All through the nineteenth century the cause of subject nationalities was a constant stimulus to British Liberalism. Successive generations hoped and feared, wept and rejoiced with the rebels of Greece, of Italy, of Hungary, of Poland, of the Balkans. Their successes and failures were events of moment in the calendar of British Liberalism, for they were recognized as essential parts of the democratic movement, and the democratic cause was in that century looked upon as one all the world over. Nor was this sentiment ineffective. The moral support of England was in those days recognized as an asset to a cause. Individuals gave direct and tangible assistance, and there were even times when diplomacy moved. Nationalism, therefore, lay close to the heart of Liberalism. Yet there was all the time one nationality whose claims were not so readily understood as those of Greek or Italian, Pole or Bulgar. Ireland was raising a cry, protesting against grievances, formulating demands, which to impartial ears sounded very like those of other subject peoples. Here it seemed was an oppressed nationality at the British Liberal's own door, with grievances which he could redress by his own efforts if he would. Conscious – perhaps a little too conscious – of the rectitude of his intentions, the British Liberal had some difficulty in seeing himself in the light of an oppressor. But under Mr Gladstone's leadership he learned his lesson in two stages.

To answer the questions proposed at the end of the last lecture would be to write a book in many volumes. The task of measuring the actual movement of civilization becomes manageable only by a division of labour. I have attempted elsewhere to deal with it from the point of view of ethics – a point of view which necessarily involves something of the development of religion and something of the development of jurisprudence within its scope. Recently Dr Müller Lyer, in his Phasen der Kultur, has applied a similar treatment to the development of industry. Enough has been done to indicate some of the difficulties that beset this method of treatment, and also to suggest certain results. These I will endeavour to indicate to you by taking one side of social life, and tracing development on this side as we pass from the simplest to the most advanced modern societies. As some compensation for the limitations of the enquiry, I will take one of the fundamental problems. I will ask you to consider the nature of the social bond, to examine what is common to all societies and what is distinctive, and I shall try to show that what is distinctive in the nature of the social bond forms a fundamental principle of classification in any social morphology, and serves as one of the measuring rods which helps us to determine the nature of the movement which has made modern civilization what it is.

I cannot here attempt so much as a sketch of the historical progress of the Liberalizing movement. I would call attention only to the main points at which it assailed the old order, and to the fundamental ideas directing its advance.

Civil Liberty

Both logically and historically the first point of attack is arbitrary government, and the first liberty to be secured is the right to be dealt with in accordance with law. A man who has no legal rights against another, but stands entirely at his disposal, to be treated according to his caprice, is a slave to that other. He is ‘rightless’, devoid of rights. Now, in some barbaric monarchies the system of rightlessness has at times been consistently carried through in the relations of subjects to the king. Here men and women, though enjoying customary rights of person and property as against one another, have no rights at all as against the king's pleasure. No European monarch or seignior has ever admittedly enjoyed power of this kind, but European governments have at various times and in various directions exercised or claimed powers no less arbitrary in principle. Thus, by the side of the regular courts of law which prescribe specific penalties for defined offences proved against a man by a regular form of trial, arbitrary governments resort to various extrajudicial forms of arrest, detention, and punishment, depending on their own will and pleasure.

From the middle of the nineteenth century two great names stand out in the history of British Liberalism – that of Gladstone in the world of action, that of Mill in the world of thought. Differing in much, they agreed in one respect. They had the supreme virtue of keeping their minds fresh and open to new ideas, and both of them in consequence advanced to a deeper interpretation of social life as they grew older. In 1846 Gladstone ranked as a Conservative, but he parted from his old traditions under the leadership of Peel on the question of Free Trade, and for many years to come the most notable of his public services lay in the completion of the Cobdenite policy of financial emancipation. In the pursuit of this policy he was brought into collision with the House of Lords, and it was his active intervention in 1859–60 which saved the Commons from a humiliating surrender, and secured its financial supremacy unimpaired until 1909. In the following decade he stood for the extension of the suffrage, and it was his Government which, in 1884, carried the extension of the representative principle to the point at which it rested twentyseven years later. In economics Gladstone kept upon the whole to the Cobdenite principles which he acquired in middle life. He was not sympathetically disposed to the ‘New Unionism’ and the semisocialistic ideas that came at the end of the 'eighties, which, in fact, constituted a powerful cross current to the political work that he had immediately in hand.

Our task today is to examine the movement of opinion which has been outlined, in the light of social theory. We held that social progress consists in a harmonious development, and we further defined this conception as including a harmony in the development of the personal life of the members of society, and in the working out and fulfilment of the various and at first sight divergent elements of value which constitute the well-being of the social order. In the movement of opinion we have seen a certain conflict of ideals and our question is whether, if we probe deeper, a basis of reconstruction can be found. To find an answer let us take up the question afresh. Let us start with the conception of the social order which the principle of harmonious development would suggest. Let us consider to what view of the functions of the state and the rights of the individual it would lead and let us, in order to observe the limitations of time, deal with the question with special reference to the problem of liberty.

To begin with, the general theory of society indicated by the ideal of harmonious development is clearly one of co-operation. We may say, with Aristotle, that society is an association of human beings with a view to the good life.

Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas. The passions of men must be aroused if the frost of custom is to be broken or the chains of authority burst; but passion of itself is blind and its world is chaotic. To be effective men must act together, and to act together they must have a common understanding and a common object. When it comes to be a question of any far-reaching change, they must not merely conceive their own immediate end with clearness. They must convert others, they must communicate sympathy and win over the unconvinced. Upon the whole, they must show that their object is possible, that it is compatible with existing institutions, or at any rate with some workable form of social life. They are, in fact, driven on by the requirements of their position to the elaboration of ideas, and in the end to some sort of social philosophy; and the philosophies that have driving force behind them are those which arise after this fashion out of the practical demands of human feeling. The philosophies that remain ineffectual and academic are those that are formed by abstract reflection without relation to the thirsty souls of human kind.

In England, it is true, where men are apt to be shy and unhandy in the region of theory, the Liberal movement has often sought to dispense with general principles.

There are two forms of Socialism with which Liberalism has nothing to do. These I will call the mechanical and the official. Mechanical Socialism is founded on a false interpretation of history. It attributes the phenomena of social life and development to the sole operation of the economic factor, whereas the beginning of sound sociology is to conceive society as a whole in which all the parts interact. The economic factor, to take a single point, is at least as much the effect as it is the cause of scientific invention. There would be no world-wide system of telegraphy if there was no need of world-wide inter-communication. But there would be no electric telegraph at all but for the scientific interest which determined the experiments of Gauss and Weber. Mechanical Socialism, further, is founded on a false economic analysis which attributes all value to labour, denying, confounding or distorting the distinct functions of the direction of enterprise, the unavoidable payment for the use of capital, the productivity of nature, and the very complex social forces which, by determining the movements of demand and supply actually fix the rates at which goods exchange with one another. Politically, mechanical Socialism supposes a class war, resting on a clear-cut distinction of classes which does not exist.

We have seen something of the principle underlying the Liberal idea and of its various applications. We have now to put the test question. Are these different applications compatible? Will they work together to make that harmonious whole of which it is easy enough to talk in abstract terms? Are they themselves really harmonious in theory and in practice? Does scope for individual development, for example, consort with the idea of equality? Is popular sovereignty a practicable basis of personal freedom, or does it open an avenue to the tyranny of the mob? Will the sentiment of nationality dwell in unison with the ideal of peace? Is the love of liberty compatible with the full realization of the common will? If reconcilable in theory, may not these ideals collide in practice? Are there not clearly occasions demonstrable in history when development in one direction involves retrogression in another? If so, how are we to strike the balance of gain and loss? Does political progress offer us nothing but a choice of evils, or may we have some confidence that, in solving the most pressing problem of the moment, we shall in the end be in a better position for grappling with the obstacles that come next in turn?

I shall deal with these questions as far as limits of space allow, and I will take first the question of liberty and the common will upon which everything turns.

TO THE NOBILITY AND ESTATES of Scotland John Knox wisheth grace, mercy and peace from God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with the spirit of righteous judgement.

Every man ought to confess and reverence God's truth

It is not only the love of life temporal (Right Honourable), neither yet the fear of corporal death, that moveth me at this present to expone unto you the injuries done against me and to crave of you, as of lawful powers by God appointed, redress of the same. But partly it proceedeth from that reverence which every man oweth to God's eternal truth, and partly from a love which I bear to your salvation, and to the salvation of my brethren abused in that realm by such as have no fear of God before their eyes.

It hath pleased God of His infinite mercy not only so to illuminate the eyes of my mind and so to touch my dull heart that clearly I see, and by His grace unfeignedly believe, that ‘there is no other name given to men under the heaven in which salvation consisteth save the name of Jesus alone’, ‘who by that sacrifice which he did once offer upon the cross hath sanctified forever those that shall inherit the kingdom promised’. But also it hath pleased Him of His superabundant grace to make and appoint me, most wretched of many thousands, a witness, minister and preacher of the same doctrine.

[By October 1559, while the regent continued to fortify Leith, the Congregation – reinforced by the accession of the duke of Châtelherault to their ranks – were in possession of Edinburgh and contemplating military action against the regent's French troops. The following extract from Knox's History (Laing MS, fos. 163r–167r; Laing, vol. I, pp. 441–9; Dickinson, vol. I, pp. 249–55) gives details of the debate among the Congregation preceding their decision formally to ‘suspend’ the regent's authority. In fact, the subsequent siege of Leith proved wholly abortive and the Congregation were never in a position to enforce their deposition.]

The order the suspension of the Queen Regent from the authority within Scotland

The whole nobility, barons and burghs then present were commanded to convene in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh the same 21 day of October for deliberation of these matters. Where the whole cause being exponed by the Lord Ruthven, the question was proponed: ‘Whether she that so contemptuously refused the most humble request of the born counsellors of the realm, being also but a regent, whose pretences threatened the bondage of the whole common wealth, ought to be suffered so tyrannously to empire above them?’ And because that this question had not been before disputed in open assembly, it was thought expedient that the judgement of the preachers should be required; who being called and instructed in the case, John Willock, who before had sustained the burden of the church in Edinburgh, commanded to speak, made discourse as followeth, affirming:

The discourse of John Willock.

1. ‘First, that albeit magistrates be God's ordinance, having of Him power and authority, yet is not their power so largely extended but that [it] is bounded and limited by God in His Word.

2. […]

[Mary Stewart's arrival in Scotland on 19 August 1561 prompted Knox to preach a series of sermons inveighing against the queen's idolatry and the reintroduction of the mass to the very heart of the realm. As a result, on Thursday 4 September, he was summoned to the queen's presence for the first of several personal ‘reasonings’ or interviews. The following extract from the History (Laing MS, fos. 305r–308r; Laing, vol. II, pp. 277–86; Dickinson, vol. II, pp. 13–20) is Knox's own summary of a long interview ‘whereof we only touch a part’.]

The first reasoning betweixt the Queen and John Knox

Whether it was by counsel of others, or of the Queen's own desire, we know not; but the Queen spake with John Knox, and had long reasoning with him, none being present except the Lord James (two gentlewomen stood in the other end of the house). The sum of their reasoning was this. The Queen accused him that he had raised a part of her subjects against her mother, and against herself; that he had written a book against her just authority (she meant the treatise against the Regiment of Women), which she had, and should cause the most learned in Europe to write against it; that he was the cause of great sedition and great slaughter in England; and that it was said to her that all which he did was by necromancy, etc.

[THE PREFACE]

THE KINGDOM APPERTAINETH TO OUR GOD.

Wonder it is that amongst so many pregnant wits as the Isle of Great Britanny hath produced, so many godly and zealous preachers as England did sometime nourish, and amongst so many learned and men of grave judgement as this day by Jezebel are exiled, none is found so stout of courage, so faithful to God, nor loving to their native country, that they dare admonish the inhabitants of that Isle how abominable before God is the empire or rule of a wicked woman, yea, of a traitress and bastard, and what may a people or nation, left destitute of a lawful head, do by the authority of God's Word in electing and appointing common rulers and magistrates. That Isle, alas, for the contempt and horrible abuse of God's mercies offered, and for the shameful revolting to Satan from Christ Jesus and from His Gospel once professed, doth justly merit to be left in the hands of their own counsel and so to come to confusion and bondage of strangers.

Negligence of watchmen

But yet I fear that this universal negligence of such as sometimes were esteemed watchmen shall rather aggravate our former ingratitude than excuse this our universal and ungodly silence in so weighty a matter.