Studies in the History of Political Philosophy Before and After Rousseau

MAZZINI

CHAPTER VI

Mazzini's main task to show that the supremacy of the
corporate life and of historical evolution are compatible with
the spontaneity and efficacy of the individual (his writings,
however, not professedly philosophical), 251.
The problem,
in his view, changes its form with the historical changes of
human life. Outlines of his philosophy of history. Two main
periods, governed by the conceptions of individuality and of
corporate action ('association"), and of right and duty, 254.
The meaning of 'progress' in history (difference from Comte and
agreement with Hegel), 258. Further account of his doctrines
on these subjects, 261. Individual and State; the task of the
former, 278. Comparison of the views of Hegel and Mazzini
on this subject, 286. Special value of Mazzini's views on the
nature of progress, on the relation of politics and morality, and
on material progress and national power, 296. His concep-
tion of nationality and of its relation to humanity, 299.
Difference between Hegel and Mazzini, especially as to the
function of reason in progress, 306. Rejection, in agreement
with Hegel, of the antithesis of organic and critical epochs, 310.
Imperfection of Mazzini's doctrine that the ideal thought
of one epoch must be completed before its practical application
can be effectually begun, and comparison of this doctrine with
that of Hegel, 313. Further points of agreement and difference
between Hegel and Mazzini. Exceptional value of Mazzini's
teaching on nationality, 319.

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251

INTRODUCTION

In politics, as in religion, the Reformation opened a new page of history. It was a revolution not merely in the chain of outward events, but also—and for our purpose still more-of the thought, the ideas, the theories which lay behind them. Once allow the appeal from authority to private judgement in matters of faith, and it is impossible, as the Reformers were soon to discover, to disallow it in matters of government. Once admit Luther and Calvin, and it is impossible to shut the door against Milton and Cromwell, against Locke and the Revolutionists of 1688. The form which the principle of private judgement naturally takes in politics is the right of the governed to appoint their governors, with the corresponding right of deposing them as soon as they cease to be acceptable. Hence the theory of the original contract' between King and People, between governor and governed, a theory which took shape in the last quarter of the sixteenth century; which gradually enlarged itself, so as to include a still more primitive, a still more fundamental contract-that between the individuals who unite in the given instance to form a given community; and which, so enlarged, became avowedly in the hands of Locke what it had always been by implication, a theory of individual rights. This theory-perhaps the most popular theory ever propounded— held the field, practically unquestioned, for at least two centuries after its first appearance. It received its death-blow partly from the Utilitarians; partly, though he himself was but half aware of what he was doing, from the hand of Rousseau.

The former of these assaults was, for the moment, the more deadly of the two; in this country, at any rate, the Utilitarians carried all before them. Priding themselves on getting rid of all mystical conceptions-all that could not, in the last resort, be reduced to desire for pleasure-they rejected rights, they repudiated

the very idea of Right, and based the whole political as well as the whole moral life of man upon self-interest or utility.' This theory was first put forward by Spinoza. But in an age which, not without reason, still clung to the principle of rights, his plea naturally fell upon deaf ears. Three-quarters of a century later it was revived, and revived in a far subtler form, by Hume. It received its final shape—a shape from which all traces of subtlety had been carefully removed from the intensely practical, no less intensely unspeculative genius of Bentham. It is hard for an

Englishman to realise, but it is the fact, that this theory, which, in the land of Bentham swept everything before it for at least threequarters of a century, never took root upon the Continent. It was a theory for the British market, and for that alone.

Each of these two theories, the utilitarian theory, no less than the theory of abstract rights, is manifestly one-sided. Each of them, in fact, supplies the elements, or at least some of the elements, which the other studiously ignores. The one can see nothing but the rights of the individual; it pays no heed to the circumstances which hem him in, and which, in reality, go far to determine, not merely the degree in which it is possible for him to attain them, but even his very capacity for conceiving them, of defining what exactly he reckons them to be. The other maintains that the outward circumstances are those which alone determine man to action; of his power to mould them, to assert himself against them, to fight for any ideal other than the utmost pleasure that may be drawn from them, it makes no admission whatever. Thus the utilitarian principle exaggerates the bondage of man, no less— perhaps even more-than the rival principle exaggerates his liberty. Both principles, therefore, because one-sided, are manifestly abstractions. And the only hope of removing that taint of abstraction was to discover some wider principle which would unite the truths hitherto so jealously isolated, which, while embracing fresh elements, hitherto entirely neglected, should above all set itself to reconcile the two fundamental elements that previous theories had held rigorously apart.

The first step towards such a theory was taken when, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, Vico, and Montesquieu after him, bethought themselves of turning from the analysis of abstract ideas to the concrete realities of man's history: of asking

themselves, 'What, in fact, is the course that man's life, as a member of civil society, has taken? What are the motives—above all, what are the ideas—which the facts furnished by the answer to that question ultimately involve?' Both writers followed this vein of enquiry in the character rather of historians than of political philosophers. Their main object is to understand the past, and make it intelligible to others. It is only in a lesser degree that they interest themselves in questions of political theory. With Burke, on whom fell the mantle of Montesquieu, the case is exactly the reverse. His genius revealed for the first time what was the real significance of the historical method, the new science' which his two predecessors had discovered; what the decisive part it was destined to play in the subsequent course of political speculation.

Thus the new method brought with it a new outlook upon man's political existence, and the essence of the change was this: that now for the first time that existence was treated not as an assemblage of fixed elements, each of which might be isolated from the others, but as an organic whole, each activity of which was inseparably bound up with all the others, no one of which could be modified without causing a correspondent change in all the rest. This is the idea which lies behind Montesquieu's definition of 'law' as essentially a relation between one object, or group of objects, and another: a definition in which the whole subsequent course of his argument is implicitly contained. This is the idea, which, still more obviously, inspires Burke's fiery assault upon the disruptive policy of the French Revolution in its earlier stages; upon the systematic simplicity,' the deliberate endeavour to suppress all variety,' to trample upon all 'individuality,' which, by what he seems to have regarded as 'an unforced choice, a fond election of evil,' was the distinctive character of its close.1 This, finally, is the idea which, whether more or less completely comprehended, has largely gone to determine all subsequent developments of political theory, as well as of the practical movements with which -as cause, or effect, or both-they have gone hand in hand.

Now it needs little reflection to show us that this argument goes to destroy the credit both of the utilitarian and, still more, of the individualist position. It is hostile to the former, because it

1 Works of Edmund Burke, ed. Rogers, 1850; vol. ii. p. 314-15: Letters on a Regicide Peace.

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Studies in the History of Political Philosophy Before and After Rousseau, Том 2