opens men's eyes to the vast complexity of their political existence; because it compels them to recognise that the State, so far from basing itself solely upon material interests, draws its life also, and no less, from the more spiritual elements of man's nature: from his moral and religious instincts, from the beliefs and traditions which he has inherited from the past, from the passions and prejudices, both good and evil, which are either inherent in his nature or have been fostered by the circumstances, historical and otherwise, in which he is or has been placed. To the latter it is still more obviously fatal, because the first inference to be drawn from it is that the individual, as conceived by Locke and others, is a pure fiction of the imagination; that from the first syllable of recorded time man has always appeared as member of some kind of society; and that by the peculiar character of that society, far more than by any qualities he may have received from nature, he has been moulded to what he is.

The historical argument thus implicit in Montesquieu and more eagerly driven home by Burke is reinforced by the more speculative argument first definitely put forward in the Contrat Social of Rousseau, by the plea that no State can worthily fulfil its functions unless it is based, at least in principle, upon the total surrender of every member to the 'general will' of the community at large, the subordination of the individual to the 'corporate self'; by the further plea that the individual as such-the 'unsocial, uncivil individual '—is the mere creature of his physical appetites' and selfish interests, real or imaginary—in one word, a ‘stupid and limited animal'; that it is the civil state which alone trains and unfolds his faculties; which alone teaches him the 'mastery of himself,' and gives him 'moral liberty'; which alone, therefore, ' makes of him a reasonable being and a man.' Such is the main burden of Rousseau's argument in his crowning treatise, and it is manifestly intended for the ears of the individualists. Yet for the Utilitarians also the Contrat Social had a message, if they had been minded to listen to it. But, as that message was perhaps unintended and certainly went unheeded, this is not the place to speak of it in detail.

That all the elements-political, economic, religious, moral and the rest which go to make up the life of the community are inseparably bound together; that all the members of that community unite to form one organic whole, one ' corporate self': such are the two ideas—the one first formulated by Burke and Montes

quieu, the other by Rousseau-which lie at the foundation of the modern conception of the State. And the history of the last century and a half is the history of successive endeavours to work them out with ever-increasing fullness of detail, and that alike in theory and in practice.

Considering the complexity of the problem so stated, it is small wonder that many of these attempts have been only partially successful. The various Socialist sects on the one side, the German philosophers on the other-each of these were blind to at least one element of the problem. The Socialists have shown an everincreasing tendency to resolve everything into a question of economics. Fichte and Hegel outbade each other in tacitly replacing the community by the Government, which, on any sound theory, is presumed merely to represent it. The inevitable effect of this was to destroy that principle of individuality which is necessary to the healthy life of every community, and without which the unity of the State sinks into a mere mechanical uniformity. Yet, with all these aberrations-aberrations which, in the latter case at any rate, get to the root of the whole matter-both schools alike have the merit of insisting upon the rights of the community as against those of the individual, of the 'corporate' as against the merely personal 'self.' And that is a side of the truth which neither Utilitarian nor champion of abstract rights— for at bottom the one was as crabbedly individualist as the other -was ever able to grasp. Over and above this service, which is common to both these schools in question, the Socialists have the further merit of exposing the abuses inherent in the present distribution of property; of proclaiming the necessity of reforming, if not of altogether abolishing, the economic system which we have allowed to impose itself upon us from the past. And that, it need hardly be said, is a service in which the prophets of the 'absolute State' can claim no part nor lot.

Engrossed as they are with the economic, which is above all a practical question, the Socialists have paid comparatively little attention to the more speculative side of political theory. They stand, therefore, in some measure apart from the main line of our enquiry, and for our purposes, Fichte and Hegel, who are nothing if not speculative in their methods, are of more importance. They range themselves in the direct line of succession from Rousseau

(who in his turn stands in close connection with Burke and Montesquieu) to Mazzini. They form the connecting link between the prophet of a contract which demands the total surrender of the individual to the community on the one hand, and the apostle of nationality—a nationality, however, rigorously qualified by the duties which all nations alike owe to the wider whole of humanity -upon the other. The very exaggerations of which they were guilty may fairly be reckoned to have made the emphatic protest of Mazzini a necessity. Their infatuation for the 'absolute state,' for the unbridled right of the stronger nation to trample upon its weaker rivals, may well have borne its part in impelling Mazzini to place all nations alike under the wider, the less partial and therefore the juster law of humanity as a whole. That at any rate-or rather the insight which enabled him to give its due weight to each of the elements (the individual, the Family, the Nation-State, Humanity, which, in an ascending scale, combine to form the political existence of man)—is the enduring service which he rendered to political theory. And beyond that, so far as the wider issues of the matter are concerned, no subsequent thinker has yet gone. It is with the name of Mazzini, therefore, that the historian of political theory may provisionally close.

CHAPTER I

BURKE

I

WITH Burke we reach the central point of our subject. Before him the theory of individual Rights had been assailed both on the right flank and on the left. It had been riddled in the name of history and experience. It had been torn to pieces in the name of speculative consistency. But up to this time the two assaults had been conducted without concert. Between the two lines of attack there had been no understanding or co-operation. Vico and Montesquieu had kept themselves within the ground of history. Rousseau, though less exclusively, had in the main confined himself to that of philosophy and speculation. In Burke, on the other hand, the two assaults are combined; the lines, which hitherto had run parallel, at last begin to converge. The historical criticism is enlisted in the service of a speculative idea; the speculative idea receives form and body from the historical method. The assault, thus doubly directed, was doubly damaging in its effect. More than that; each line of the argument was deeply modified by contact with the other.

The full fruits of Burke's genius were not gathered till the closing years of his life. Had he died before the French Revolution he would have been known solely as a great orator and statesman. In the history of Political Philosophy he would have hardly found a place. Yet, looking back over his earlier years, in the light of those which followed, we are able to see that, even in them, he contributed something solid to political speculation; that his speeches and pamphlets, whatever else they may be, are masterpieces of the historical method, such as, in matters of practical politics, have never been approached. The affairs of the home country, the affairs of the American colonies, the affairs of India, all in turn are sifted to the very bottom. The crucial point in each case is laid bare. The cause of the difficulty is traced to its first beginnings. And the remedy proposed is that

VOL. II

B

which experience, in like cases, has proved the most effectual. It may be said that this is the method which all statesmen who know their business have employed. And, in a certain sense, this is true. The difference is that Burke uses it with more industry, with more constancy, above all, with more insight, than any man before him; possibly than any who have followed in his steps.

Moreover-and for our purpose this is yet more significantBurke never ceases to be conscious what weapons he is handling; he chooses them deliberately and of set purpose. If he appeals to experience, it is because he knows that the only alternative is an appeal to prejudice or self-interest; if to expediency-and that, for him, is only another name for experience-it is because his opponents invoke the name of certain traditional or chartered Rights. Thus, from the very first, the ground is marked out with absolute precision. From the beginning, Burke recognises that, in method and principle, the struggle is between expediency and judicial Right.

In the first work of importance 1-that which deals with the dispute between the Patriot King and his incensed subjects—it is true that this radical conflict of principles remains, of necessity, in the background. Even George III. and the sophists who supplied him with arguments were shy of appealing to a Right which could hardly be asserted with decency and was certain to rouse the keenest resentment. In this case, therefore, Burke was fighting with a masked foe; and, to some extent, he was fighting in the dark. It is the more significant that, even in this piece, he should throughout appeal to expediency; to constitutional customs which, unknown and even hostile as they might be to written Statute and the legal Rights embodied in Statute, were yet firmly rooted in the history of the past; to the impossibility of combining the forms of popular government with the reality of arbitrary kingship; to the necessity which every Government is under of conforming its measures and policy with the known temper of the nation it is set to guide, of the people, however ' untoward,' whose affairs it is their fortune or duty to administer.' 2 On the other two subjects which engrossed his earlier years -the taxation of the American colonies and the affairs of India

1 Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770. It was preceded only by A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), which will fall to be noticed in connection with his later speculations, and by Observations on a late State of the Nation (1769), in reply to a Grenville pamphlet, in which he is of necessity confined to the narrow ground measured out by his opponent.

2 Works, i. 124, 125.

Compare Letter to Sheriffs: ib. p. 216.