduates to their 
 dying day. But among ideals there are some 
 which are political. 
 
 A political ideal is dependent upon a political 
 dissatisfaction ; and by that I mean the perception 
 that there is some maladjustment in the relations 
 of men living together in different stable com- 
 munities. It is found that A, B, and C have no 
 power of going where D, E, and F are, or of speaking 
 to them on equal terms ; and thus a general con- 
 ception arises not only in the minds of A, B, and C, 
 
 ^ I have therefore neglected such ' individual ' ideals 
 as are expressed in More's Utopia ; for although they are 
 due to social causes and have had social effects, they 
 never were motive forces in actual politics. On the other 
 hand, Dante's de Monarchia expresses, I think, a common 
 ideal ; but I confess the distinction between the two kinds 
 of statement is dependent upon a criticism of the actual 
 text in each case, and the history of its effect.
 
 300 APPENDIX I 
 
 but sometimes also in tlie mind of D, E, or F, that 
 it would be better for all if each were in some 
 sense the equal of the other. Or again, the group 
 M, N, P finds itself oppressed by the group W, 
 X, Y, Z ; and it occurs to both that each would 
 gain if each had free play for its own characteristic 
 abilities. 
 
 A political ideal then has generally two distinct 
 elements, in so far as politics deals with individuals 
 associated together in groups. For we may con- 
 sider at one moment the relation of individuals to 
 one another and at another the relation of group 
 to group. Thus liberty involves both the inde- 
 pendence of one individual as against the power 
 of another, and also the mutual independence of 
 groups of individuals ; so that the political leader 
 has often to emphasize, first, opposition to foreign 
 aggression, and then defiance of internal oppression 
 by a caste or an individual tyrant. These two 
 quite distinct ideas together make up the ideal of 
 political liberty ; and we may thus treat them as 
 constituent elements of one whole, admitting, of 
 course, that to divide them is to take apart what is 
 really one movement. The arbitrary division of 
 ideals, which has often been the result of party 
 government, has sometimes resulted in opposing 
 the desire for internal freedom to the desire for 
 group independence. Thus one party may speak 
 as if true liberty did not imply any care for pre- 
 serving national independence, and the other party 
 may just as foolishly speak as if internal oppression 
 of caste by caste or individual by individual were 
 not a real danger. In the name of liberty one 
 party will have nothing but internal reform, and in 
 the same name the other party will have nothing
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 301 
 
 but national defence. True liberty implies both ; 
 and if we deal with the two elements separately, 
 it should not perpetuate in reasoning a division 
 already too prominent in party traditions, but 
 should only make it possible to examine more 
 easily the one ideal in its difierent phases. The 
 change in a political situation, in so far as it is due 
 to an ideal at all, is sometimes worked by a partial 
 or limited conception of what is desirable, some- 
 times by a complex and intricate desire involving 
 both readjustment of groups and the reform of the 
 relations between individuals. The ideal in its 
 full meaning is never a motive power among the 
 many ; it is always embodied, as it were, in some 
 definite and limited idea of satisfaction for some 
 almost trivial want. Thus the great man may 
 work for liberty, but the small man, governed 
 unconsciously by the same ideal, thinks he is 
 working only for abiUty to sell his vegetables at 
 a higher price. 
 
 The farther back we go in history the less intri- 
 cate seem the desires which govern men. With 
 respect to Athens and Rome it is not necessary to 
 treat at length and separately the theory of the 
 relation of groups and that of the relation of indi- 
 viduals within the groups. Athenian liberty does 
 indeed imply both the independence of Athens and 
 the individualism of the Athenians ; Roman Order 
 means both the suzerainty of Rome in an organized 
 world and the 'orders' of her citizens. But as 
 civilization progresses and the relations between 
 men and groups of men become more complex, 
 those who work for internal liberty are quite dis- 
 tinct from those who work for National freedom 
 and sometimes the two parties are opposed. Thus
 
 302 APPENDIX I 
 
 in dealing with ideals of a more recent growth it 
 is necessary to distinguish those which concern 
 individuals from those which concern groups. 
 
 One may express abruptly some of the implica- 
 tions in all this. Restricted as above, the practice 
 of politics will be only one among many functions 
 of the civilized man in society ; and it will not 
 necessarily be the highest. Therefore the supreme 
 institution of political life, the State, is not 
 sovereign, in the sense that when a man's allegiance 
 is divided between what he owes the State and what 
 he owes to some other social institution it does 
 not follow that State-allegiance must be recognized 
 as supreme.^ 
 
 All traditional philosophy of the State impHes 
 that the State is complete in itself. But even 
 with respect to purely political life or functions, 
 the modern State is not economically or politically 
 independent of other States. Therefore again it 
 is not sovereign in the Renaissance sense. Plato 
 and Aristotle regarded the State as self-sufficing ; 
 and it was partly true of the States they knew. 
 But to continue to regard inter-State relations 
 as a mere appendix to the discussion of law and 
 government is to perpetuate an obsolete idea. It 
 is not true that the essence of the State is indepen- 
 dence. All States are now continuously and 
 normally in contact, and the nature of each is 
 affected by the nature of others. 
 
 As for ideals, these are of importance for group- 
 
 * The above was written before I had read Mr. G. D. H. 
 Cole's paper on 'Conflicting Social Obligations' (Proc. Arist. 
 Soc, February 1915), which partly expresses the same 
 idea ; but he maintains that there is a sovereign society 
 above the State.
 
 LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT 303 
 
 morality. The morality of a man acting for 
 his group should not be lower than when acting 
 for himself ; and again, every member of a group, 
 in so far as it is a moral association, should be 
 unwilling to benefit by any act of his repre- 
 sentatives which he would be ashamed to do for 
 himself.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 REASONING IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 
 
 It is implied in what has been said that reasoning 
 is of importance in political development, since I 
 have supposed that the ideal is in some sense the 
 result of rational process. The state desired is 
 a state conceived, and its conception is due in part 
 at least to the process called reasoning. There is, 
 however, a modern tendency to decry reasoning in 
 general and in particular with reference to politics. 
 Bergson is a convenient name to use as a symbol 
 for what I take to be a not uncommon attitude in 
 general philosophy. He himself may not disdain 
 the reasoning process, but his followers do ; and his 
 language at least gives colour to the idea that there 
 is some more exalted method of attaining a know- 
 ledge of reality. Such an attitude is opposed to 
 what is stated in this book, but the general issue 
 is not necessarily involved. In the more restricted 
 reference to politics the same tendency to under- 
 value reasoning appears in the works of Sorel, 
 McDougall, and Graham Wallas. ^ I do not mean, 
 of course, that any of these are so unwarrantably 
 dogmatic as Le Bon ; but there is, none the less, 
 a certain eagerness in repudiating the too 'rational ' 
 man of Aristotle and Plato, of Kant, Fichte and 
 
 1 Mr. Wallas has recanted in The Great Society what 
 seems to have been the chief thesis of Human Nature in 
 Politics. Mr. McDougall has, of course, not gone so far 
 as Sorel.
 
 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 305 
 
 Hegel, of Spencer and Mill. It is clear that the 
 philosophical tradition gives too high a place to 
 reasoning.! 
 
 The question is how political change takes place. 
 The older philosophers no doubt exaggerated the 
 effectiveness of reasoning in all such changes ; but 
 the newer writers have inclined to an opposite 
 extreme ; and, without claiming to represent any 
 compromise, what has been said above must be held 
 to imply the corrected view of the effects of rational 
 process in changing life. 
 
 For it seems that much of the modern disdain 
 for reasoning is due to mistaken belief as to the 
 nature of reasoning ; and I shall therefore attempt 
 to say in what sense of the word I maintain that 
 reasoning has produced ideals and thus affected 
 political development. 
 
 It sounds trivial to say so, but it must first be 
 asserted that reasoning is not logic. The process 
 itself is quite independent of the description of it ; 
 and even if logic is quite futile, reasoning would not 
 therefore be in any way proved to be ineffective. 
 But many writers, especially of the Pragmatist 
 School, appear to think that an attack on logic is 
 likely to dethrone reasoning. Reasoning, however, 
 may still be a method of arriving at truth even if 
 the descriptive laws of induction or deduction are 
 not valid. 
 
 Thus, when it is said that reasoning is effective 
 in political development, we do not necessarily 
 
 • As philosophers have said that common men make 
 Gods in their own image, so now we say that philosophers 
 have made Man in their own image. The ' rational Man ' 
 is doubtless a splendid hypothesis based largely on the 
 personal habits and interests of the great thinkers. 
 1782 XJ
 
 306 APPENDIX II 
 
 imply that any of the laws of logic can be observed 
 in operation, although one may be inclined to sus- 
 pect that too much has been made of the mistakes 
 or limitations in the description of reasoning given 
 by logicians. 
 
 In the second place, reasoning is not argument. 
 The usual method of controversy, where politics is 
 managed by parties, is argument as distinct from 
 reasoning ; since an argument is an attempt to 
 find excuses for a view which is accepted before 
 these excuses are discovered, and this is a natural 
 method when a party or a tradition prescribes the 
 programme and the speaker or writer has only to 
 maintain it. Argument is the method of a lawyer 
 maintaining a case or a theologian defending a 
 creed. The lawyer is not concerned to discover 
 whether his case is just or the position of his client 
 equitable : he has only to make the best show he 
 can for his client by discovering as much evidence 
 as possible in his favour and disregarding or 
 destroying the rest. If the case is just, so much 
 the better ; but even if it is, its success depends 
 upon the skill of the advocate for using evidence. 
 The position is accepted before the defence is con- 
 sidered, and evidence which may be used against 
 it is treated as only objections to be answered. 
 
 Again, the theologian does not set out to discover 
 a new truth. He already 'knows' the truth, or 
 rather he accepts as true what is in his peculiar 
 tradition ; and he then attempts to find arguments 
 to prove it true. The conclusion is in his mind 
 before he considers the premises ; he knows the 
 goal to be reached, he is only in doubt as to the best 
 method of reaching it. All evidence against his 
 creed is a mere ' difficulty ' to be surmounted, if it
 
 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 307 
 
 is not an empty subtlety of the evil one. Thus he 
 does not really discuss any evidence, for the evi- 
 dence against his view is not treated as evidence 
 at all. Exactly the same may generally be said of 
 the party politician. He has a case to maintain and 
 he looks round for arguments in its favour. But 
 this is not reasoning. For reasoning is a discovery : 
 it is an advance into an unknown and unexplored 
 country : it is an experiment in the dark, a reach- 
 ing out, as we may vulgarly put it, to turn on the 
 light. At the beginning of the process of reasoning 
 nothing appears but the evidence to be dealt with ; 
 at the end this evidence has forced us into a position 
 never before occupied. And so argument is a 
 parody of reasoning : for it exactly reverses the 
 reasoning process. It is often only the ghost of 
 dead reasoning, since it is literally some other per- 
 son's reasoning haunting the graveyards of dead 
 ideas which many call their minds. I say nothing 
 against argument, since it is very useful that, if 
 you wish to hold an opinion, you should discover 
 even the ghost of a proof for it : this will make 
 you both a pleasanter companion because less 
 dogmatic, and a more civilized citizen because you 
 will probably understand your own opinion better. 
 Long may argument continue : it is in some nations 
 the only substitute for conversation. 
 
 Philosophers, however, should not condemn 
 reasoning because of the deficiencies of argument 
 as a method of reaching truth. ^ Reasoning is half 
 insight, and the other half analysis and synthesis : 
 the evidence, be it ever so well analysed and 
 classified, is useless to any one without insight. 
 
 ^ I confess that this seems to me to be done in 
 M. Bergson's V Evolution creatrice.
 
 308 APPENDIX II 
 
 And one may suspect that no man is altogether 
 without insight although many neglect to use it. 
 But reasoning is not to be described in terms of 
 anything else ; and if a man does not know at all 
 what the process may be which I have so far dis- 
 tinguished from argument, no further words will 
 be of any use. One must have used reasoning to 
 understand what it is ; as a process it is unique, 
 and one could no more explain it to a person who 
 had never used it than one could explain colour to 
 a blind man. It is first therefore to be understood 
 by distinction from argument, and that involves 
 that it must be itself experienced. But reasoning 
 is a process in common use. It is the method that 
 gives power to any business transaction which is 
 not a mere continuance of an antiquated tradition. 
 It is the method by which communication is made 
 every day easier and our knowledge of natural 
 forces more useful. There is enough of it for all 
 men to understand what it is ; the only trouble is 
 that with respect to some subjects it is not com- 
 monly used. But in all subjects it is the process 
 by which we discover what we did not know before. 
 The general laws concerning its use are to be found 
 in Logic,^ and these I need not here describe. 
 We shall in any case recognize that, like all 
 psychological processes, reasoning has typical forms 
 and pathological varieties. 
 
 ^ I do not imply that any present Logic does give 
 a sufficient account of reasoning. I say only that to give 
 such an account is the task of Logic.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acton, 191. 
 
 Aeschylus, 33. 
 
 Anarchism, 246. 
 
 Aquinas, 109. 
 
 Aristotle, 22, 31, 37, 44 seq., 
 
 75. 
 Arnold, 42. 
 Athens, 28 seq. 
 Augustine, 78 seq. 
 Avignon, 128. 
 
 Bakunin, 248. 
 Balance of power, 124. 
 Barker, 38, 42, 44, 72. 
 Bergson, 305. 
 Bevan, 50. 
 Bismarck, 187, 203. 
 Bodin, 135. 
 Boniface VIII. 127. 
 Bosanquet, 170, 237, 251. 
 Brvce, 101, 199. 
 Buckle, 15, 176. 
 
 Cabinet, 289. 
 Capitalism, 268. 
 Carlvle, J., 73, 97, 99. 
 Carlyle, T., 15. 
 Cato, 82. 
 
 Charlemagne, 101. 
 Christianity, 76. 
 Church, Roman, 100. 
 Cicero, 63. 
 
 Colonies, British, 2Ul. 
 Roman, 56. 
 
 Concert of Europe, 110. 
 Cosmopolitanism, 70, 205. 
 Cromer, 199. 
 Cusanus, 134. 
 
 Dante, 108, 112. 
 Demosthenes, 34. 
 Durham, 201. 
 Durkheim, 241, 249, 280. 
 
 Economics, 293. 
 Empire, British, 201. 
 
 German, 203. 
 
 Roman, 58. 
 England, 129. 
 Equality, 70 seq. 
 
 Faguet, 47. 
 Federalism, 118. 
 Fichte, 184. 
 Figgis, 133. 
 France, 128. 
 Freeman, 68. 
 
 German politics, 114. 
 Germany, 187, 203. 
 Gibbon, 66. 
 Gregory I, 98. 
 Grotius, 130, 137. 
 Guilds, 273. 
 
 Herodotus, 28, 33, 40. 
 History, 12.
 
 310 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hobbes, 36, 140. 
 
 Hobson, J. A., 192, 198, 
 
 218. 
 Holy Roman Empire, 93. 
 Horace, 63. 
 
 Ideals, 17, 298. 
 Imperialism, 197 seq. 
 India, 201, 233. 
 Individualism, 228. 
 Isocrates, 34, 41. 
 Italy, 55, 129. 
 lus gentium, 57. 
 
 Kings, 128. 
 Kipling, 95. 
 
 Kropotkin, 248. 
 
 Langland, 111, 121. 
 Law, Roman, 57. 
 Liberty, 29. 
 Livy, 56. 
 Locke, 163. 
 
 McDougall, 177. 
 Machiavelli, 128, 143 seq. 
 Maine, 27, 59. 
 Marsilius, 113, 154. 
 Marx, 16, 267 seq. 
 Mazzini, 190. 
 Middle Ages, 92. 
 Mill, 175, 241 seq., 273. 
 Morley, 157, 184. 
 Morris, 265. 
 
 Napoleon, 171. 
 Nationalism, 126, 174 seq. 
 Nietzsche, 230. 
 
 Ockham, 113, 154. 
 Order, 52. 
 
 Party, 287. 
 
 Party-government, 288. 
 Pausanias, 31, 33, 49. 
 Plato, 37, 40, 42 seq. 
 Plutarch, 33. 
 Poland, 145. 
 Politicians, 286. 
 Politics, 292. 
 Pollard, 127, 129. 
 Poole, 113. 
 Proudhon, 248. 
 Provincialism, 207. 
 
 Race, 74. 
 Rashdall, 105. 
 Reasoning, 303. 
 Renaissance, 122. 
 Renan, 178. 
 
 Revolution, English, 150. 
 French, 149. 
 Roads, 55. 
 Romanticism, 169. 
 Rome, 51 seq. 
 Rousseau, 153, 156 seq. 
 Rowntree, 227. 
 
 Schardius 105. 
 Seeley, 24, 198, 209, 223. 
 Seneca, 77. 81, 85. 
 Sidgwick, 24, 31, 51, 236, 
 
 244. 
 Slaverj% 79, 83. 
 Socialism, 254 seq. 
 Sovereignty, 122. 
 Spain, 129. 
 Spencer, 239. 
 State, 123. 
 Statesman, 145. 
 Stoics, 76. 
 Studium, 106. 
 Suicide, 81. 
 Syndicalism, 274.
 
 Tacitus. 60, 65, 66. 
 Thucydides, 39. 
 Treitschke, 293. 
 Trevelyan, 15, 185. 
 Troeltsch, 76, 112. 
 Tiidors, 129. 
 
 Unity, 92. 
 Universities, 105. 
 
 INDEX 
 
 I Vote, 173, 286. 
 
 Wallas, 140, 274. 
 War, 95. 
 Wells, 265, 272. 
 Women, 167. 
 
 Young, 164. 
 
 Zimmern, 45. 
 
 311 
 
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