Liberalism

“ Resolved to broaden and strengthen the bounds of freedom, we who continue attached to the principles of our party will never swerve from the straight course, will never be daunted by the virulence or the violence of our opponents, will never forget to strive for that ideal of Liberalism—liberty of thought, equality of opportunity, and fraternity of aim. ”

“ Passing now to our special question, we may understand the kind of confusion in which Liberalism has lost itself, and the origin of those mistaken classings of political measures which have misled it—classings, as we shall see, by conspicuous external traits instead of by internal natures. For what, in the popular apprehension and in the apprehension of those who effected them, were the changes made by Liberals in the past? They were abolitions of grievances suffered by the people, or by portions of them: this was the common trait of them which most impressed itself on men's minds. ”

“ The liberal system, which sought to raise the individual, has degraded the masses; and this on so vast a scale and to so pitiable a degree, that the other element in liberalism, philanthropic zeal, has come again to the fore. Liberty go hang, say the new radicals; let us save the people. ”

“ In the strict sense a history of Liberalism should cover much more than politics. The same habit of mind is to be discovered everywhere else in the history of thought, most conspicuously in religious history, but not less certainly in the history of science and of art. The general victory in these innumerable conflicts of opinion has been to Liberalism, and the movement of the race, during the period with which the writer is concerned, is precisely measured by the degree in which the Liberal spirit has succeeded in modifying the establishments of the preceding age. ”

“ Just keep in harmony with liberalism and progress, and you will never be the worse for it, gentlemen. Above all, beware of reaction--do not fall back into the immoral morasses of the middle ages. Let us guard the light and liberty of our beautiful age. ”

“ Liberalism has endeavoured to go deeper into the man, to get beneath the outward complexion, to find out his intrinsic worth, and to give him that place in the social estimate which his natural powers deserve. Arbitrary distinctions are abhorrent to it. It is incapable of thinking in terms of class. ”

“ Social Liberty.
From the spiritual we turn to the practical side of life. On this side we may observe, first, that Liberalism has had to deal with those restraints on the individual which flow from the hierarchic organization of society, and reserve certain offices, certain forms of occupation, and perhaps the right or at least the opportunity of education generally, to people of a certain rank or class. ”

“ In point of fact, whether by the aid of Liberalism or through the conservative instincts of the race, the work of reconstruction has gone on side by side with that of demolition, and becomes more important generation by generation. The modern State, as I shall show, goes far towards incorporating the elements of Liberal principle, and when we have seen what these are, and to what extent they are actually realized, we shall be in a better position to understand the essentials of Liberalism, and to determine the question of its permanent value. ”

“ To the mind of the ancients, who knew something of such matters, liberty and prosperity seemed hardly compatible, yet modern liberalism wants them together. Liberals believe that free inquiry, free invention, free association, and free trade are sure to produce prosperity. I have no doubt they are right in this; the nineteenth century, that golden age of liberalism, certainly saw a great increase in wealth, in science, and in comforts. ”

“ Liberalism is ordained of the common people and sprang from a common resistance to the oppression of arbitrary and self-centred rule. Conservatism had its birth in the doctrine of the divine right of kings. The “governing classes” were ordained of God because they themselves arranged the ordination. Liberalism has its principles embodied in the human heart. ”

“ Turning, thirdly, to those principles themselves, we have recognized Liberalism in every department as a movement fairly denoted by the name—a movement of liberation, a clearance of obstructions, an opening of channels for the flow of free spontaneous vital activity. Fourthly, we have seen that in a large number of cases what is under one aspect a movement for liberty is on another side a movement towards equality, and the habitual association of these principles is so far confirmed. ”

“ By liberalism, we mean that party which believes in the principles of 1789, whose ideal is to have the middle classes, or bourgeoisie, the ruling power, to have society equally divided, to have an atheistical state, and to obtain eternal peace through unlimited material progress, which would identify the interests of nations. Liberalism, rationalism, and materialism are different names for the same system. A state without God, sovereignty of capital, dissolution of society into individuals, united by no other bond than the force of a liberal parliament majority under the control of wealth ”

“ In a few years I believe many men who are now rather aimless—men who have disconsolately watched the collapse of the old Liberalism—will be clearly telling themselves and one another of their adhesion to this new ideal. They will be working in schools and newspaper offices, in foundries and factories, in colleges and laboratories, in county councils and on school boards—even, it may be, in pulpits—for the time when the coming of the New Republic will be ripe. ”

“ Following the guidance of the actual movement of ideas, we shall reach the centre and heart of Liberalism, and we shall try to form a conception of the essentials of the Liberal creed as a constructive theory of society. This conception we shall then apply to the greater questions, political and economic, of our own day; and this will enable us finally to estimate the present position of Liberalism as a living force in the modern world and the prospect of transforming its ideals into actualities. ”

“ Neither our conservatism nor our liberalism, neither our oligarchic nor our ‘levelling’ zeal, can find much to claim as its own in a struggle which was for a hierarchy under royal licence on the one side, and for a freedom founded in grace on the other. ”

“ Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class liberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideas from the world of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, always inclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-class liberalism. ”

“ Liberalism had thriven so well with him, that he must go a little further, he must be democratic; the drift of opinion was then in that direction, so he set on foot the National, the organ of the revolutionary party. ”

“ In practical politics the work of modern Liberalism has been to alter the conditions of society so that this freedom of growth may be secured for each member of it. The old conception of society was a conception of classes. Human beings were graded and standardized. Certain privileges were reserved for certain groups. Society looked, for its estimate of a man, not to his natural powers, not to what he might make of himself, but to his brand or mark. ”

“ CATHOLIC politicians reproach liberalism with being the offspring of Protestantism and the parent of socialism and anarchism. They bring the identical charge against modern philosophy.
There is considerable truth in the accusation. In actual fact, liberalism grew to greatness in England, and, under English and American influence, in France; the liberal regime in politics was transplanted from England and America to the continent of Europe.
Liberalism is differently tinted in various countries and as advocated by various nationalities. ”

“ But the real point of significance is that, though born and bred in an atmosphere of active Liberalism (our livelihood drawn from the conduct of a “liberal” newspaper) , I had no idea, as a boy, that politics had anything to do with industry or standards of living. ”

“ In politics he held opinions which were astonishingly in advance of those of his contemporaries. He was a Free Trader. He favoured the election of local authorities, the abolition of alehouses, the encouragement of workmen's clubs and friendly societies, annual national holidays, cheap county courts, the conversion of prisons into reformatory institutions, and national compulsory education. [46] This practical Liberalism was inspired by original Liberal theory. The old feudalism and government by territorial aristocracy must go, and the middle and working classes must take its place. ”

“ This is not the place, nor is there time, to give an adequate analysis of the philosophical errors which underlie false liberalism. But I would like to point out a few of its misleading notions. As we have seen, liberalism is confused in so far as it confuses authority and tyranny, discipline and regimentation. These confusions discover for us the roots of error. ”

“ The doctrines of political and economic liberalism had been expected to usher in the millennium, and instead of that they beheld the same wretched, unhappy, sinful world, which they thought they had left. If there had been progress in the general condition of humanity, it was so slight that it was a matter of dispute. ”

“ The notion that it would specially favor Liberalism is at an end. It annuls all pressure, that of the trades-union or the social circle, as well as that of the landlord or the customer. On the other hand, it affords a cover for individual follies and for all the motives which shun the light. ”

“ This is part of the general problem which confronts all those who still care for the ideals which inspired liberalism, namely the problem of combining liberty and personal initiative with organization. Politics and economics are more and more dominated by vast organizations, in face of which the individual is in danger of becoming powerless. The State is the greatest of these organizations, and the most serious menace to liberty. And yet it seems that many of its functions must be extended rather than curtailed. ”

“ In our day, and for some few years past, the influence of Liberalism has been visibly uppermost in current criticism, which has in turn done scant justice to men of letters suspected of holding different views. ”

“ Without attempting to draw hard lines between communities, the Liberal sees in them distinctions of worth and capacity such as he sees in individuals, and he would give the same freedom of self-development to a nation as to a human being. ”

“ On the other hand, lastly, we have seen numerous cases in which the exacter definition of liberty and the precise meaning of equality remain obscure, and to discuss these will be our task. We have, moreover, admittedly regarded Liberalism mainly in its earlier and more negative aspect. We have seen it as a force working within an old society and modifying it by the loosening of the bonds which its structure imposed on human activity. ”

“ The Liberal who no longer feels at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. But the dynamic force of Liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the common good. ”

“ The Liberal declares that human beings exist before the State, and control it, that their opinion determines in what way the State, like the Church, the industrial system, and the home, shall be constructed, that opinion varies in different countries and in different ages, and will at one time and in one place acquiesce in despotism and at another time and in another place require adult suffrage, but that always, first and last, the subjects are masters of the State. ”

“ They are craving for a renewed demonstration of the ideals that are to pervade the prophecies of world adjustments and domestic relationships. They seek for an expression of their own spirit of liberalism — of the high progressive aspirations which are astir everywhere throughout the world. ”

“ The propaganda of Liberalism in the past has been weak and barren of great results. Strong personalities it has brought forth; around these societies have clustered and fallen asunder when the personal magnet was withdrawn. What we need is institutions of which persons shall be merely the exponents; institutions that must be grounded on the needs of the present, and that shall last by their own vitality, to future ages and to the increase of future good. ”

“ In this way he learns that all creeds have been produced by men, and that their differences have been accounted for by race, climate, heredity—that is to say, by a difference in circumstances. So we now know that the cause of Liberalism is the cause of civilization. Unless the race is to be a failure, the cause of Liberalism must succeed. Consequently, I have the same faith in that cause that I have in the human race.
Question. Where are the most Liberals, and in what section of the country is the best work for Liberalism being done? ”

“ The principles of liberalism are the more in evidence by reason of the fact that the framers of the constitution deliberately accepted as models the French instruments of 1791 and 1830 and were likewise influenced profoundly by their admiration for the constitutional system of Great Britain. ”

“ The striking truth in the utter failure of the hopes of post-Victorian Liberalism lies in the fact that Liberalism, the child of Whiggery, grounded its predictions in an historical theory that was a well-intentioned myth. ”

“ My purpose has been to show that in the political sphere as well as in the social and economic spheres vast tasks lie before Liberalism, and, indeed, that our social and economic tasks are not likely to be efficiently performed unless we give very serious thought to the political problem. ”