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INTEODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 TWO SERIES OF LECTURES 
 
 SiE J. E. SEELEY, K.C.M.G., Litt.D. 
 
 EEGIOS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 
 FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE ; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL 
 
 HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE 
 
 HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 fLoniott 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1896 
 
 T 
 
 All Hghts reserved 
 
EDITOE'S PEEFACE 
 
 Elementary instruction in Political Science — re- 
 garded not merely as a subject cognate to history, for 
 which the study of history is a preparation, but as a 
 method of studying history itself — formed for many 
 years an important part of the teaching given by the 
 late Sir John Seeley as Professor of History in Cam- 
 bridge. Usually, however, this instruction was given 
 not in formal expository lectures, but in a weekly 
 conversational class. His manner of conducting this 
 class has been clearly described by one who attended 
 it — Mr. J. E. Tanner — in the English Historical 
 Review for July 1895 (p. 512). I quote a portion of 
 his description : — 
 
 His old pupils carry with them grateful recollections 
 of his " Conversation Class." The subject was political 
 science studied by way of discussion, and discussion under 
 the reverential conditions that prevailed resolved itself 
 into question and answer — Socrates exposing the folly of 
 the Athenians. It was mainly an exercise in the defi- 
 nition and scientific use of terms. What is liberty? 
 Various definitions of the term would be elicited from the 
 class and subjected to analysis. The authors of them 
 
VI INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 would be lured by a subtle cross-examination into tbem- 
 selves exposing their inconsistencies. Then the professor 
 would take up his parable. He would first discuss the 
 .different senses in which the term had already been used 
 in literature. . . . From an examioation of inconsistent 
 accounts the professor would proceed to the business of 
 building up by a gradual process, and with the help of 
 the class itself, a definition of his own. ... It was not 
 told us on authority as something to remember, but we 
 assisted ourselves at the creation of it. Thus it became a 
 possession to be enjoyed with a title analogous to the title 
 of authorship. It took an hour to define liberty, but the 
 leisurely process had the highest educational value. 
 
 The discussions thus described were repeated 
 weekly, year after year, with new sets of students ; 
 while Seeley's expository lectures — which were also 
 delivered usually once a week during term-time — • 
 were for the most part on special historical subjects, 
 and thus bore no close relation to the matters treated 
 in the conversation class. Tvnce, however, he thought 
 it useful to deviate from his ordinary plan, and treat 
 political science in a course of expository lectures : 
 first, in two series of lectures, occupying respectively 
 the Michaelmas and Lent terms of the academic year 
 1885-86; and again in a course of half the length, 
 delivered in the Michaelmas term of 1891. ^ 
 
 When Lady Seeley consulted me as to the desir- 
 
 ^ This second course was repeated, without much change, in the 
 year 1893, illness having compelled him to make an exception to 
 his principle of composing a new set of lectures every year. 
 
PKEFACE VU 
 
 ability of giving to the world some part of the 
 numerous sets of lectures which her husband had left 
 behind completely ■written, it seemed clear to me 
 that our first choice ought to fall on one of the two 
 courses on Political Science ; as representing a funda- 
 mentally important part of his work as a teacher, 
 and expressing, more fully and systematically than 
 any of his writings hitherto published, his general 
 view of the true aims and method of historical 
 study. The difficulty was to choose between the 
 two courses above mentioned. Had they been of 
 equal length, I should, as a matter of course, have 
 chosen the later. But, after carefully comparing the 
 two courses, I found, on the one hand, that the 
 general views expressed in both were in the main the 
 same ; while, on the other hand, the compression of 
 the subject into a single term's lectures had neces- 
 sitated the omission, or a comparatively meagre treat- 
 ment, in the later course, of many topics of interest 
 which were fully discussed in the earlier course. On 
 the whole, therefore, it seemed to me best to pub- 
 lish the earlier and longer course ; but, at the same 
 time, to incorporate in it as far as possible such 
 portions of the later lectures as appeared to indicate 
 any change of view either as to the matters discussed 
 or as to the manner in which they should be treated. 
 This incorporation has been effected in two different 
 ways : some passages from the later course have been 
 
viii INTBODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 added in the form of notes or appendices ; in other 
 cases I thought it best to substitute the later passages 
 for the earlier, in order to avoid wearisome repeti- 
 tions. The method of substitution is used almost 
 solely in Lectures VI. and VII. of the first series in 
 this volume; the latter of which, as here printed, 
 is in fact mainly composed of Lecture VI. in the 
 1891 course. This extensive transfer appeared to 
 me necessary, in order to represent the later views 
 of the author ; since I found that — in spite of 
 the severe limitations of space under which he 
 worked in composing the later course — he had 
 treated the topics discussed in the lecture in ques- 
 tion much more fully than in the longer course of 
 1885-86. I therefore inferred that in 1891 he would 
 A fortiori have regarded the earlier treatment as too 
 scanty for the longer course. 
 
 A further change was rendered necessary by this 
 substitution ; for there remained a fragment of the 
 older Lecture VII., which had to be retained, because 
 it commenced a discussion continued in Lecture VIII. 
 As this fragment could not well stand alone, I thought 
 it best to combine it with the original Lecture VIII. 
 This combination led to the excision of certain pas- 
 sages, — chiefly repetitions which had been caused by 
 the division of the subject between two lectures; 
 and it also rendered it necessary for me to compose 
 a couple of opening sentences for the new Lecture 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 VIII., as the connection of thought had been broken 
 by the large transfer of matter from the 1891 course 
 in Lecture VII. Further, I have not hesitated to 
 make one or two minor consequential changes of 
 phrase which appeared to be rendered necessary by 
 the insertions that I have just described, in order to 
 prevent slight inconsistencies between the earlier and 
 later expressions of the writer's views. I have also 
 here and there omitted repetitions more suitable to 
 an oral lecture than to a book, and once or twice 
 altered the position of sentences; and, generally 
 speaking, have made such corrections as I thought 
 it probable that the author would have made before 
 publishing the lectures. In the books prepared by 
 himself for publication, Seeley was, as I know, un- 
 sparing of pains in rewriting such portions as did not 
 come up to his ideal. I have felt, therefore, that it 
 would be unjust to his memory to let this posthumous 
 book go forth without such correction of inadvertencies 
 as I was able to make. No reader can feel more strongly 
 than I do how inadequate a substitute this is for his 
 own revision. 
 
 In reading these lectures it is important to bear 
 in mind that, being written for oral delivery, they 
 were composed on a plan materially different from 
 that which would be appropriate in a manual of 
 political science designed to be read. Their aim was 
 not to impart a complete system, but to communicate 
 
X INTEODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 a method, and to excite the hearers to an independent 
 exercise of thought in applying it. It is from this 
 point of view that the lecturer's incisive and un- 
 sparing criticism of current notions and accepted 
 generalisations should be judged : since even those 
 who may think it occasionally somewhat one-sided 
 can hardly refuse to admit the stimulating quality 
 of this criticism. I do not mean to suggest that 
 Seeley ever artificially forced his ideas into a para- 
 doxical form ; such a procedure would have been 
 incompatible with his habitual sincerity and his ideal 
 of academic duty. But the conversations, always 
 deeply interesting, which I from time to time had 
 with him on different subjects at which he was work- 
 ing, led me to think that truth was apt to come to 
 him in the garb of paradox — using the word in its 
 strict sense; that the new ideas which his original 
 and penetrating intellect developed had a natural 
 tendency to assume, quite spontaneously, a form 
 strongly opposed to the popular drift of thought on 
 the subject; and that it required a subsequent de- 
 liberate effort to qualify and reduce this opposition. 
 
 As regards the general view that these lectures 
 enforce and illustrate — the two-sided doctrine (1) that 
 the right method of studying political science is an 
 essentially historical method, and (2) that the right 
 method of studying political history is to study it as 
 material for political science — I think it may be said 
 
PEEFACB XI 
 
 that this was one of his deepest and most permanent 
 convictions. He announced it in the inaugural lecture 
 which he delivered on his accession to the Chair of 
 History in Cambridge ; and it grew stronger and 
 clearer as years went on, and assiduous study en- 
 larged his knowledge and deepened his insight into 
 the development of historic polity. Indeed, he once 
 said to me that he valued the wide popularity of his 
 Expansion of England, not only for the effects that 
 might be hoped from it in furthering practical aims 
 that he had at heart, but also not less because the 
 book seemed to have proved itself a persuasive ex- 
 ample of his method : because it had brought home 
 to Englishmen throughout the Empire, that, in order 
 to know what England ought to be and do now, they 
 must study what she has been and done in the past. 
 In conclusion, I must express my gratitude for the 
 help ungrudgingly afforded me in preparing this book 
 for the press by Mr. B. E. Hammond, Fellow of 
 Trinity College, and Mr. J. E. Tanner, Fellow of St. 
 John's College, whom I have consulted throughout 
 on all points of importance, and whose advice and 
 suggestions have been of much value to me. I have 
 also to thank Lady Seeley for the kindness with which 
 she has rendered my task as easy as it was possible 
 to render it, and for her aid in revising the proofs. 
 
 H. SIDGWICK. 
 
 Cambridge, Jammry 1896. 
 
EIEST SEEIES 
 
 (Michaelmas Term 1885) 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 It has been my practice ever since I was appointed 
 to this chair — now sixteen years ago — to give in- 
 struction in two subjects which are commonly held 
 to be altogether distinct, — in history proper and in 
 that which hitherto in the scheme of our Tripos 
 has been called Political Philosophy, and which 
 it is now proposed to call Political Science. But 
 I have not usually adopted the same method of 
 teaching in the two subjects. History proper I 
 have expounded in formal, public lectures ; Political 
 Philosophy I have taught by means of a Conversation 
 Class. 
 
 This plan of conversation I was led to adopt in 
 consequence of the want of a satisfactory text-book 
 to which I could refer students. I hold, indeed, that 
 the conversational method is always useful in teaching 
 a subject which requires exact thinking and a precise 
 use of terms. But it is not only useful ; it seems to 
 ^ B 
 
iS INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 me indispensable where the subject is of this kind, 
 and yet has never been mapped out, arranged, and 
 put before the student in a methodical text-book. 
 Political science, as I conceived it, was in this pre- 
 dicament. Such books as Aristotle's Politics did not 
 seem to me adapted to the needs of the present 
 generation of students, while the manuals that have 
 recently appeared either did not seem to me 
 satisfactory or were for one reason or another not 
 accessible to the Cambridge student. 
 
 But the conversational method is only appropriate 
 to a small class, and there are some reasons why it is 
 desirable occasionally to expound the subject also in 
 formal lectures. I have done so in former years, 
 though not very recently. I propose to do so again 
 in this year. But this time I shall try the experiment 
 of treating the same subject at the same time, both 
 by the conversational method in a conversation class, 
 and formally in this lecture-room, so that during this 
 year my conversation class will bear the same relation 
 to this class as the individual teaching by examination 
 papers and conversation bears to their public lectures 
 in the work of my colleagues. 
 
 Perhaps on this announcement a thought may 
 occur to some of you which, if j'ou put it into words, 
 would take this form. " What ! you are a Professor 
 of History ; and yet you tell us that during this year 
 you are not going to lecture on history at all, but on 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 3 
 
 a different subject, — Political Science or Political 
 Philosophy ! " Now, if I heard this objection from 
 you I should not admit it to be well-founded. I should 
 answer. Certainly I am going to lecture on Political 
 Science, but when did I say that I was not going 
 to lecture on history? True it is that I do not 
 intend this year to select a period and investigate 
 or narrate the occurrences which took place within it. 
 That no doubt would be lecturing on history, but 
 there is another way of doing so. And in my 
 opinion, to lecture on political science is to lecture 
 on history. 
 
 Here is the paradox — I use the word in its 
 original sense of a proposition which is really true, 
 though it sounds false — which I have tried for many 
 years to commend to the consideration of students 
 commencing the study of history in this University. 
 Even when my subject did not allow me to dwell 
 long upon it, I have taken pains to state it fully 
 at least once in an opening lecture. But in this 
 course, which is devoted to political science, I shall 
 not content myself with a mere statement. It is my 
 point of departure; it is the first aphorism in the 
 system of political science which I am about to 
 expound to you, that this science is not a thing 
 distinct from history but inseparable from it. To call 
 it a part of history might do some violence to the 
 usage of language, but I may venture to say that 
 
4: INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 history without political science is a study incomplete, 
 truncated, as on the other hand political science 
 without history is hollow and baseless — or in one 
 word: 
 
 History without political science has no fruit ; 
 
 Political science without history has no root. 
 To establish the truth of this aphorism will be the 
 object of the present lecture. I need not make any 
 long introduction to show that if true it is important. 
 History has usually been taken to be concerned 
 simply with facts. Evidently it would be entirely 
 transformed if we came to consider the facts estab- 
 lished by history as mere raw material out of which a 
 science was to be constructed. Such a view would on 
 the one side impart a new interest of a very vivid 
 kind to historical research ; on the other hand, 
 perhaps you may think it would deprive history in 
 a great degree of the peculiar charm which it has 
 hitherto possessed. Hitherto there has hung about 
 historical study a delightful atmosphere of leisure 
 and enjoyment J it has had a dainty flavour of 
 romance, curiosity, poesy, which we may regret to see 
 replaced by the potent, pungent, acrid taste of 
 science. Whether the los? would be more than 
 counterbalanced by the gain is a further question; 
 in any case, the revolution which would take place in 
 the study could not but be momentous, and for you 
 who are on the threshold of the study it is all 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 5 
 
 important to decide in what spirit you will apply 
 yourselves to it. 
 
 Now you have always, I am sure, heard history 
 spoken of as a serious study. " How delightful it is," 
 may be a reflection more frequently made because it 
 is not quite so obvious; that a knowledge of the 
 great events which have happened in the world must 
 needs be in the highest degree useful and instructive 
 is perhaps seldom expressly stated because it is 
 scarcely ever denied or doubted. It appears, then, 
 that we do not quite literally investigate historical 
 facts for their own sake : a knowledge of them, we 
 hold, is useful ; that is, it is a means to an end. But 
 in what way is it useful? "In a hundred ways," we 
 shall be told ; but when we press for a more precise 
 answer we shall find that the conviction that history 
 must be useful is based more or less immediately 
 upon the principle that what has occurred may occur 
 again. There is regularity in human affairs; the 
 same causes will in the main produce always the 
 same efi'ects ; evidently, therefore, he who wishes to 
 be wise, since wisdom consists in understanding the 
 relation of causes and effects, cannot do better than 
 inquire into the past experience of mankind, or, in 
 other words, cannot do better than study history. 
 
 Now this argument is obvious enough, but what I 
 wish you to observe is that the application of it is 
 not in any way confined to what -^e now call speci- 
 
6 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 ally history. It is the fundamental argument which 
 applies equally to all knowledge, which makes know- 
 ledge a useful and indispensable thing, and justifies 
 the ancient saying of the wise man, " Wisdom is the 
 principal thing ; therefore get wisdom : and with all 
 thy getting get understanding." We live in a universe 
 which proceeds according to regular laws ; the same 
 causes produce the same effects ; therefore if we would 
 guide ourselves aright we must register what we 
 observe, then we must compare our observations and 
 generalise upon them ; so we shall obtain general laws, 
 and thus the knowledge of the past will lead us to a 
 knowledge of the future. 
 
 I need not here enter into the old controversies 
 about innate ideas, truths of the reason, truths given 
 in consciousness and the like. It is enough that the 
 vast mass of our knowledge is inductive or founded 
 on the observation of facts. If, then, we take history 
 to mean the record of what has happened, we may say 
 that the vast mass of our knowledge is founded upon 
 history. It does not matter what inductive science 
 you select, its conclusions will be found to be based 
 upon history. Our astronomic knowledge is based 
 upon facts which at a given time and place were 
 observed by this or that astronomer to take place in 
 the heavens ; our knowledge of the laws of hfe, though 
 it may now take a general form, rests ultimately upon 
 facts in the history of this or that plant or animal 
 
1 POLITICAL SCIENCE 7 
 
 which were registered by some naturalist, that is, 
 some historian of nature. 
 
 The practice has gradually been formed of appro- 
 priating the word history to the record of a particular 
 sort of facts. But it is worth while to remember that 
 the word need not be, and originally was not, thus 
 appropriated, and that in the main facts of all kinds 
 are recorded in the same way and for the same pur- 
 pose. Plato says Natural History where we should 
 say Natural Science ; Pliny's great collection of 
 wonderful and curious natural facts is called " Historia 
 Naturalis,'' and till quite recently it was usual to call 
 zoology by the name of Natural History. It has now 
 become the custom to exclude from books called 
 historical a vast number of facts, in themselves 
 memorable and curious, on the ground that they are 
 more fitly recorded in books of science. We do not 
 look in a history of England for a record of the in- 
 teresting meteorological or biological phenomena that 
 may have occurred in England. We have come to 
 think that facts of this kind do not belong to history. 
 And yet if history registers events in order to discover 
 laws, and so to guide the life of man, it ought certainly 
 to register these, for precisely such observations have 
 led to the great discoveries in natural science. And 
 in the infancy of history such facts filled a large 
 space. In the earlier books of Livy, where he 
 draws from the most ancient sources accessible to 
 
8 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 him, there frequently occur paragraphs in which he 
 sums up the curious natural occurrences that had been 
 noted in a particular year, how at Privernum a bull 
 had been heard to speak, how at Corioli blood had 
 fallen for rain. Now assuredly we have not become 
 less, but infinitely more curious in the observation 
 of nature than those primitive chroniclers ; we may 
 smile at their credulity, but we respect them most 
 sincerely for registering what natural occurrences 
 they fancied themselves to have witnessed. Why, 
 then, do modern historians omit to register occurrences 
 of this kind ? 
 
 The answer is obvious. Such occurrences are now 
 sifted and registered with a care which in those remote 
 periods was unknown, but they are not registered by 
 historians. The phenomena that occur in the world 
 have been divided into classes, and to each class a 
 special body of investigators and narrators is assigned. 
 Of occurrences such as I just now instanced, one 
 would fall to the meteorologist, another to the physi- 
 ologist. And there follows upon this change of prac- 
 tice a peculiar alteration in the case of the words 
 " history " and " historical." These occurrences, which 
 originally were regarded as historical or belonging to 
 history, do not, properly speaking, in any way cease 
 to be so because they are recorded under a particular 
 heading by a particular class of specialists. And yet 
 we cease to speak of them as historical. We give 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 9 
 
 them henceforth the name of the science which deals 
 with them. They are supposed > to be taken away 
 from history and appropriated by science. We speak 
 of them now as meteorological or biological facts, not 
 as historical facts belonging to meteorology or biology. 
 History, then, as the word is now used, is the name 
 of a residuum which has been left when one group of 
 facts after another has been taken possession of by 
 some science. We are accustomed to think that his- 
 tory records the facts which concern human beings, 
 and this is roughly true, but it is only true because 
 what we call natural science was earlier successful 
 and established itself earlier on an inductive basis 
 than the sciences that concern man. Even now there 
 are a vast number of facts concerning man which we 
 do not consider to fall within the province of the 
 historian, — physiological and pathological facts for in- 
 stance. We do not expect from the historian infor- 
 mation about cases of disease, however important they 
 may be, except where an epidemic has appeared on 
 so large a scale as to produce social and political 
 effects. This is because the sciences of physiology 
 and pathology have successfully taken possession of 
 some classes of facts relating to man. Other sciences 
 are already grappling with other human phenomena. 
 Now suppose these sciences to be successful, in the 
 end, I ask you, what will become of history ? — that is 
 of general history, history proper, or history pure and 
 
10 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 simple.^ When each new human science has carved 
 out a province for itself, will not the residuwm at last 
 entirely disappear ? Political economy is dealing with 
 the facts of industry, the science of jurisprudence is 
 dealing with the facts of law. Already the historian 
 feels that on economical questions, for example, he 
 can afford to be sketchy and summary, because he 
 may refer the reader for fuller information to 
 economical authorities. Now it is only reasonable to 
 suppose that all these sciences will make rapid pro^ 
 gress. Will not the day then soon come when on 
 almost every subject the historian will be able to 
 refer to some scientific authority who has spared him 
 the trouble of minute exposition, who, in fact, has told 
 his story better than he could tell it himself ? And 
 will not this day be the eve of another day when the 
 historian will feel himself to be superfluous altogether, 
 when we shall cease to speak of human history as we 
 have already almost ceased to speak of natural history ? 
 Darm wird einst anisgesungen Das alte ewige Lied. The 
 
 ^ "A distinction must be drawn between two different kinds of 
 history, of which the one may be called special and the other 
 general. There is scarcely any department of human activity 
 which may not be made the subject of history in the special sense. 
 We have histories of art, of science, of invention and discovery. 
 We might well have a history of history. To this special kind of 
 history there is no end, nor can any one say that it is not legiti- 
 mate, or that it may not produce most important results. Yet uo 
 one calls this sort of history by the simple name of history. His- 
 tory proper is understood to be general history ; you know very 
 well that I could not in my character as Professor announce a 
 course of lectures on the history of the Tuscan schools of painting." 
 — (Prom the First Lecture of the 1891 Course.) 
 
1 POLITICAL SCIENCE 11 
 
 old, endless tale will then be told, and history will be 
 swallowed up in science. 
 
 When I picture this sort of disappearance of his- 
 tory, you will understand that I only mean history 
 considered as a grave serious pursuit, a study for 
 grown men. Some writers have lately protested — 
 one of them, Mr. Birrell, did me the honour to select 
 me personally as the object of his attack — that history 
 has no relation whatever to any kind of science, and 
 cannot therefore be affected by any conceivable 
 advance of science, that Clio is a Muse, that in other 
 words men have a natural joy in great actions and 
 great events, and that history is only the natural 
 literary expression of this joy. According to this 
 view, the historian is only an eloquent, sympathetic 
 narrator, and will always have his function so long as 
 men feel and enjoy; history, like poetry, will exist 
 as long as human beings exist. 
 
 I do not care to question this, and far be it from 
 me to undervalue literature and poetry. As a matter 
 of course men will always enjoy lively narratives of 
 famous events, but considered as a mere branch of 
 literature I do not think that history can even rank 
 high. The great ancient historians have been ad- 
 mired partly no doubt for their eloquence, but mainly 
 for their truth and depth. That is, they have been 
 on one side, as it were, literary men, and on the 
 other side men of science. The development I have 
 
12 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 described would deprive them of the latter character 
 and leave them only the former. If all the more 
 serious part of their work — investigation and gene- 
 ralisation — were taken out of their hands by specialists 
 and no function left to them but that of eloquent 
 narration, their importance would sink very much. 
 Their works would contain no solid information that 
 could not be found more fully and precisely given in 
 the works of the specialists, and as mere literary 
 artists they would be at a great disadvantage com- 
 pared to the poets and romancers. For they would 
 not be allowed to invent or embellish ; they would 
 be in strict bondage to fact ; and that is not a pre- 
 dicament in which artistic genius can display itself. 
 They would be mere popularisers, and their narra- 
 tives would be in request chiefly among young 
 people. Certainly history, so understood, could have 
 no place in a university. However, I fully concede 
 to Mr. Birrell that history of the old kind will pro- 
 bably always subsist as a somewhat insignificant 
 branch of literature. 
 
 It is history, the great teacher of wisdom, the great 
 instructress of statesmen, that I am thinking of, and 
 it does seem to me that the residuum which now 
 exists must go the way of the rest, and that the time 
 is not very distant when a science will take pgssession 
 of the facts which are still the undisputed property 
 of the historian. But I also think that the change 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 13 
 
 will not be so great as might be supposed, for this 
 reason, that the group of facts still remaining will 
 not dwindle gradually or be distributed among a 
 number of sciences, but will become altogether the 
 property of a single science. What science 1 Political 
 Science. 
 
 You see, then, what I meant when I said that to 
 lecture on Political Science is to lecture on History. 
 
 In my view a science has for a very long time 
 past been insensibly growing up by the side of 
 history, and every one has perceived that it has 
 some connection with history, and must draw a 
 great part of materials from history ; this is political 
 science. On the other side, within the department of 
 history itself, it has been more and more felt that 
 the accumulation of facts suggested the possibility 
 of a science ; what was to be done with them if no 
 generalisations were possible which might reduce 
 them to order ? But all this time it has been over- 
 looked that the science which lay so near to history 
 was itself the very science which historians were 
 calling out for. 
 
 And now I must tell you more distinctly what I 
 mean by political science. 
 
 We start of course from the fact that man is a 
 social or gregarious animal, but we deal, not with 
 the sociability of man simply, but with one peculiar 
 phenomenon connected with it. For the sociability of 
 
14 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 man has many aspects, and brings into existence 
 several sciences ; for example, the science of language 
 and economic science. The phenomenon in question 
 is this. As a matter of course human beings, like 
 other animals, are united together in families, and we 
 might be prepared to find the family tie stronger and 
 the family organisation somewhat more developed 
 in them than in inferior animals. But we observe 
 something more, something which, when we think 
 philosophically,- — that is, when we contemplate it as 
 if we had not been familiar with it all our lives, — is 
 very surprising and unexpected. We find that men 
 have another bond of union beyond that of the 
 family, and another higher organisation. 
 
 In nature there is seldom breach of continuity, 
 and so this higher organisation is seldom quite dis- 
 tinct from the family, and sometimes might be 
 explained away as if it were not distinct at all. 
 Usually, however, it is tolerably distinct. Almost 
 in any place, in any circumstances where a human 
 being might be found, if you questioned him you 
 would find that he considered himself to belong to 
 some large corporation which imposed duties and 
 conferred rights upon him. Each man has a name 
 which belongs to himself alone, and another name 
 which he has in common with all other members of 
 his family ; but if you would describe him and class 
 him sufficiently you must learn a further fact about 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 15 
 
 him, you must know to what state he belongs. 
 State 1 But what is state 1 
 
 When I say "I am an Englishman," what do I 
 mean? Does it refer to my parentage or family? 
 Well ! I cannot absolutely say that it does not. I 
 regard myself as being in some sort of kin to other 
 Englishmen, as though we were all alike descended 
 from some primitive Anglus. I feel this very strongly 
 in the presence of foreigners, for I find that they speak 
 a different language and seem both mentally and bodily 
 of a somewhat different type. But whether it really 
 is so is after all of no practical importance. I am an 
 Englishman, and should be so just as much if my ances- 
 tors were Frenchmen. And yet that I am an English- 
 man and not a Frenchman is all-important to me. 
 
 Mankind fall into classes in different ways accord- 
 ing to the observer's point of view. The anthropol- 
 ogist divides the species according to some bodily 
 difference ; e.g. Blumenbach according to colour, 
 Eetzius according to the shape of the skull, recent 
 anthropologists according to the character of the hair. 
 The ethnologist introduces new distinctions founded 
 upon language, and these are distinctions unknown 
 to the anthropologist. He talks of Indo-Germanic 
 and Semitic races ; but the anthropologist protests 
 that he knows of no such distinction, and that to 
 him all the races called Indo-Germanic and all the 
 races called Semitic appear to belong to one variety. 
 
16 INTEODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 Now in political science the groups are different again. 
 Language, bodily conformation, decide nothing here. 
 We and the Channel Islanders speak diiFerent lan- 
 guages, we and the Anglo-Americans speak the same; 
 but in political science we and the Channel Islanders 
 are in the same class, we and the Anglo-Americans 
 in different classes, because here, men are grouped 
 according to states. 
 
 The division of mankind into states is of vast 
 importance, first, because of its universality; secondly, 
 because of its intensity and the momentous conse- 
 quences it has had. When I speak of its universality 
 I admit that I stretch considerably the meaning 
 commonly given to the word state. In the Greek 
 or Eoman, or in the European sense of the word, the 
 state has been and is by no means universal ; on the 
 contrary, it is somewhat rare among mankind. But 
 we want some one word to denote the large corpora- 
 tion, larger than the family yet usually connected 
 with the family, whatever form it may assume, and 
 the word state is the only word which can be made 
 to serve this purpose. Sometimes it would be better 
 called a tribe or clan, sometimes a church or religion, 
 but whatever we call it the phenomenon is very 
 universal. Almost everywhere men conceive them- 
 selves as belonging to some large corporation. 
 
 They conceive themselves too as belonging to it 
 for life and death ; they conceive that in case of need 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 17 
 
 this corporation may make unlimited demands upon 
 them ; they conceive that they are bound, if called 
 upon, to die for it. 
 
 Hence most interesting and memorable results 
 follow from the existence of these great corporations. 
 In the first place, the growth and development of 
 the corporations themselves, the various forms they 
 assume, the various phases they pass through ; then 
 the interaction of these corporations upon each 
 other, the wars they wage, the treaties they con- 
 clude, all the phenomena of conquest and federation ; 
 then again the infinite effects produced upon the 
 individual by belonging to such a corporation, those 
 infinite effects which we sum up in the single expres- 
 sive word civilisation ; here, you see, is a field of 
 speculation almost boundless, for it includes almost 
 all that is memorable in the history of mankind, and 
 yet it is all directly produced by the fact that human 
 beings almost everywhere belong to states. 
 
 This peculiar human phenomenon then, the state in 
 the largest acceptation of the word, distinct from the 
 family though not unconnected with it, distinct also 
 from the nation though sometimes roughly coincid- 
 ing with it, is the subject of political science. Or 
 since the distinctive characteristic of the state, 
 wherever it appears, is that it makes use of the 
 arrangement or contrivance called government, we 
 may say that this science deals with government as 
 c 
 
18 INTEODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 political economy deals with wealth, as biology deals 
 with life, as algebra deals with numbers, as geometry 
 deals with space and magnitude. 
 
 Such is the subject of the science. The problems 
 it presents will evidently arrange themselves under 
 two heads. First will come those presented by the 
 internal structure and development of the state itself, 
 the manner in which government enters into it, and 
 the machinery through which government works; 
 then will follow the problems of the interaction of 
 one state upon another, or the external action of the 
 state. 
 
 And now what shall be our method in dealing with 
 these problems'! You know how much depends on 
 method in scientific investigation. Especially you 
 know what a peculiar difficulty rises when we investi- 
 gate human phenomena. For here we are under an 
 almost irresistible temptation to mix up what ought 
 to be with what is. As we know it to be all-important 
 that we should go right in political action, we are 
 tempted to think that political science, if it is to be 
 worth anything, must show us what is right, and 
 under this strong prepossession we are apt to enter on 
 the inquiry with no other category in our minds but 
 the category of right and wrong. If we set out in 
 this way we shall make it our object to find the 
 perfect or ideal state. Our first step will be to ask 
 for what purpose a state exists, and having determined 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 19 
 
 this to our satisfaction, we shall proceed to inquire 
 what institutions, laws, and practices are best adapted 
 for the attainment of this object. This is the ancient 
 method of treating political science of which Plato 
 and Aristotle have left us examples. 
 
 We may adopt quite a different method and treat 
 states just as if they were natural growths, just as if 
 they were trees or animals. We may look at them, as 
 it were, from outside and register impartially what we 
 see as if we had no personal concern in it. The 
 naturalist does not proceed at all in the method I 
 just now described. He does not, in considering 
 plants, begin by asking what is the object for which 
 a plant exists, and proceed to deduce what must be 
 the characteristics of the perfect plant. He hardly 
 professes to know whether plants have an object at 
 all ; certainly he does not profess to decide that one 
 plant is better than another. He has nothing to do 
 with the category of right and wrong, but contents 
 himself with (1) classifying the plants he observes ; 
 (2) with analysing the structure of the plant, and dis- 
 tinguishing the functions of the several organs ; (3) 
 with tracing its growth and development, and noting 
 the morbid affections to which it may be liable ; (4) 
 with speculating on the origin of the different species 
 and on the nature of vegetable life in general. 
 
 Now I think you will see at once that it is possible 
 to study states in just the same way. These, too, can 
 
20 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 be classified, the diiferent organs of the state can be 
 described and their functions noted; phases of de- 
 velopment and morbid conditions present themselves 
 in states, and the theory of evolution can be applied 
 to states. 
 
 But, you will say, to proceed thus is very strange 
 and unnatural. After all, a state is not a mere 
 natural production, but the result of human will, 
 invention, and ingenuity. After all, states do fall 
 under the category of right and wrong ; some insti- 
 tutions, some laws are good and others bad ; if it 
 were not so, how vain would be all the trouble we 
 take, all the excitement we undergo, about politics ; 
 and if it is so, the all-important thing is to distinguish 
 the right from the wrong, and in comparison with 
 this all classification and analysis are irrelevant and 
 unimportant. 
 
 Now it is quite true that states are to a certain 
 extent products of conscious contrivance, or, in one 
 word, machines. But it is equally true that they are 
 not mere machines. It has become a political axiom 
 that states are not made but grow. They have their 
 roots in the instinctive unconscious part of human 
 nature, and for this reason, though they ought not to 
 be treated solely as natural productions, yet they 
 ought to be treated as such. 
 
 Moreover, experience has taught us in almost every 
 department of thought the danger of too much haste, 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 21 
 
 of attacking too directly and too eagerly the problems 
 which it is practically urgent to solve. Thus the first 
 theorists in medicine wanted a universal panacea, the 
 first chemists wanted to turn everything into gold. 
 When we look back upon the first modern essays in 
 political science, the theories of an original contract, 
 and the patriarchal theory, we see illustrations quite as 
 striking of the same mistake. However this may be, 
 it is sufficient for my immediate purpose that states can 
 be treated in the same way as plants or as animals. 
 
 Let us now inquire what aspect our science would 
 wear if it pursued this method. Inductively pur- 
 sued, political science would live and move among 
 historical facts. It would begin by collecting these 
 facts with great industry and verifying them with 
 most scrupulous care, for it would be keenly alive to 
 the danger of confounding mere rumour or legend or 
 party-statement with such facts as science can recog- 
 nise. Next, it would not attempt to bolster up with 
 the facts so obtained some preconceived theory ; all 
 such theories it would put on one side, and honestly 
 wait to see what theories arose naturally out of the 
 facts. For this purpose it would begin by grouping 
 and classifying the facts, placing together, for example, 
 such facts as bear on the internal growth of states, 
 and in another group such as relate to their external 
 action or to the interaction of states upon each other. 
 It would not be wonderful, considering the intricacy 
 
22 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 of the subject, if this work of classiiication proved to 
 be very difficult and ponderous, as in some other 
 sciences, especially botany and zoology. 
 
 But further, we know that the inductive sciences 
 obtain their facts in two different ways. In some 
 cases it is by experiment, that is, the observer 
 creates artificially the facts he wishes to observe. 
 But in other cases, owing to the peculiar nature of 
 those facts, this is impossible. For example, in 
 chemistry experiment is possible ; if we want to 
 know what affinity there is between two kinds of 
 matter we bring them together and observe the result. 
 But in astronomy experiment is impossible ; the sun 
 and the moon are not at our beck and call ; we must 
 wait on them, they will not wait on us. Now in this 
 latter class of sciences observation, being the only 
 resource, requires to be pursued with the utmost 
 industry and care. Everything here depends upon 
 a large supply of — what shall I say ? I was going 
 to say "historical" — facts carefully observed and 
 exactly registered. 
 
 Having established, then, that our political science 
 is to be inductive, we proceed to inquire whether it 
 can work by experiment or is reduced to depend on 
 observation. And it will be evident at once that in 
 this respect it resembles astronomy rather than 
 chemistry. If we want to discover, for example, 
 what would be the effect of suddenly introducing 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 23 
 
 democratic institutions into a country, we cannot 
 take a state, pass the necessary Reform Bill in it, 
 and then stand by watching the result. No, all we 
 can do is to study the states that are before us, 
 or those that have left record of themselves from 
 past times. Thus only can we obtain the facts 
 which are essential for our science. Political science, 
 like astronomy, will need an immense supply of 
 trustworthy registered observations. 
 
 But a state is not, like the sun or moon, a mere 
 physical, but rather a moral, entity. It is not visible 
 to the eye or through a telescope. What is done by 
 it is only done constructively; literally, it is done 
 not by the state but by some individual. Much again 
 is done secretly, and sometimes false accounts of 
 what is done are intentionally laid before the public. 
 Hence the authentication of the facts with which 
 political science deals is far more laborious than in 
 other sciences. Many other causes concur to produce 
 this result. Especially this, that we have before us 
 a vast mass of observations, recorded by various 
 observers at very various periods, which are only 
 partially trustworthy, sometimes because the observers 
 were not scientific, or because they were prejudiced, 
 or because they made their observations rather for 
 amusement than with any serious object, or because 
 they lived when the art of writing was either un- 
 known or little used. We cannot aflford to put all 
 
24 INTEODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 this mass of observations aside, and yet we cannot use 
 it without subjecting it to tests which in other 
 sciences are not needed, and which have to be 
 invented for the occasion. 
 
 You will see that this mass of observations of which 
 I speak is neither more nor less than what we call 
 history. All that perplexity about the object of their 
 labours which besets historians, all that perplexity 
 about their method which hampers those who would 
 form a political science, disappear together if we 
 regard history as the mass of facts, brought together 
 by observers who were but half conscious of what 
 they were doing, out of which an inductive science 
 of states is to be constructed. 
 
 I say these observers have been but half conscious; 
 altogether unconscious they have not been. If you 
 examine history as it is and as it has long been, you 
 will see both by what it records and by what it omits 
 that it is instinctively aware that it is concerned with 
 the state. I have spoken of those large classes of 
 facts which it once recorded but now deliberately 
 omits. There are classes of facts which not deliber- 
 ately but, as it were, instinctively it either omits or 
 passes over slightly. These are sometimes facts of 
 immense importance. The historian of James I.'s 
 reign scarcely mentions Shakspeare's plays ; he says 
 a great deal about the rise and fall of Robert Carr ; 
 the historian of William III. says little about 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 25 
 
 Newton's discoveries, but a great deal about Fen- 
 wick's plot. Which was more important, Shakspeare 
 or Can-, Newton or Fenwick 1 But the influence of 
 Carr affected, and the plot of Fenwick endangered, 
 the state ; whereas Shakspeare and Newton worked 
 in another region. Historians are instinctively 
 aware that it is not their region. They pass over 
 phenomena of this kind or relegate them to a sup- 
 plementary chapter, though sometimes they under- 
 stand their own correct instinct so little as to ex- 
 press regret that they are obliged to speak of the 
 pomp of kings or the crimes of ambitious warriors, 
 while they pass over greatness more genuine and 
 peaceful triumphs more glorious. There is really 
 nothing to regret in this. The question is not of 
 glory or greatness, but of accurately knowing the 
 laws which govern the organism called the state. 
 Now, government and legislation, and wars and 
 alliances, concern the state, but scientific discoveries 
 or artistic masterpieces do not. 
 
 When, twenty years ago, Mr. Buckle succeeded in 
 flashing upon the English mind the notion of a science 
 of history, he threatened us with a revolution in 
 historical writing. We were to read henceforth 
 comparatively little about governments and parlia- 
 ments and wars ; history was to resolve itself into a 
 discussion of the physical environment of a people, 
 the climate, the geography, the food. The view I 
 
26 INTEODUCTION TO leCt. 
 
 present, you see, is diiferent, and it is not at all 
 revolutionary. I do not dispute the importance of 
 those physical inquiries, and the results of them 
 must be used by the historian ; but his own province, 
 according to me, is distinct. He is not an anthro- 
 pologist or an ethnologist, but if I may coin a word, 
 he is a politicise The political group or organism 
 — the state — is his study. On this principle it will 
 appear that historians hitherto, instead of being 
 wrong in the main, have been right in the main. 
 Their researches into legislation and the growth of 
 institutions have laid a firm basis for the first part 
 of political science, which is concerned with the 
 classification and analysis of states. Their investiga- 
 tion of wars, conquests, alliances, federations, have 
 laid a basis for the second part, that which is con- 
 cerned with the action of states upon each other. 
 
 All that is needed is that they should pursue with 
 clearer purpose the path they already tread. They 
 have been right in the main, but hesitating, and 
 therefore somewhat desultory. They have been 
 haunted with the notion that they were bound to 
 record everything of importance that had hap^ned 
 in a given country ; in short, that their subject was 
 the country, whereas in truth their subject was the 
 state. They have been haunted with the notion 
 that they were literary men, not men of science, 
 that their function was similar to that of the poet, 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 27 
 
 who works upon the feelings by narrating heroic 
 deeds. It is not wrong that great deeds should be 
 related in noble style. But the notion that this 
 function is inseparably associated with that of the 
 investigator of states, so that the handler of docu- 
 ments, the weigher of evidence, the expert in poli- 
 tical phenomena, the discerner of historical sequence 
 and causation, should be bound to be in his own 
 person also the eloquent narrator, the epic poet or 
 ballad-writer in prose, this notion forgets that we do 
 not live in the days of Herodotus, or Thucydides, or 
 Livy, but in a time of specialised study. There was 
 in those ancient historians a popular element and a 
 scientific element ; these have since been separated 
 and differentiated. We have now the eloquent 
 narrator who at times, as in Carlyle's French Bevolu- 
 tion, may almost rise to the dignity of the epic poet. 
 We have also, but seldom in the same person, the 
 hi^orical scientist. He is a student of the state, but 
 he studies it inductively, that is, by the aid of 
 history. 
 
 This is what I endeavour to do, and would lead 
 you to do. If we would succeed we must carry on 
 two processes at once. We must think, reason, 
 generalise, define, and distinguish. We must also 
 collect, authenticate, and investigate facts. If we 
 neglect the first process, we shall accumulate facts to 
 little purpose, because we shall have no test by 
 
28 INTKODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 which to distinguish facts which are important from 
 those which are unimportant ; and of course if we 
 neglect the second process, our reasonings will be 
 baseless, and we shall but weave scholastic cobwebs. 
 
 But in this course of lectures I lead you through 
 the first process. I speak of the state in general, 
 not of any particular state. And I think you 
 understand by this time why I consider that it 
 belongs to my function, as a Professor of History, to 
 do this. 
 
 [The following passage, which forms the conclu- 
 sion of the first lecture of the 1891 Course, may be 
 fitly placed here as an Appendix to the present 
 lecture. — Ed. J 
 
 When on former occasions I have laid this general 
 view of history before my pupils, the objection has some- 
 times occurred to my own mind that if it were really 
 possible, as I suggest, to make the facts of history an in- 
 ductive material out of which to construct a political 
 science, this would have been accomplished long since. 
 There were political speculators in the eighteenth century, 
 such as Montesquieu ; and in the seventeenth there were 
 Locke and Hobbes. While other sciences were established 
 on a solid foundation, why was this one, so important, 
 still kept waiting ? But an answer to this objection also 
 occurred to me. It was this. The inductive basis was 
 wanting. A Montesciuieu or a Locke did not and could 
 not know the history of the world. I mean this more 
 literally than you may suppose. It is surprising how 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 29 
 
 little sound knowledge of mere Wstorical fact was possessed 
 a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago. This may 
 be partly estimated from the occasional historical illustra- 
 tions which the writers I have mentioned produce. They 
 are commonly worthless, and betray clearly the infancy 
 of historical criticism, the uncertainty in the handling 
 of authorities, and the newness and rawness of the whole 
 subject. In fact, almost all that we now call history has 
 grown up since that time. 
 
 If this be so, if history itself he a growth so modern, 
 it is not surprising that the elaboration of a science out 
 of history should be still in a great degree reserved for 
 the future. What was called history in the middle of 
 the eighteenth century was too unsound to form a basis 
 for anything. The case is different now. The present 
 generation has a vast treasure of historical knowledge 
 which is trustworthy and available for the purposes of 
 
LECTUEE II 
 
 I MADE sufficiently clear in my last lecture what is 
 the phenomenon which is to be investigated. Human 
 beings, as we see them around us, are found to be 
 enrolled or regimented in certain large groups which 
 are organised in a peculiar way, held together by the 
 contrivance known as government, and called states. 
 So it is now in the nineteenth century and here in 
 Europe. But when we consult the mass of observa- 
 tions we find that it was so not less many centuries 
 since. Nay, when we bring before us by means of 
 the dead languages the life which was led by human 
 beings two thousand years ago, though we observe 
 many differences, yet in this respect we find that 
 men were the same then that they are now. Ancient 
 men, too, lived in states and submitted to govern- 
 ment. And if we go to countries remote from 
 Europe, to China, which has always been unaffected 
 by western civilisation, or to India, which has 
 usually been so, we still find governments and states. 
 It is true that these ancient or remote states differ 
 very much from those with which we are familiar. 
 
LEOT. II INTEODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE 31 
 
 They differ, indeed, more than we readily under- 
 stand. Observers and students, instead of being 
 surprised at the resemblances, have been too much 
 disposed to assume them and exaggerate them. 
 They have taken for granted that men, wherever 
 found, must have kings and nobles and governments 
 like those of Europe. And perhaps some error has 
 crept into history from this cause ; as, for instance, 
 it has recently been maintained that the Spanish 
 accounts of ancient Mexican institutions are too 
 much coloured by Spanish prepossessions. But when 
 all due allowance has been made for this cause of 
 error, we do find states, even if states of a different 
 kind, just as Vre find languages everywhere, though 
 the unlikeness of the Bantu or the Chinese language 
 to Greek or German may be greater than we could 
 at first have conceived possible. In large regions of 
 the globe, however, especially where the soil is ex- 
 ceptionally unfruitful, as in the deserts of Arabia or 
 Central Asia, and in certain mountain districts, we 
 find less of this kind of organisation than elsewhere. 
 Here it is customary to say that states are not found, 
 for it would seem improper to apply that title to 
 the Arabian tribes or to the clans of the Scottish 
 Highlands. 
 
 It is important on the threshold of the subject to 
 decide whether in our investigation we ought to con- 
 form to this custom. Ought we to say, "Political 
 
32 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 science concerns itself of course only with civilised 
 states; it cannot be expected to take notice of the 
 wild and confused associations in which savage, or at 
 least barbarous, men may be pleased to live ? " This, 
 indeed, has usually been the position taken in books 
 of political science. All the classification with which 
 we are so familiar, all that is said about monarchies 
 and republics, aristocracies and democracies, does not 
 apply to primitive tribes, or barbarous communities 
 with strange fanatical ways of life. Nay, if you 
 examine the book which has furnished the model to 
 most political speculators, Aristotle's Politics, you 
 will see that he almost excludes from his investiga- 
 tion all states but that very peculiar kind of state 
 which flourished in his own country. Not only is he 
 almost silent about barbarous communities, but even 
 about all states that are not also cities ; and perhaps, 
 indeed, we ought to think that he attached a more 
 restricted meaning than we do to the word Politics, 
 so that it ought not to be translated Science of 
 States, but Science of Cities. 
 
 But it seems to me that this exclusive way of 
 handling the subject, this intolerant way of pushing 
 on one side the institutions which we disapprove or 
 which excite our disgust, does not suit the inductive 
 method which we have elected to adopt. It is 
 natural and appropriate to those who are inquiring 
 for the perfect state, since it is evident that the most 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 33 
 
 civilised states fall short of what such investigators 
 want, and that therefore to cast even a look at uncivil- 
 ised states must be a mere waste of time. But we have 
 resolved, for the present at least, to give up the quest 
 of the perfect state. Nor do we even propose at this 
 early stage to pass judgment at all upon the states 
 we study. We content ourselves with distinguishing 
 and arranging the various kinds in the same purely 
 observant spirit which a Liuneeus brought to plants 
 or a Cuvier to animals. Having once elected to 
 take this course, we can no longer think of excluding 
 any state because we do not like it, any more than a 
 naturalist would have a right to exclude plants under 
 the contemptuous name of weeds, or animals under 
 the name of vermin. Accordingly we must throw 
 open our classification to political organisms the most 
 unlike our own and the most unlike those which we 
 approve. The analogy of plants and animals will 
 suggest to us that there are lower as well as higher 
 organisms. Look at the classification of the animal 
 kingdom. When we use the word " animal " we have 
 commonly in mind one of the higher animals — a dog, 
 or a horse, or a lion — though we may be vaguely aware 
 that there are lower organisms which also in strict- 
 ness are animal. But when the classification is made 
 on the true comprehensive principle we find all the, 
 animals with which we are familiar, all which seem 
 fully to deserve the name of animals, confined to 
 
 D 
 
34 INTKODTJCTION TO lect. 
 
 one out of the four sub-kingdoms. Actually three 
 parts out of four are assigned to strange outlying 
 organisms in which the vital principle is either but 
 slightly developed or developed in such a manner 
 that the organism bears little external resemblance 
 to what is popularly called an animal, — strange in- 
 sects or flower -like molluscs and sponges. Let us 
 imagine political organisms handled in the same 
 manner ; — it would not be surprising if all the states 
 described by Aristotle, and all the states of modern 
 Europe into the bargain, should yield but a small 
 proportion of the whole number of varieties, while 
 those states less familiar to us, and which our 
 manuals are apt to pass over in silence as barbarous, 
 yielded a far larger number. 
 
 But this inductive method, though less intolerant, 
 ought to be just as rigorous as the other. It wiU 
 not reject a specimen as bad or as contemptible, but 
 it will reject the most plausible specimen which does 
 not really belong to the class of phenomena under 
 investigation. The zoologist admits all animals, but 
 he excludes that which is not properly animal. On 
 this principle the most barbarous tribe or sept in the 
 most primitive population will have an equal right 
 with ancient Kome or modern England to our atten- 
 tion provided only that it is really of the same kind. 
 But perhaps we may for a moment doubt whether 
 those rude aggregations of men have really anything 
 
n POLITICAL SCIENCE 35 
 
 in common witli the civilised state. Nobody thinks 
 of applying the word "state" to them; perhaps the 
 simple reason of this is that they are not in any 
 sense states, and have nothing in common with the 
 state. Let us consider this question for a moment. 
 
 The fundamental fact to which I pointed in my 
 last lecture, which seems so surprising and so pro- 
 foundly deserving of study, is that men should con- 
 ceive themselves as belonging, and belonging in such 
 an intimate and momentous union, to a corporation 
 which is not simply their family. Look at the 
 modern Englishman. He may chance to have no 
 drop of English blood in his veins, and yet we hold 
 that there is actually no sacrifice which England 
 might not, in case of need, demand of him. At the 
 same time, though the tie is not simply, and in a 
 particular case may not be at all, that of kindred, yet 
 it is not wholly distinct from kindred, and in general 
 Englishmen do regard themselves as of kin to each 
 other. The English state may be held together in 
 some degree by a common interest, still it is not a 
 mere company composed of voluntary shareholders, 
 but a union which has its root in the family, and 
 which has grown, and not merely been arranged, to 
 be what it is. Now, it is surely impossible not to 
 admit that this phenomenon, vast and highly de- 
 veloped as it now appears, is in its large features 
 similar to the most primitive and barbarous tribe. 
 
36 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 That, too, is a groat association, to which its members 
 are attached for life and death. For that, too, its 
 members fight ; about its interests they debate. In 
 the tribe, too, we can often discover that individuals 
 may have no attachment by kindred to the whole ; 
 they may have come in as slaves and received 
 emancipation, or as foreigners by adoption. And 
 yet in the main and on the whole the tribe is an 
 extension of the family, a family on the large scale. 
 
 In short, compare the most advanced state with the 
 most primitive tribe, and you will see the same features, 
 though the proportions are different. In the state 
 there is more of mind, in the tribe more of nature. 
 Free-will and intelligent contrivance have more play 
 in the former ; blood and kinship rule in the latter. 
 Still the state has not ceased to a tribe ; kinship still 
 counts for much in it, as the nationality-movement of 
 the present century has strikingly proved. On the 
 other hand, the tribe, wherever we can get information 
 about it, is found to be also in some degree a state. 
 The rigid family organisation always shows itself 
 insufficient, needing to be supplemented by more 
 artificial institutions. Thus, apart from kinship, 
 there is a common characteristic which brings to- 
 gether the most primitive and the most advanced 
 of these associations — I mean the principle of 
 government. Here, again, the proportion may be 
 different — this is what gives rise to varieties — 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 37 
 
 but the .common characteristic is there on which 
 depends unity of kind. The apparatus of command 
 and obedience has become by familiarity so trivial 
 in our eyes that we may omit to give it the atten- 
 tion it deserves. Yet upon this simple arrange- 
 ment, by which the will of an individual determines 
 the actions, not of himself only, but of a multitude, 
 depends almost everything important in human 
 history : and, as I said before, political science may be 
 called the science which investigates the phenomenon, 
 government. 
 
 Here, then, is the first peculiarity of a system of 
 political science which is frankly inductive. It 
 begins by putting aside as irrelevant the distinction 
 of barbarous and civilised, and by admitting to an 
 impartial consideration all political aggregates, all 
 societies held together by the principle of government. 
 This is seldom done consistently and uniformly by 
 historical speculators who take the widest view. Most 
 of them abandon only partially the old dogmatic 
 method. They may be less exclusive than the 
 eighteenth-century school, may be prepared to see the 
 good side of medievalism, to appreciate or even over- 
 appreciate some forms of political life which used to 
 be treated with contempt. But the system I put 
 before you goes much further, for it does not ask at 
 all that the phenomena it studies shall be good or 
 noble. It simply wishes to find out as much as 
 
38 INTRODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 possible by observation and induction about tbe 
 nature of states and the laws of their development. 
 For this purpose all facts are welcome, and if corrupt 
 or morbid phenomena appear these will have, not 
 indeed the same interest as the phenomena of health, 
 but another interest peculiar to themselves. The only 
 facts which will be unimportant are those which 
 present nothing new, but only confirm in a superfluous 
 manner what was well known already. 
 
 When we have once got rid of the notion that the 
 tribes and claijs of barbarism are contemptible and 
 unworthy of attention, we obtain a somewhat different 
 view of the state. Before we naturally regarded 
 states, since they were peculiar to civilised people, as 
 being more or less of the nature of inventions, like 
 the art of writing; but now we see that they are more 
 like language itself, that is, that though they may 
 differ infinitely in the intelligence they display, yet 
 they are found uniformly and universally, or nearly 
 so, wherever human beings are found. Everywhere 
 the human being belongs to something which may be 
 called a polity, and is subject to something which may 
 be called a government. How then shall we deal 
 with this universal phenomenon, how shall we set 
 about investigating it? Shall we begin by laying 
 down some grand proposition with respect to the 
 object for which the state exists? This was long 
 usual. The state exists to put down violence and 
 
n POLITICAL SCIENCE 39 
 
 protect the weak against the strong. It exists to do 
 justice between man and man and to compose differ- 
 ences. It exists to defend the country against foreign 
 invasion. It exists, in fact, to attain any end which 
 we anywhere find the state aiming at. One school 
 urged particularly that a high and noble view should 
 be taken of its functions. It should consider itself to 
 exist for the sake of virtue or of man's highest well- 
 being in whatever way that may be conceived. 
 Another school took a more modest view: holding 
 that the state ought to rest content with keeping 
 order and protecting property, and that the pro- 
 motion of virtue ought to be left to other agencies. 
 
 This is an example among many how the discussion 
 of high and important subjects falls into a groove in 
 which it moves on interminably, blending with party 
 politics and imparting to these a dignity they sadly 
 want, but settling nothing because it proposes no 
 definite question. Do we want to know what the 
 state should aim at or what it does aim at 1 The first 
 question is quite legitimate, and it is all-important, 
 but it is wholly distinct from the other, and we may 
 add that a general answer to such a question, an 
 answer deduced directly from the abstract idea of 
 the state, is scarcely to be expected. What the state 
 should aim at now is likely to be quite different 
 from what it either did or could aim at in ancient 
 Rome, or Sparta, or Persia, or India. 
 
40 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 I suggest that we should abandon for the present 
 the enterprise of deciding what the state ought to be 
 and to aim at, and consider by way of pure observa- 
 tion what it has actually been. When we do this, 
 and especially when we take note of the more primi- 
 tive forms of the state, we may surely doubt whether 
 we ought to speak so glibly of the object of the 
 state. We do not speak of the object of a tree or an 
 animal. Now certainly the state 'is not so purely a 
 natural product as a tree or an animal ; still it is in 
 part a natural product, and to the extent that it is a 
 natural product it must be said to be in the strict 
 sense without an object. Nay, further, long after its 
 development has begun to be influenced by human 
 will, conscious intelligence continues to be wanting ; 
 the will that acts in it is mere instinct. So that only 
 states that are far advanced and that are composed of 
 modern men can be treated in the abstract method, 
 can be referred to and judged by a theoretic standard. 
 But if this method is not satisfactory, what other 
 method shall we adopt 1 In what way shall we bring 
 the mass of facts which history and observation 
 present to us into some system ? 
 
 In those subjects which we are able to contemplate 
 calmly, because they do not immediately affect our 
 interests or excite our feelings, the first step which 
 science takes is to arrange the phenomena in classes. 
 Some little classification has to be done at the com- 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 41 
 
 mencement of every science. Euclid begins by 
 arranging the simple phenomena with which he has to 
 deal, lines, plain figures three-sided and four-sided, 
 etc., curved figures. The astronomer distinguishes 
 the small number of classes of heavenly bodies, fixed 
 stars and planets, satellites, comets, etc. Now it is 
 evident that political science also will have a task of 
 classification to undertake. Some of the technical 
 terms of political classification are very famous. The 
 names monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, etc., con- 
 stitute almost all the political science most of us 
 know. 
 
 But there are some sciences in which the prelimin- 
 ary work of classification is not so easily dispatched 
 as in astronomy or geometry. In dealing with i^lants 
 and animals, it has been found so difficult and so 
 large a work as almost to require a separate science to 
 itself. Thus by the side of vegetable physiology, 
 which analyses the plant and deals with the laws of 
 life in its vegetable form, we have botany, a science 
 wholly occupied with the description and classification 
 of plants ; and it was found in the eighteenth century, 
 when the Linnsean system grew up, had its day of 
 acceptance, and then gave way to the natural system 
 introduced by Jussieu and others, that in mere 
 classification difficulties may arise, mistakes may be 
 made, and the higher faculties of the mind may be 
 called into play, scarcely less than in the discovery 
 
42 INTRODUCTION TO LBOi. 
 
 of laws. Zoology stands in a relation precisely 
 similar to animal physiology. But this has taken 
 place only in certain sciences. The question there- 
 fore suggests itself whether in a science of states we 
 may expect that classification will be soon and easily 
 dispatched, or are to prepare ourselves to overcome 
 serious difficulties. 
 
 Look at those two sciences of classification ; you 
 will see at once that they deal with phenomena of the 
 same sort, viz. with living organisms. This suggests 
 to us that it must be specially difficult to classify 
 living organisms. And as soon as the suggestion is 
 made we see that it is true. For wherever life is at 
 work it displays itself in vast numbers of organisms 
 which show striking resemblances, but at the same 
 time infinite, almost indescribable differences. "No two 
 men are alike,'' we say. True, but on the other hand 
 no two men are very different. And what is true of 
 men is true of other animals and also of plants. This 
 infinite blending of resemblances with differences is 
 peculiar to living organisms. Nothing similar presents 
 itself in the substances dealt with by inorganic 
 chemistry, still less in the abstractions dealt with by 
 mathematics. And therefore those sciences have no 
 equally difficult problem of classification. For it is 
 precisely where an infinite number of complex 
 individuals exhibit a small number of types and 
 innumerable differences that classification becomes 
 
n POLITICAL SCIENCE 43 
 
 difficult. We may expect, then, that a science which 
 has to do with living organisms will present a serious 
 problem of classification. Now, are not states living 
 organisms 1 
 
 Let us consider what is meant by organism. It is 
 derived from a Greek word meaning a tool, and may 
 be said to mean etymologically much the same thing 
 as a machine, that is, a composite tool. But in 
 English both organ and organism are usually applied, 
 not to mechanical but to living tools. Thus a pair of 
 pincers is a tool or machine for holding ; the hand, 
 which performs the same function but is alive, may be 
 called an organ for holding. Now it is a characteristic 
 of life which has been made very prominent in recent 
 science, that substances informed by it receive what 
 is called organisation, that is, the different parts 
 acquire different capacities and adapt themselves to 
 perform different functions. Each part becomes more 
 or less a living tool or organ. 
 
 Take something inorganic, e.ff. a stone. One part 
 of it is like another, or if accidentally it differs in 
 shape does not differ in its capacities. But an organic 
 substance, e.g. an animal, is a complex, not merely of 
 parts, but of organs, that is, of tools specially adapted 
 to do work necessary or conducive to the well-being 
 of the whole, — eyes for seeing, feet for walking, and 
 so on. 
 
 But this is precisely what characterises a state. 
 
a INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 A state is a number of human beings not merely 
 crowded or massed together but organised. This 
 is so strikingly true that all the technical terms 
 applied to physical and political organisation are 
 interchangeable, and the word organisation itself is 
 applied in both departments alike without metaphor. 
 We say a man is a member of a state. What does 
 the word member mean 1 It means " limb." We say 
 the eye or the ear performs a function. What does 
 function mean? It is a political term meaning the 
 discharge of a public office. These examples show 
 how early and how instinctively the analogy between 
 that differentiation which in the physical body creates 
 organs, and that selection which in the state assigns 
 special functions to special men or to special classes, 
 was perceived. The same thing is illustrated by the 
 ancient fable of the Belly and the Members, which 
 you may read either in Livy or in Shakespeare, and 
 by passages well known to all of you in Plato's 
 Republic and in St. Paul's Epistles. There should be 
 no schism in the body, says St. Paul, and Plato says, 
 as we do not say, "A finger has pain," but, "A man has 
 a pain in his finger,'' so in the state we ought not to 
 say, "Some one suffers,'' but "The state suffers in 
 some one." 
 
 The analogy of course must not be overstrained. 
 There are points of difference as well as points of 
 resemblance between physical and political organisa- 
 
11 POLITICAL SCIENCE 45 
 
 tion. Nevertheless, it is no mere fanciful or rhetorical, 
 but a really important analogy. In any case the 
 resemblance is sufficiently close to justify us in 
 anticipating the same difficulty of classification in 
 political that we find in physiological science. The 
 states tha,t we see scattered over the globe at present, 
 or over the wide field of past history, are just as be- 
 wildering in their differences and correspondences 
 as the plants and animals which exercised the classi- 
 fying talent of Linnaeus and of Cuvier. Here as 
 there certain great types strike the eye, but at the 
 same time each state is so complex, the organs are 
 so many and afford room for such infinite small 
 differences, that we find ourselves compelled to make 
 subdivision after subdivision, and often uncertain 
 under what heading some individual ought to be 
 placed. 
 
 I must confess that I cannot find that very obvious 
 classification which comes down to us from Aristotle, 
 and which is still assumed and accepted almost on all 
 hands, at all satisfactory. Let us consider it. States 
 diflfer, it tells us, according to the number of persons 
 which compose the government. This may consist 
 either of one person, or of a few, or of many. Hence 
 we get three classes, now commonly called Monarchy, 
 Aristocracy, and Democracy. Aristotle, you know, 
 introduced a further distinction, and after admitting 
 these three classes as legitimate under the names 
 
46 INTEODXJCTION TO lect. 
 
 of Monarchy, Aristocracy, Polity, placed by the side 
 of each a perverted variety of it. The perverted 
 Monarchy he calls Tyranny, the perverted Aristocracy 
 Oligarchy, the perverted Polity he calls Democracy. 
 It seems to me strange that though everything in 
 politics has altered since Aristotle's time, though the 
 states we deal with are marvellously unlike the city 
 communities he had in view, we should still think 
 such a classification as this sufficient. And yet 
 it seems to me that in all our political discussion 
 we still use, and even confine ourselves to, these 
 simple categories. Parties still dispute on Monarchy 
 and Non- Monarchy, which they call Eepublic, on 
 Aristocracy and Democracy : adhering to Aristotle, 
 except in this that whereas he, almost as a matter of 
 course, held Aristocracy to be the best form and 
 classed Democracy among perversions, we have come 
 to speak of Democracy as a sort of ultimate ideal, 
 while the word Aristocracy, in the Aristotelian sense, 
 has gone out of fashion. 
 
 This classification presented itself almost inevit- 
 ably to Aristotle, who saw on one side Persia and 
 Macedonia exhibiting in a commanding form the 
 Monarchy which he also read of in Homer, while in 
 Greece itself he had before him the sharp contrast 
 between contemporary democracy and contemporary 
 oligarchy. In modern Europe the types are much 
 less simple and distinct. When we take a modern 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 47 
 
 state and inquire whether it is governed by one, or 
 by few, or by many, we find it usually' impossible to 
 obtain a satisfactory or plain answer. For what are 
 we to think if we find that the functions of govern- 
 ment are divided between a king and one or several 
 assemblies ? Aristotle does not seem to contemplate 
 such a case. In Persia the great king, in Macedonia 
 Philip or Alexander, did not seriously share their 
 power with any assembly ; in Athens no individual 
 and no small assembly could enter into competition 
 with the vast democratic Ecclesia. The contrary is 
 the case almost everywhere in the modern world, as 
 indeed it used to be a boast of English constitution- 
 alists that the English constitution was a beautiful 
 compound of the three forms of government, and had 
 the advantages, with none of the drawbacks, at once 
 of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. Since 
 popular institutions were introduced during the 
 present century into almost every continental country, 
 France and Germany and Italy and Spain may, if 
 they choose, make the same boast. . Everywhere, and 
 even in the United States, we find government 
 divided between the one, the few, and the many. 
 England is called a Monarchy, but beside the Monarch 
 it has a House of Lords and a House of Commons. 
 So has Italy, so Prussia, so Belgium, Holland, Spain 
 and Portugal. France and America profess to be 
 democratic Republics, but both beside a popular 
 
4» INTEODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 assembly have a smaller Senate and also a supreme 
 President. The American Senate has decidedly 
 greater power than our House of Lords, and the 
 American President decidedly greater power than 
 our Monarch. 
 
 Under which heading then are we to class these 
 states ? It is usual to say England is a Monarchy, 
 America is a democratic Republic. This ought to 
 mean at the very least that in England the One, if 
 not ruling alone, yet has greater power than the Few 
 or the Many, and also greater power than any One in 
 the American Republic. The contrary is the case. 
 The One here has far less power than the Many, and 
 decidedly less power than the One, the President, in 
 America. The accepted classification then tells us, I 
 do not say nothing, but the contrary of the truth.^ 
 
 The truth is, that though we continue to use the 
 ancient words we do not use them in the ancient 
 sense, but in a sort of metaphorical manner which is 
 not admissible in any discussion which professes to 
 be exact. It is no doubt possible to lay it down that 
 in a given state, whatever the formal institutions may 
 be, the predominant influence is in the hands perhaps 
 
 ' 111 the corresponding lecture of the 1891 course, after pointing 
 out tlie predominance of the assembly, representing the many, in 
 the so-called English " Monarchy," the author adds — with reference 
 to the principle of Aristotle's double classification — " If we are re- 
 quired to say whether this assembly governs honestly for the good 
 of the whole or pervertedly for its own good, I do not know what 
 answer we could make but the unsatisfactory one, — partly for the 
 one, partly for the other." 
 
n POLITICAL SCIENCE 49 
 
 of the people, or of a class, or of some influential 
 individual. We may express this popularly and 
 shortly by calling such a state democratic, or aristo- 
 cratic, or monarchic, but we must not dream that by 
 using the words in this metaphorical way we are 
 adhering to the old classification. That classification 
 was intended to be taken literally, and it referred to 
 the recognised institutions of the state, not to some 
 hidden influences which we may be able to detect by 
 looking below the surface. If we go in search of 
 such influences and choose to treat them as deter- 
 mining the character of the state, we adopt a wholly 
 new and very strange principle of classification, even 
 though we may abide by the old technical terms. 
 
 But if we take those terms, as we ought to do, 
 always in their literal sense, then I think we shall 
 seldom find the old classification serviceable. The 
 case of Rome, for instance, appears almost as com- 
 plex as England. The comitia tribuia, a democratic 
 assembly, sometimes seems quite supreme, but more 
 usually the senate, which is aristocratic. The senate, 
 however, at no time possesses undivided power, for the 
 many, represented by the comitia, and the one, repre* 
 sented by the consuls, have always large competence. 
 And when we travel beyond the ancient city states, 
 and go to the medieval or modern states, an instance 
 of government in the hands either of one, or of a few, 
 or of many, is seldom to be found. In one or two 
 
50 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 cases all power has been thrown by exceptional causes 
 into the hands of an individual, and in some small 
 and poor communities, lost to view among barren 
 mountains, what little government is needed has been 
 done by the many. Otherwise government has been 
 a complex thing, and has been distributed among a 
 number of individuals and assemblies. Some func- 
 tions are almost everywhere assigned to the one, 
 others almost everywhere to the many ; almost every- 
 where, too, there has been found occasion for select 
 councils representing valuable qualifications possessed 
 only by the few. ''* 
 
 But even if this old classification were valuable, 
 who can for a moment regard it as sufficient ? Do 
 states differ only or chiefly in the number of their 
 rulers 1 In the old histories of Greece or Eome the 
 writers seem so much preoccupied by thoughts of 
 republican liberty that they quite overlook a peculiarity 
 of those ancient states which might seem even more 
 interesting and obvious. They seem scarcely to 
 notice that those states are cities and not countries. 
 What an enormous, what a pregnant difference ! 
 Ought not this to enter into our classification 1 
 Ought we not to say, There are not only aristocracies 
 and democracies; there are also city-states and country- 
 states. To the former class belong the famous states 
 of antiquity, the states which Aristotle studied ; to 
 the latter almost all the states of modern Europe. 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 51 
 
 This is now one of the great fundamental distinctions 
 of political science, but it was almost overlooked in 
 the speculations of the eighteenth century, except 
 where it was exaggerated by Kousseau. 
 
 Again, take a government like that temporal state 
 of the Pope which was taken from him in 1870. A 
 serviceable classification would seize the dominant 
 peculiarity of this and bring it into the same list with 
 other governments which are really of the same kind. 
 But how can a classification which only inquires after 
 the number of rulers do this 1 It can only discover 
 that the government in question is a monarchy, and 
 therefore to be classed along with the government of 
 Louis XIV. or that of Queen Victoria. Surely this 
 arrangement will not help us much. 
 
 It is evident that the peculiarity of this govern- 
 ment is that it is priestly. Do we find elsewhere in 
 history governments of the same kind? Yes, the 
 government of the Jews after their return from 
 captivity, when the High Priest assumed the position 
 of a prince, was similar. Somewhat similar was the 
 authority of the earliest Mohammedan caliphs, an 
 Omar and an Ali. And everywhere history testifies 
 that priestly authority has a tendency to convert 
 itself into political authority, and will do so when 
 circumstances favour it. But if so, ought not this 
 kind of government to have a place in our classi- 
 fication ? The truth is that in the records of history 
 
52 INTKODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE lect. ii 
 
 theocracy is a phenomenon almost as prominent as 
 aristocracy or democracy. Yet it is almost over- 
 looked by Aristotle, and has been but slightly 
 referred to by most modern writers on political 
 science. 
 
 The result, then, is that in political science classi- 
 fication may be expected to be most important and 
 difficult, and also that the accepted classification 
 suggested originally by the very partial and peculiar 
 experience of the Greek philosophers is scarcely 
 applicable to the states with which we have chiefly 
 to deal, and is also insufficient. 
 
LECTUEE III 
 
 In my last lecture I brought together the civilised 
 state and the rude primitive community to which 
 we usually deny the name of state, and I asserted 
 that they belonged together as much as the insect 
 or mollusc belongs together with the bird and beast. 
 I asserted that political science ought to find a place 
 for the rude communities and not to pass them by on 
 the ground that they are uncivilised, while it confines 
 its investigations to states which it dignifies with the 
 name of civilised. Still civilisation is a great thing, 
 and a thing, if we may trust its etymology, par- 
 ticularly important in political science, for it seems 
 to be a way of living or thinking peculiarly adapted 
 to the civiias or state. When I maintain that the 
 rude community should not be overlooked, I do not 
 maintain that it should be put in the same class with 
 the civilised state, any more than in zoology the 
 mollusc is put in the same class with the vertebrate. 
 And as we propose to busy ourselves with the classi- 
 fication of states, and must therefore go in quest of 
 large differences, we can scarcely find a. larger or 
 
54 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 more striking difference than this to begin with. 
 The question why it is that some communities are so 
 different from others that we are inclined altogether 
 to refuse them the name of states, will probably, if 
 we can find an answer to it, yield us the most funda- 
 mental and the broadest of the distinctions we want. 
 ' I indicated slightly in the last lecture the most 
 prominent point of difference between the primitive 
 and the civilised state. The primitive man may, no 
 doubt, differ from the civilised man in a hundred 
 different ways, but the primitive state — that is, the 
 political organisation of the primitive man when com- 
 pared with that of the civilised — always, I think, differs 
 from it in the same way, viz. that it is far more closely 
 connected with the family. Take any highly civilised 
 state, whether from ancient or from modern history, 
 you scarcely perceive any relation or affinity between 
 its organisation and that of the families composing it. 
 In modern England or France, in the Greece or Rome 
 of Demosthenes and Cicero, the family has ceased to 
 have any political importance. So much is this the case 
 that those who, in the seventeenth century, speculated 
 upon the origin of states often show themselves 
 unaware even that in their origin and first beginning 
 states were connected with families. The very 
 tradition of the connection has been lost. It is 
 supposed that a condition of lawless violence, in 
 which the weak were at the mercy of the strong, 
 
Til POLITICAL SCIENCE 55 
 
 originally prevailed, and that this was brought to an 
 end by the invention of government, that is, by an 
 agreement to surrender to a single strong man a part 
 of the liberty which each man originally possessed, in 
 return for protection. This theory seems to conceive 
 the primitive community as a mere unorganised 
 crowd of individuals.^ But the beginning of political 
 organisation is given by nature in the family relation. 
 The authority of the paterfamilias may, or may not, 
 be primeval and universal ; but certainly in those 
 cases where we are able to trace the history of states 
 furthest back, the starting-point seems not to be a 
 condition of universal confusion, but a powerful and 
 rigid family organisation. The weak were not at the 
 mercy of the strong, because each weak man was a 
 member of the family, and the family protected him 
 with an energy of which modern society can form 
 no conception. In these cases, too, we are able to 
 trace that the state was not suddenly introduced as a 
 kind of heroic remedy for an intolerable confusion, 
 but that the germ of organisation given by nature 
 was developed artificially ; that the family grew into 
 something more than a mere family ; that it developed 
 itself gradually so much, and acquired so much 
 additional organisation, as to disengage itself from 
 the literal family, which now reappeared in an inde- 
 
 1 The MS. has here a pencil note : " This is more true of Hobbes 
 than Loclce." 
 
56 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 pendent form within it ; and that at last the conven- 
 tional or fictitious family acquired a character of its 
 own, until it first forgot and then at last denied and 
 repudiated its connection with the natural family. 
 
 Observe, I do not mean to assert that the state has 
 in all cases grown up in this way ; only that in the 
 most conspicuous instances, where its growth can be 
 traced most certainly, it has gone through these 
 stages. 
 
 For an example I will take one of the states best 
 known to you — ancient Eome ; I might equally well 
 take ancient Athens. 
 
 In the time of Cicero the state had a char- 
 acter as advanced and independent as it has in 
 England or France ; and those who speculated upon 
 its origin often forgot as completely to connect it 
 with the family as in modern times did Hobbes and 
 Locke. They said that Eomulus had opened an 
 asylum to which robbers had flocked, and that this 
 robber community had afterwards stolen wives and 
 transformed itself into a state. But certain institu- 
 tions still existed in Rome, which were of immemorial 
 antiquity, and which to Cicero and his contemporaries 
 had become quite unintelligible, but which, atten- 
 tively considered and compared with the traditionary 
 history by modern scholars, have betrayed the secret 
 of the development of the Roman state out of the 
 family. Particularly, there was the institution of the 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 57 
 
 gens. The second name of every Roman, ending always 
 in ius, Fabius, Julius, TuUius, showed to what gens he 
 belonged, and yet Cicero almost confesses that the 
 nature and meaning of the gens are quite obscure to 
 him. But Athens had just the same institution, and 
 the analogy of other primitive communities shows us 
 that we have here the clan, that is, the conventional 
 family — a family enlarged and strengthened by means 
 of various legal fictions. What puzzles Cicero is that 
 in the condition of the gens in which he saw it the 
 fictions were too transparent, so that he cannot think 
 of it seriously as a family. But we know that there 
 is an earlier stage in the development of law when 
 legal fictions are taken quite seriously. We can 
 therefore easily conceive that five hundred years 
 before Cicero these institutions, the gentes, may have 
 been thoroughly intelligible and full of vitality. And 
 now, when we take up the early books of Livy and 
 read the account of that strange primitive party- 
 struggle between the patricians and plebeians, we 
 are able to discern the primitive nucleus of the 
 Roman community in the original clans, the patri- 
 cian gentes. For we find references to an ancient 
 maxim that no plebeian belongs to a gens ; now as in 
 later times this had ceased to be true, we see that 
 the struggle had been not merely for ofiice but also 
 for status, social as well as political ; in short, that it 
 was the effort of expansion by which the old family 
 
58 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 mould was broken and the state proper disengaged 
 itself from the clan. 
 
 Again, the history of the city of Rome shows us 
 that the nucleus of it was composed of a number of 
 primitive clans living each in its separate settlement, 
 but side by side, for the oldest districts of the city 
 have the names of the ancient patrician gentes. In 
 short a number of indications concur to show that 
 Rome — though in the time of Cicero the fact had 
 been quite forgotten — ^first took shape as a league of 
 cognate but distinct clans, each clan being a conven- 
 tional family into which admission could only be pro- 
 cured through the fiction of adoption. 
 
 The same fact is almost as evident in the history 
 of Athens. And in almost every state the develop- 
 ment of which has been at all recorded it is possible 
 to recognise that the family is infinitely more promi- 
 nent in the earlier stages than in the later, so that 
 the further you ascend the stream the more you see 
 the state taking the form of a tribe or clan, or league 
 of tribes and clans. 
 
 So far, then, we have arrived at a grand distinction 
 which roughly corresponds to the distinction between 
 civilised and uncivilised states. For the most part 
 we find that the uncivilised state is only a tribe that 
 is a more or less conventional family. 
 
 But is this all ? No ; when I compare in my mind 
 the so-called civilised with the more primitive states 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 59 
 
 I am struck with another diflference equally pregnant. 
 I am struck with the immense political importance 
 of religion in the primitive state. I use the word 
 religion here in its most literal popular sense, the 
 worship and apparatus of worship of special deities 
 in literal temples. In the higher sense I should 
 maintain that religion rather gains than loses by the 
 advance of civilisation in a state, and I do not myself 
 believe that the state can disengage itself from 
 religion taken in this higher sense. But as the state 
 gradually disengages itself from the family, so it is 
 a historic law that the state as it develops tends 
 to disengage itself from the particular form of 
 religion with which in its primitive period it had 
 been connected, and in its earlier stage the state is 
 very frequently found thus intimately connected 
 with some such special form of religion. 
 
 This has been somewhat concealed from the 
 readers of history, owing to the fact that many of 
 the most famous histories have been written in a 
 time of scepticism with respect to the religious 
 system with which they have to deal. Thucydides, 
 Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, are not believers in the 
 ancient national religions of Greece and Eome 
 respectively. The same is true also of Aristotle. 
 Accordingly all these historians and speculators 
 rationalise somewhat, and in their accounts of early 
 history the religious colour is in a great degree 
 
60 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 washed out. Still, in the early books of Livy it is 
 clearly recognisable that a strong religious feeling 
 entered into the struggle of patricians and plebeians, 
 and that the former regarded themselves as defending 
 the ancient religious institutions, the "sanctities of 
 old." And in general we may perceive that both in 
 Greece and Eome the later generations when they 
 looked back perceived that religion had formerly been 
 much more prominent in public life than it was in 
 their own time, as we ourselves feel when we compare 
 modern politics with the politics of Charles I.'s time. 
 " Majores nostri, religiosissimi mortales,'' says Cato, 
 and Sophocles tells of Athens that it boasted itself 
 to be " most religious " (Oeoaefiea-TaTai), as indeed it 
 appears in the ideal picture of it given both by that 
 poet aod by Aeschylus. The legends of Numa 
 Pompilius and of Epimenides; the ancient priest- 
 hoods, more ancient commonly thaii purely secular 
 institutions; many survivals, such as the Amphictyonic 
 Confederation and the Oomitia Curiata, — all these 
 indications in Greek and Eoman history, and others 
 quite similar in the histories of other states, lead us 
 to conclude that of states it may be said, as the poet 
 has said of individuals, " Heaven lies about them in 
 their infancy.'' These examples have been drawn 
 from heathen religions, but the history of the last 
 two centuries has shown that in Christian states, too, 
 a time comes when the State tries to disengage itself 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE Gl 
 
 from the particular institution of Christian religion 
 with which in earlier times it has been connected. 
 Down to about the time of Queen Anne the English 
 state was also in some sense the English Church, 
 but since that time it has been in a manner 
 secularised, and so visibly that the very complexion 
 of its history has been altered. About the same 
 time the same change passed over the leading 
 Catholic states, so that an ever-growing hostility to 
 the spiritual power is throughout a characteristic of 
 continental history in the eighteenth century. 
 
 Looking upon states in general from our own 
 point of view, which is that of a somewhat secularised 
 state, we perceive a great difference between states 
 like our own and others in which politics are closely 
 connected with religion. Like our own are the states 
 of modern Europe, and also the classical states of 
 antiquity in their later periods; to the other class 
 belong the medieval states, most of the Oriental 
 communities, and most communities anywhere that 
 are in a primitive stage. This particular influence 
 of religion, its influence upon politics, tends to 
 become exhausted after a certain time, just as the 
 influence of the family does, because after a time the 
 state becomes independent, and able, as it were, to 
 stand without props. Hence we see that political 
 theory forgets the influence of religion as it forgets 
 that of the family, because political theory commonly 
 
62 INTEODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 belongs to an advanced period of the stiite when it 
 has become independent. Aristotle in the Politics 
 is almost entirely silent on the subject of religion. 
 Not only does he not recognise that one most 
 important and common form of government, the 
 theocracy, is absolutely founded on religion, but he 
 does not seem to recognise that even in primitive 
 periods religion is a leading cause of the develop- 
 ment of states out of tribes. We shall find it quite 
 impossible to follow him in this respect when we 
 found a political science upon induction and history. 
 Historically, religion is a ruling influence in most 
 states during their period of growth ; in some 
 conspicuous cases it seems almost to create the state ; 
 and many centuries commonly elapse before it 
 becomes possible to distinguish the two ideas of 
 state and church, much more to think of dividing the 
 two institutions. Accordingly we have here another 
 leading difference between the states called civilised 
 and those which are more primitive ; in the primitive 
 state not only the family but also religion is far more 
 prominent, and has a substantial political importance. 
 How does this influence work ? As to the family, 
 we saw how, by a gradual extension and sophistica- 
 tion of the simple idea of the family, the state may 
 gradually come into existence. But historically we 
 see states at times springing into existence in quite 
 another way, through religion. Look at the great 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 63 
 
 states of Islam. A religious doctrine was preached 
 in the seventh century among the Arab tribes, and 
 forthwith those populations, till then feeble and 
 disunited, took the form of a mighty state, and in 
 the course of a century had founded cities, over- 
 thrown empires, and established a great federation 
 of states, covering a considerable section of the 
 globe, and united among themselves by the bond of 
 a common religion. This is the largest phenomenon 
 of the kind ; but we have all read in our Bibles how 
 two thousand years earlier another prophet had 
 given a law in the same neighbourhood, which law 
 had in like manner created a state. These are 
 extreme and striking examples of the state-building 
 power of religion, because they seem to show us 
 religion creating states, as it were, out of nothing. 
 But as a concurrent factor religion is seen wherever 
 the formation of a state can be traced. In the 
 Semitic or Hamitic East, wherever a barbarous tribe 
 has raised itself at all above the level of barbarism 
 and taken any development, it has done so usually 
 through conversion to Islam. In Europe it was by 
 alliance with the Church that the Germanic nationality 
 first achieved durable political creations ; thus did 
 Clovis create and Pepin restore the Prankish Empire. 
 In England, too, it was religion that first brought 
 the tribes together and laid the foundation of an 
 English state. 
 
G4 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 The reason why the family is capable of developing 
 into the state is that it creates a strong link between 
 individuals. The son belongs in the most intimate 
 sense to the father ; the members of a family belong 
 together. Once given such a solid bond, human con- 
 trivance and invention may by degrees add suitable 
 organisation; but the bond is indispensable. Now 
 perhaps the only other influence which creates such 
 a bond is religion. It forms churches which, so long 
 as the religious influence continues genuine, unite 
 their members for life and for death as the family 
 does. These unions may be barbarous; the deity 
 worshipped, the rites practised, may appear to the 
 outside world repulsive, as in other cases they may 
 appear noble and admirable; but whether good or 
 bad, the bond created by religion is of that strong, 
 natural, elementary, instinctive kind, that it lasts for 
 centuries, and allows infinite modifications and de- 
 velopments in the body which it holds together 
 to take place without dissolution of the body. 
 
 We see then two ways in which the state may 
 come into existence. It may have its root in the 
 family, it may have its root in the Church. But are 
 these roots really distinct 1 Do churches spring up 
 quite independently of clans or tribes'! We do not 
 intend here to speculate; we wish to follow the 
 indications of fact and of history. Whatever may be 
 possible in the abstract, in historic experience they are 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 65 
 
 generally found together. The family influence and the 
 religious influence operate side by side. Mohammed 
 did not bring together individuals that had been 
 isolated, but tribes that had been distinct, and, more- 
 over, in spite of their distinctness, cognate. Moses 
 made a church or rather a church-nation, but he 
 made it out of tribes, and behind the Mosaic we see 
 the patriarchal, Abrahamic community. Take other 
 examples. The early history of Eome shows us a 
 religious legislator, Numa Pompilius, endowing the 
 community, while it was yet in political infancy, 
 with an elaborate organisation of worship. We 
 cannot lay any stress upon the personality of Numa, 
 but it is clear that early Eome passed through a 
 phase of intense religious feeling, for all evidence 
 shows that the religious institutions in Eome were 
 more ancient than the political, that Eome had many 
 priesthoods, many temples, at a time when she had 
 scarcely any magistrates. The nucleus of the world- 
 state was a group of sacred shrines, the Ara Maxima 
 by the Tiber, the shrine of Faunus on the Palatine, 
 and then the great temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. 
 Shall we say then that Eome developed itself out of 
 a primitive church 1 I think we may say so. But 
 it is equally clear, as I said before, that Eome grew 
 out of a league of tribes or clans. The tribal character 
 is just as manifest as the theocratic character in that 
 primitive community, not less so than in the earliest 
 F 
 
66 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 phase of the Hebrew community. It appears, then, 
 that the ecclesiastical form is not diverse from the 
 tribal form, but may be superimposed upon it — nay, 
 possibly springs out of it by normal development. 
 
 However this may be, it is certain that in some 
 communities the theocratic stamp is most marked, in 
 others the tribal ; while again both these classes of 
 state appear to us primitive and old-fashioned, 
 because we are accustomed to a third class in which 
 both the influence of religion and that of the family 
 have ceased greatly to influence the state, which 
 now assumes to be independent of either. 
 
 This is a large generalisation, but it is not at all 
 recondite. It merely collects together some facts 
 which, if they are often overlooked, are overlooked 
 only on account of their largeness and obviousness. 
 The word stale and the conception state seem wanting 
 in some communities, which in other respects also 
 appear to be imperfectly developed. Accordingly 
 such communities have been passed over by political 
 speculators who were in search of states, since they 
 do not even profess to be states. But as my object 
 is to bring together all the political phenomena which 
 are really of the same kind, and as these communities 
 appear to be of the same kind as the recognised state, 
 though they do not adopt the same name, I desire to 
 include them. I find two l^ge varieties of them. 
 That which strikes me first because it is most 
 
POLITICAL SCIENCE 67 
 
 barbarous, most unlike the civilised state, is the 
 which I find chiefly in the great desert regions of the 
 world, in North Africa, Arabia, and Central Asia. 
 But I find another variety which cannot be called the 
 tribe, for it has quite other characteristics. The 
 Turkish Empire is the great example of it. It is 
 often of great extent, and often has much organisation. 
 It reminds us of what we ourselves, the nations of 
 Europe, were in the Middle Ages, and we think of it 
 rather as medieval than as barbarous. The prominent 
 feature of it is not the family but religion. In the 
 Turkish Empire no question is raised of a man's 
 nationality, but only of his religion. True believers 
 are all equal, and men differ only as they are true 
 believers or infidels. 
 
 We have then three great varieties of state. 
 There is the state proper, there is the tribe, and there 
 is this ecclesiastical community, which I have just 
 described, — we may call it perhaps the theocracy. 
 
 They are all states in this sense, that they are all 
 alike corporations to which men belong for life and 
 death, but corporations distinct from, and larger than, 
 the mere natural family. 
 
 In what do they differ? In the motive which 
 attaches men to them ; in the conception which the 
 members have of the corporation to which they are 
 thus closely attached. Ask a tribesman what binds 
 him to his tribe, what he means when he says he 
 
68 INTKODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 belongs to it : he will answer that " blood is thicker 
 than water," that he belongs by kinship to his tribe, 
 that he is a Macgregor or a Gordon, and must go 
 with the Macgregors or the Gordons ; ask the same 
 question of a Jew or a Mussulman — they will speak 
 of the God in whom they believe and of their circum- 
 cision ; ask an Englishman or a Frenchman — they will 
 give again a different answer, one not so easy to 
 express in a few words, to the effect that it is of 
 infinite advantage to them to belong to a great 
 England or a great France. Thus one speaks of 
 community of race, another of community of religion, 
 another of community of interest. But all alike are 
 agreed that the tie, whatever it is, is infinitely strong ; 
 and that if the corporation to which they are attached 
 should be endangered they would be morally bound 
 to make all sacrifices in its behalf. 
 
 States, then, may be classified according to the 
 motive which holds them together, and this is perhaps 
 the most comprehensive principle — that is, the 
 principle which is independent of all differences in 
 form of government, and which includes the least 
 developed organisms that can pretend to be political. 
 It is useful in the same way as all principles of 
 classification that are founded upon real and important 
 differences — that is, it brings together and makes 
 available for use a large number of scattered facts. 
 But at this stage we know only that the political 
 
in POLITICAL SCIENCE 69 
 
 community appears in these three shapes ; we must 
 not for a moment assume that we have here three 
 different species, as the word species is understood in 
 physiology — that is, varieties so rigidly separated that 
 they can either not at all, or only in very long periods 
 of time, pass into each other. On the contrary, all 
 appearances show that we have here only three 
 different stages in the development of the same state. 
 For it is important to remark that the three motives 
 are not generally found operating separately. One 
 of the three is commonly predominant, but the other 
 two are generally observable either in germ or in 
 decay. This cannot be better illustrated than by 
 considering our own state and the way in which we 
 ourselves regard it. Among us the state has gained 
 independence; we are in an advanced stage of 
 development. We belong to it mainly because we 
 hold it useful, beneficial ; the bond that holds us all 
 together is community of interest. But does this 
 mean that the other older motives have quite ceased 
 to act, that the older ties have quite fallen away ? 
 Not at all ; we are still Englishmen. When we speak 
 of the colonies and rejoice to think that they will not 
 lightly separate themselves from us, 'we still use the 
 old phrase and say that blood is thicker than water. 
 Nor has the religious tie by any means ceased to 
 hold not only individuals but also the state together. 
 In the presence of Mohammedans or idolaters -we 
 
70 INTEODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 feel in the most vivid manner that we are Christians, 
 and when we travel in Italy or Spain we mostly feel 
 in the same manner that we are Protestants. 
 
 Thus in the advanced communities all the three 
 motives act at once. They are states proper, held 
 together by interest ; this is their predominant 
 character. But they have by no means entirely 
 ceased to have the nature of theocracies, held together 
 by religion, nor have they ceased to have the nature 
 of tribes held together by kinship. 
 
 I have already remarked in like manner that in 
 the theocratic state, though the theocratic motive 
 predominates, the tribal motive is commonly also 
 operative ; the theocracy is a tribe or league of tribes 
 at the same time. Conversely, it is not to be supposed 
 that the tribal motive has in it no germ of theocracy. 
 What I have called shortly the sense of kinship is 
 in those primitive minds in which it is most influential 
 by no means the simple rational thing it is in our- 
 selves. There it is closely blended with religion ; it 
 is a worship of ancestors, and as the ancestors are 
 regarded as gods, so the gods are regarded as ancestors, 
 so that no line can be traced where family feeling 
 ends and religion begins. 
 
 Once more, both in the tribe and the theocracy 
 there are observable very distinct germs of the state 
 proper. The notion of a common interest has not 
 indeed detached itself, and we can observe that when 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 71 
 
 it begins to do so those who have been accustomed 
 to the older motives receive a shock, cry out on 
 utilitarianism, and predict the downfall of the nation. 
 But implicitly the notion must always have been at 
 work, and however little avowed must have worked 
 powerfully. For such primitive communities are 
 under an intense pressure from danger and from 
 suffering. The enemy is often at their gates, the 
 men are exposed to massacre, the women and children 
 to slavery. In such circumstances the community 
 of interest is much more palpable, more undeniable, 
 than in the vast nation-states and empires of a more 
 civilised time ; and if it is not so much mentioned 
 this is only because the older notions are still vigorous 
 enough by themselves to hold the society together 
 and satisfy the minds of the citizens. 
 
 Thus, when we make the experiment of bringing 
 together the rude and civilised communities, we dis- 
 cover that the difference is not so much one of kind 
 as of degree of development, and this is what the 
 common expression, progress of civilisation, would 
 lead us to expect. In the main it appears that the 
 barbarous states, or those we call Oriental, of the 
 present day, are not essentially different from our 
 own, but only less developed — that they are now 
 what we were once. 
 
 I have distinguished three different state-motives 
 and three different forms of state corresponding to 
 
72 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 them. But can we find no fourth motive and no 
 fourth kind of state 1 
 
 I daresay your first impression will be that it is 
 easy to find states which do not fall under any of 
 these three heads. You will cite for instance the 
 Eoman Empire, which was composed of various races 
 and various religions. And you will ask, What 
 common interest held together the conquering 
 Eomans and the provincials who were plundered by 
 Roman proconsuls and propraetors ? And similar to 
 the Roman Empire are all states founded on con- 
 quest, where a ruling race lives in the midst of 
 dependent races ; such states occur in history as 
 frequently as those which we have hitherto contem- 
 plated. Evidently, then, there is a fourth state- 
 motive, simpler and no less effective than the three we 
 have examined, viz. force. Sheer superiority of force 
 on the part of the ruling class, inspiring first terror, 
 and after a certain time inert passive resignation, — 
 this is the explanation of, perhaps, half the states in 
 the world. 
 
 This brings us to another distinction which is very 
 fundamental. We began by laying it down that the 
 state is an organism, and that the processes by which 
 it is developed are analogous to those by which 
 animal or vegetable organisms receive their peculiar 
 form and organisation. But these are natural pro- 
 cesses, the result of the power which life has of 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 73 
 
 adapting itself to its environment. We see something 
 analogous to this when a group of men, held together 
 by some living bond and pressed by some difficulty 
 or danger from without, takes a shape and puts 
 forth organs that may enable it to withstand the 
 pressure. We see here the natural genesis of the 
 state. But among the mass of states which history 
 presents we find a whole class which have not arisen 
 in this way at all. They ought, no doubt, to form a 
 fourth class by the side of the three which we have 
 distinguished, if it did not seem more just to refuse 
 them the name of state altogether. For these so- 
 called states are not natural organisms. They are 
 inorganic. 
 
 The natural states exist side by side, and are often 
 crowded together in a narrow room. Hence wars 
 arise between them, and for the most part not such 
 wars as we see now among European states, which 
 are closed by a treaty and an indemnity, but wars in 
 which either state aims at the destruction of the 
 other. * This destruction is often accomplished. 
 Government is swept away, organisation is dissolved, 
 the victorious state enters the territory and has the 
 conquered population, now reduced to a mere crowd, 
 at its mercy. What does it do? Sometimes it 
 annexes the territory to its own. In this case it will 
 set up a new government, which will be in the hands 
 of alien officials. From this time there will be 
 
74 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 nominally one large state where before there had 
 been two smaller states. Now, as most actual states 
 have often engaged in war, this process has occurred 
 very frequently indeed, and most states now include 
 some territory and some population which was origin- 
 ally incorporated in this way. 
 
 But for our purpose it is essential to draw a sharp 
 distinction between the natural organic union out of 
 which. the living state grows and this sort of violent 
 incorporation. Not because we may disapprove of 
 such violence, for, as I have said, our moral approval 
 or disapproval is wholly irrelevant to the question of 
 classification ; but because the difference between the 
 society held together by force and the natural society 
 is so great that they ought not to be described by the 
 same word. At least, if we must in conformity with 
 usage call the former " state," let us add the epithet 
 "inorganic." 
 
 Properly speaking, such a society is a double 
 thing. The conquering class or horde, taken by 
 itself, is a real state, a vigorous organism. Thus I 
 quoted the Turkish Empire as a typical example of 
 the theocracy. It is so if we think of the ruling 
 Mussulman population, but outside this in the same 
 territory there are the subject Christian populations, 
 who form properly no state at all, either by them- 
 selves or in conjunction with their rulers, but an 
 inorganic crowd. 
 
in POLITICAL SCIENCE 75 
 
 Nevertheless the inorganic quasi-state imitates the 
 organic state, and has one characteristic of the true 
 state in a high degree. For we said that the state is 
 characterised by government, which means command 
 enforced by punishment; this, then, the inorganic 
 quasi-state has, and indeed depends exclusively 
 upon it. 
 
 It is time to sum up the results of this lecture. 
 History and observation show us that human popu- 
 lations are often united by an organic process analo- 
 gous to that which combines natural substances into 
 a living organism. The family, in withstanding 
 external pressure, extends and modifies itself by 
 means of legal fictions till it becomes the clan, and 
 several clans unite themselves by means of a federal 
 league. Again, the worshippers of a deity engage in 
 religious war against the worshippers of some other 
 deity, and the pressure of war gives rise to organisa- 
 tion. Hence we have two types of organic governed 
 society; but these two types are commonly found 
 blended together. After a certain time the society 
 thus founded on kindred or common religion or both, 
 becomes aware that its union is a thing valuable for 
 its own sake, that government and organisation and 
 co-operative life are useful in themselves to the indi- 
 viduals who possess them. Hence there springs up ^ 
 the conception of a common good, a common weal, 
 which is independent of such considerations as kin- 
 
76 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LEOT. Ill 
 
 dred or religion ; by degrees the society disengages 
 itself from these props, and begins to rest by prefer- 
 ence upon utility, the word being understood not 
 necessarily in any sordid sense. 
 
 Hence the organic state appears in three different 
 forms : clannish, or theocratic, or properly political ; 
 but these forms are, to all appearance, only different 
 stages of a single normal development. 
 
 By the side of these organic forms history shows 
 us another sort of political society which, if the state 
 is an organism, can only be called a quasi-state. It 
 is not organic — that is, it is not developed from within. 
 It is the result of conquest, but has a similar appear- 
 ance to the organic state, because it adopts and 
 imitates the organisation of it. In history, however, 
 since conquest has been very frequent, this quasi- 
 state occurs at least as often as the organic state. If 
 we speak seldom of it in these lectures the reason 
 will be, not that it does not deserve study, but that 
 it ought to be carefully distinguished and studied 
 separately, and that our present undertaking concerns 
 rather the organic state. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 The practical use of the classification I laid before 
 you in the last lecture is that it helps us in under- 
 standing the history of primitive and uncivilised 
 states, and enables us to conceive that, however 
 different in appearance, they are substantially pheno- 
 mena of the same kind as the modern civilised state. 
 For these purposes it is, in my opinion, of very great 
 use. Everywhere in history the ordinary student 
 suffers lamentably from the want of general ideas. 
 Some compass we must have in the sea of facts. In 
 modern and recent times we are not quite without 
 this compass, for we understand in general that 
 constitutional freedom is the object iimed at, and 
 despotism the evil struggled with. But in primitive 
 times all is different. Here we want other categories, 
 other generalisations, yet we are scarcely aware of 
 this, and hence we try to make the familiar categories 
 serve again. But it is not really true to say that the 
 struggle of the plebeians against the patricians was a 
 struggle for liberty, and it is of little use to apply 
 modern principles to that long stretch of primitive 
 
78 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 history which is so familiar to us in the Old Testa- 
 ment. In all these parts of history we should dismiss 
 the notions of liherty, constitutionalism, checks on 
 royal power, writs of habeas corpus and petitions of 
 right. Wholly different notions are required here, 
 and the clue is given when you understand that 
 the clan is struggling with the theocracy, and the 
 theocracy with the state proper. Some Numa or 
 Mohammed or Moses breaks the hard tribal organisa- 
 tion by some grand religious proclamation. Augustine 
 breaks in upon the rude heptarchy, Clovis holds out 
 a hand to Catholicism. The community assumes 
 a theocratic form. Then at a later period the theo- 
 cracy too is put upon the defensive. Political ideas 
 are now gaining head; a royal house establishes 
 itself ; the theocracy, as represented by the prophet 
 Samuel, is indignant that the people should ask for a 
 king ; or the royal house itself has been allied with 
 the theocracy, or it may be an aristocratic government 
 has endowed itself with priesthoods ; in this case the 
 rising movement will attack aristocracy or monarchy, 
 the precinct of religious privilege will be invaded, 
 and the plebeians will break into the priesthoods and 
 pontificates. 
 
 Such are the party struggles of the primitive age, 
 but the primitive age is nearer to us than we are apt 
 to suppose. The rationalistic mode of writing 
 history effaces, as I said, the religious colour of 
 
ly POLITICAL SCIENCE 79 
 
 national life. We have a trick of dividing ecclesias- 
 tical history from civil and relegating it into special 
 treatises ; but it is in this ecclesiastical history that 
 the primitive ideas under which the state was first 
 formed are preserved. Thus, in our struggle with 
 the Stuarts there is evidently a very large ecclesiasti- 
 cal element, but we do not allow to it all the weight 
 we ought, because of the prejudice which leads us to 
 think that this does not belong to history proper, but 
 only to ecclesiastical history. If we allowed ourselves 
 to contemplate that struggle as a whole, we should 
 see that it was not a mere struggle with, monarchy 
 for freedom, that it was at the same time the effort 
 by which the state made itself independent and 
 passed out of its theocratic stage. 
 
 We may pass now to another of the large distinc- 
 tions by which states are divided into classes. I 
 take intentionally such as are most obvious, because 
 I want to take note of the largest differences first. 
 
 Those who in our modern period study the history 
 of Greece and Eome are not perhaps at first struck 
 by the fundamental difference between the classical 
 states and those of modern Europe. Compared with 
 the primitive state, or even with the medieval state, 
 Greece and Eome have quite a modern appearance. 
 The school of Voltaire used to couple the age of 
 Louis XIV. with the great age of Greece and Eome 
 as being of the same kind, and to treat all that came 
 
80 INTRODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 between as deserving only to be forgotten. Since 
 Voltaire's time the modern state has grown still more 
 like the classical one, for it has acquired liberties and 
 popular assemblies. And yet what a difference ! A 
 difference that must take by surprise those who think 
 that states differ almost exclusively in the number 
 of their rulers ! 
 
 It flashes on us after a time that by a state the 
 ancients mean a city, and that we mean a country ! 
 
 When I say the ancients I mean of course the 
 Greeks and Eomans. Outside the classical world we 
 see traces of a similar arrangement in antiquity, for 
 Carthage seems to be a sovereign city like Eome or 
 Athens. But antiquity, too, has large country 
 states, the Macedonian Monarchy, the Persian 
 Empire, the primeval Egyptian state. Substantially 
 we have to deal with the fact that in two countries, 
 Greece and Italy, the political vital principle seized 
 small groups of population and turned them into 
 highly developed organisms, whereas in modern 
 Europe (and now also in America) and in Asia, the 
 political organism is very large and tends also to 
 become larger. 
 
 In modern times the substance of the organism is 
 commonly a population speaking the same language. 
 Sometimes, however, it is a population with two 
 or three languages, but one of them generally pre- 
 ponderating. So Switzerland has three languages, 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 81 
 
 but German gi'eatly preponderates; Austria has 
 several languages, and much difficulty is caused by 
 the fact that no one now preponderates quite 
 decidedly. 
 
 In ancient Greece and Italy language had no 
 political effect. The polity embraced only a small 
 number of those who spoke the same language. So 
 it was in Greece, where the language was spread 
 over no great space, and yet within that space there 
 were dozens of independent states. So, too, in 
 Italy, where languages closely cognate were spread 
 over a large section of the country, and yet we find 
 Rome and Veii and the cities of the Latin league con- 
 tending together in much the same way as Athens, 
 Megara, and Corinth. 
 
 In the modern world something similar has been 
 seen again in Italy, and also in Switzerland. In 
 both countries in the fourteenth century, owing to 
 the failure of the power of the Emperor, cities be- 
 came for practical purposes again sovereign, and in 
 the cases of Florence and Venice highly developed. 
 In Germany, too, from the same cause, a number of 
 free cities, such as Niirnberg and Frankfurt, became 
 practically almost independent republics. These have 
 been momentary glimpses, in the case of Italy some- 
 thing more than a glimpse, of the ancient classical 
 world, but in the end the modern tendency has set 
 more and more decidedly against the small state, 
 G 
 
82 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 and seems likely now to replace its large states by 
 states larger still, states of 20,000,000 by states of 
 80,000,000, 
 
 If you will reflect you will see that a difference so 
 great as this must necessarily involve innumerable 
 other differences of organisation. The government of 
 a town council cannot possibly follow the same rules as 
 the government of a great country. This simple fact 
 shows us how hollow must have been the political 
 theories of the last century, which aimed at the 
 imitation of the classical states, and yet for the most 
 part forgot such a fundamental difference. 
 
 I mention it here for the sake of founding upon it a 
 classification, but, as a matter of fact, a great part of 
 history is occupied not so much with the proceedings 
 of states of these two kinds as with the struggles and 
 confused endeavours of human society to form states 
 of these two kinds. In particular, the gradual 
 growth of the large nation-state in the bosom of the 
 dissolving Roman Empire occupies many centuries 
 full of history on the largest scale. Though I have 
 not space to treat of this, I may find room here for a 
 suggestion as to the causes which may have led the 
 poHtical vital principle to embody itself in different 
 countries in these two diflFerent ways. 
 
 We might perhaps imagine that that rational way 
 of setting up a state which charms philosophers so 
 much may really have given birth to the old city- 
 
iv POLITICAL SCIENCE 83 
 
 states, though not to <the modern country - state. 
 The city-state was so compact and developed itself 
 so fast that it looks not quite unlike the invention 
 of an ingenious thinker. And yet the gradual 
 growth of the city-state out of the family and the 
 religious community is as well attested as that of the 
 country-state. Primitive Athens and Eome are not 
 a whit more philosophical, they are quite as mythical 
 and religious as primitive Germany and England. 
 We must look therefore for some other explanation. 
 
 You will observe that the thing we call kindred 
 has no natural limit or end. Every man's relation- 
 ships are infinite, but he only keeps in memory a 
 certain number of them. A tribe is bound together 
 by kindred, but kindred does not end with the 
 tribe. All that ends there is the consciousness of 
 kindred. Now when we study primitive society we 
 are usually able to distinguish very clearly two sorts 
 of kindred, one within the other, one narrow and 
 conscious, the other wide and unconscious. Those 
 original tribes of Athens and Eome had conscious 
 kindred, each within itself, but they dwelt in the 
 midst of other tribes whom they regarded also as 
 cognate. This latter relationship did not influence 
 them ; they were not even consciously aware of it, 
 but they were certainly not ignorant of it. For every 
 Athenian believed himself to be a Hellen, and could 
 not but know that his language was intelligible to the 
 
84 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 visitor from Thebes or from Corinth, but not to the 
 visitor from Tyre or from Babylon. The common 
 kindred of all Greeks was in a manner always assumed 
 and yet never considered ; no consequence was drawn 
 from it ; it had no effect on the formation of states. 
 
 Thucydides remarks that Homer has no collective 
 name for the Greeks. There is indeed such vague- 
 ness in Homer's conception of the nation as a whole 
 that the reader is never made to understand whether 
 the Trojans are of different nationality from the 
 Greeks or of the same. Now it is curious to observe 
 that the German tribes too labour under just the 
 same vagueness of conception as to their nation. 
 They too have no collective name. There are 
 German tribes, who blindly feel themselves to be 
 related to each other, and there is a German 
 language. Eoman observers can see their unity, but 
 they overlook it themselves, and it was actually not 
 till the eleventh century, or a thousand years after 
 Tacitus, that a collective name theotisc, deutsch, grew 
 into use among them. I might make a similar 
 remark about the Arabs before Mohammed. It 
 seems, then, that in the ordinary circumstances of 
 early society the large family, the tribe, has vitality, 
 but the larger family still, the nation, has scarcely 
 any vitality. Now it may chance that in the whole 
 course of development the tribe and the nation may 
 preserve this relation to each other. 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 85 
 
 So it happened in Greece and Italy. Within each 
 country the cognate tribes pressed close upon each 
 other and made war against each other, knowing 
 each other mainly as enemies, until each separately, 
 or small leagues of them, under this mutual pressure 
 developed through the stages I enumerated last week, 
 became first from the clan the theocracy, then from 
 the theocracy the state proper. Meanwhile the 
 nation as a whole remained undeveloped, and when a 
 great danger from Macedonia called for a general 
 rally the nation had no organisation ready by means 
 of which it could answer the call. Each town was 
 armed against its neighbours, but the nation was not 
 armed against a foreign enemy. It was thus in 
 ancient Greece, it was thus again by a remarkable 
 correspondence in medieval Italy, when the cities 
 fell in like manner before Charles V. In ancient 
 Italy the development was the same, but the result 
 was different ; there one town swallowed up all the 
 others, and when the Carthaginians, Gauls, and Ger- 
 mans threatened Italy the great union of federated 
 towns served the same purpose as a country-state. 
 
 But it is possible to imagine another course of 
 circumstances in which after the early stage the tribe 
 might not gain but rather lose vitality, so that it 
 may not grow into a state, and on the other hand 
 the faint glimmer of consciousness which the nation 
 had at the outset might be strengthened until it 
 
86 INTEODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 eclipsed the consciousness of the tribe. The result 
 of this may be that the city-state may be arrested in 
 its development, and in the place of many city-states 
 one great nation-state may come into existence. 
 
 We notice that Greece, Italy, and Switzerland are 
 mainly mountain-countries. Here invaders are kept 
 aloof, and in the perpetual petty struggle of the 
 cognate tribes strong natural fortresses present them- 
 selves. The federated tribes gather round some 
 double crag, where a citadel and a temple rise side 
 by side; in the plain below is the forum. Here 
 begins the development of the city-state. But north 
 of the Alps we have in the main large plains. Over 
 these plains tribes wander without much mutual 
 pressure; they do not much build towns. It was 
 said of the Germans that they hated towns. Here, 
 therefore, the tribal stage continues without much 
 development for a long time. Suppose now this 
 undeveloped nation assailed from without by a great 
 invasion. At first it will be more helpless than the 
 region of city-states, for it will have no strongholds. 
 Thus before the onset of the Huns and the gradual 
 advance of the Slavs the Germanic tribes did not 
 defend their territory, but abandoned it and swarmed 
 across the frontier of the Empire. Thus in England 
 the tribes yield at first with little resistance to the 
 Danes. But such a nation holds in reserve a resource 
 which the nation of city-states has parted with. What 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 87 
 
 the Greeks could not do because all their political 
 energy was drawn off by the city-states, they can 
 still do. They can form a nation -state. This is 
 what in many cases we observe to take place. The 
 English nation-state first formed itself under Alfred 
 in the great nation-rally against the Danes. In like 
 manner the Germans, who in the fifth century had 
 given way before the Huns, in the tenth century 
 rallied successfully under Henry and Otto against 
 the Magyars. Henry is called the town-builder of 
 Germany because he first made the country defensible, 
 and it is from this period of the greatness of the 
 Saxon dynasty that we seem able to date the national 
 consciousness of Germany ; soon after this was heard 
 the collective name — Beutsch. 
 
 These seem to have been the causes at work. The 
 fact in any case is most remarkable and fundamental, 
 viz. that the political principle in its more advanced 
 stage, when it has left tribal and theocratic life some- 
 what behind and is calling into existence the state 
 proper, creates this in two wholly different forms, 
 the one small and intense, the other indefinitely large 
 and therefore for a long time languid. This is one of 
 those facts which observation reveals easily, for it 
 lies on the surface of history, yet probably we should 
 never have arrived at it by any amount of abstract 
 reasoning on the nature of the state. Since there are 
 two such forms there may well be more than two ; 
 
88 INTEODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 perhaps other such forms may already lie before us 
 in history but may have passed undistinguished ; 
 perhaps the future may reserve others for us. But 
 this distinction of the city-state and nation-state is 
 made specially memorable by corresponding to the 
 two periods of cultivated intelligence which history 
 has known. Hellenism (and, we may add, the Italian 
 Renaissance also) is the triumph of the city-state ; 
 the European brotherhood of nation-states has pro- 
 duced the vast growth of every kind of power and 
 science which distinguishes modern civilisation. 
 
 But our object is classification. Let us look, there- 
 fore, a little closer at this difference in order that we 
 may see how much it involves. For it may seem at 
 first sight that between ancient Athens and modern 
 England there is only a difference of extent of territory. 
 Athens possessed but a narrow portion of land sur- 
 rounding the city, but there is a very large territory 
 round London. Now evidently this is not all. On 
 the one side Athens is the organism, not Attica ; on 
 the other side England, not London. There the 
 people were called from the town, Athenians ; here 
 they are called from the country. Englishmen. 
 
 When we compare this fact with the speculations 
 of Aristotle we see that it has had the greatest influence 
 upon them. The technical name which he gives to 
 the ripened political community is not, like " state," 
 a term originally indefinite, but actually the word 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 89 
 
 "city." We may see, too, that the great country- 
 states, such as Macedonia or Persia, which were 
 known to him did not strike him as belonging to the 
 same class of phenomena, for when he settles the 
 characteristics of the perfect state he tells us it must 
 not be so large that the whole people may be unable 
 to attend the same assembly. 
 
 The simplest rudimentary conception of political 
 action is this, that one man imposes a command 
 upon another. But, under primitive conditions, this 
 means that the two men meet. Suppose now that 
 the state, instead of including a town and a few fields 
 round it, covers a circle with a radius of two or three 
 hundred miles. The simple action of government 
 becomes at once impossible. The world has been 
 occupied through something like half its history in 
 struggling with this elementary difiiculty. 
 
 Of course it would be easy to divide the territory 
 into manageable districts and plant a ruler in each. 
 But if this is done without reserve the result is, not 
 one large state, but as many small states as there 
 are districts with separate rulers. Evidently, then, 
 some special contrivance is needed. It is a very 
 simple contrivance, and it is in reality everywhere 
 the same, however many names or disguises may be 
 given to it. 
 
 A distinction is drawn between two kinds of 
 government. It is recognised that some affairs are 
 
90 INTRODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 the common concern of the whole population, but 
 that other affairs concern only a particular neighbour- 
 hood or locality. These last, which it is most difficult, 
 are also those which it is least necessary to deal with 
 from headquarters. It is possible therefore to set up 
 a ruler in each district, who in respect of certain 
 affairs shall give independent orders, but in respect 
 of all greater and more general affairs shall receive 
 instructions from a ruler of rulers who shall be 
 stationed at the centre. 
 
 I say a ruler in each district for simplicity. There 
 may be in each district several rulers, or there may be 
 a complicated organisation of officials and assemblies. 
 So, too, in the centre there may be a despot, or a 
 council, or a parliament, or a combination of all three. 
 I disregard all these differences and call your attention 
 to the one characteristic which is and must be possessed 
 by all governments in large territory. This is that a 
 distinction must be recognised between local and 
 central government, between affairs that can be settled 
 on the spot by a local ruler and affairs that must be 
 carried to headquarters. This distinction cannot be 
 dispensed with, though it may be reduced to the 
 lowest point by certain contrivances. The contrivance 
 called centralisation, so long used in France, has the 
 effect of paralysing as much as possible local govern- 
 ment. It cannot destroy the local official nor even 
 his independence, but it can reduce this within very 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 91 
 
 narrow limits, and bring him very near to an 
 automaton. On the other hand, in large empires we 
 frequently see central government paralysed in an 
 equal degree. In the old Persian and the old Mogul 
 empires the satrap and the Nizam were almost inde- 
 pendent sovereigns, the intervention of Susa or of 
 Delhi had become almost formal, and in the other 
 extreme of the political world we come upon the 
 same phenomenon when we note how nearly the 
 authority of Downing Street has disappeared in the 
 government of our greater colonies. 
 
 But in these extreme cases the two kinds of 
 government are visible side by side; if either kind 
 seems on the point of perishing, this means not that 
 a large state can do without it, but that some great 
 change is at hand. In the city-state, on the other 
 hand, if we suppose it small enough and still at a 
 primitive stage, we can imagine a state of affairs in 
 which no such different kinds of government are 
 known ; when all controversies are brought to the 
 same king who sits in the gate ; when one man, or it 
 may be many men, or even every man by turn, bears 
 rule and the others obey, but yet all government is 
 of the same kind, and the state is thought of always 
 as one inseparable whole, which always in great 
 matters and in small acts together; when there are 
 not yet, as in the world we live in, two states, the 
 great one which resides in the capital and has its 
 
92 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 kings and parliaments, and the little one in our own 
 neighbourhood, ■with its mayor and town council or its 
 sheriff and quarter-sessions. 
 
 Some local government, no doubt, may be found 
 even in the city-state. There were "demes" in 
 Attica by the side of the great Demos ; — Aristo- 
 phanes in his play of the Acharnians enables us 
 to understand the relation between them. Still 
 the one Athens, the one imperious, noisy, all-decid- 
 ing, all -governing Ecclesia, gave its character to 
 everything, so that we can enter into the view of 
 Aristotle that there can be no real "Polis" where 
 the whole people does not meet together. 
 
 We may say then that the great difference between 
 the city-state and the country-state is not a mere 
 difference of size, but consists in this, that whereas 
 in the city-state government is one great simple thing, 
 in the country-state it is double. Here we have the 
 great government and the little government, the 
 mother -country and the mother -locality; for in 
 these country-states the locality is often a former 
 state that has been deprived of its independence ; 
 such for instance are some of the shires of England, 
 such were the provinces of France before the 
 Eevolution. 
 
 A kind of middle-state may be imagined, and the 
 Eoman Empire furnished an illustrious example of it. 
 This was an aggregation, no less than England or 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 93 
 
 France, but an aggregation largely of city-states to a 
 city-state. As an English shire may be a heptarchic 
 kingdom humbled, so the cities of Italy and the 
 Greek world in the Eoman Empire were city-states 
 reduced to the rank of localities. And though it 
 covered so vast an extent of country the Eoman 
 Empire never completely assumed the character of a 
 country-state. 
 
 But having marked the fundamental distinction 
 between the city-state and the nation-state we may 
 take note of a number of less striking difTerences of 
 the same kind. In the city-state local government is 
 practically nil, in the country-state it has a substantial 
 existence. This gives us two classes. But the latter 
 class, which has local government, splits up into a 
 number of sub-classes. For local government may 
 have strikingly different degrees of importance. It 
 may be there, but in a state of comparative insig- 
 nificance, or it may hold its own fairly against the 
 encroachments of central government. Again, it may 
 have excessive importance, and this also in two 
 degrees. Central government may hold its own 
 against it, but with difficulty. Again, central govern- 
 ment may fail to hold its own, and may be reduced 
 to insignificance. 
 
 It is here that I introduce the familiar distinction 
 between the unitary state and the federation. Against 
 the common way of conceiving this distinction I 
 
94 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 have the same sort of objection that I have to the 
 distinctions of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy ; 
 it is too purely formal and verbal. We say that in 
 some cases states unite themselves in bundles or 
 clusters, and that these bundles of states are called 
 federations, and sometimes federal states. Hence we 
 get two classes of states — the one simple, the other 
 composite. But in what way are these states united 
 together ? Surely not by literal ropes ! As soon as 
 we give to ourselves an account of the metaphor, we 
 see, I think, that the latter class of states is not a 
 whit more composite than the former. For we have 
 seen that every country-state is composite to this 
 extent — that it consists of a number of districts, each 
 of which has its own government in a certain degree 
 independent, but which are united together by a 
 common central government. This shows us in what 
 way governments are said to be united. When in 
 several districts, in other respects self-governing, 
 certain affairs are reserved for the decision of a 
 central government, those districts are politically 
 united. Now, just in this way and in no other way 
 are states united together to form a federation. 
 Compare the union of the states in the United States 
 with the union of the boroughs and counties in the 
 English State or of the departments in the French 
 State. There is great difference in the degree, but 
 no fundamental difference in the kind of union. The 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 95 
 
 states in America are said to be united because in each 
 certain affairs strictly defined by the Constitution can- 
 not be settled by the state government, but must be 
 settled at Washington. In no other way are the 
 counties and boroughs united to form the English 
 State ; only the affairs which in England must be sent 
 up to London or settled by persons coming from 
 London are much greater and more numerous than 
 those which in America require the intervention of 
 Washington. 
 
 I deny, then, that between the unitary state and the 
 federation or federal state there is any fundamental 
 difference in kind; I deny that the one is composite in 
 any sense in which the other is simple. But I adopt 
 the terms as marking conveniently a great difference 
 which may exist between states in respect of the im- 
 portance of local government. In every country- 
 state there must be a certain proportion in weight 
 between the locality and the whole. But country- 
 states fall into two large classes, those in which the 
 locality and those in which the whole has the ad- 
 vantage. In the former the notion of multiplicity, 
 in the latter that of unity, will necessarily prevail, 
 and therefore we may very naturally call the former 
 federal and the latter unitary. 
 
 But when we regard the matter from this point of 
 view we find that country-states fall into four rather 
 than into two classes. For unitary states have two 
 
96 INTHODUCTION TO LBcr. 
 
 well-marked kinds differing from each other in pre- 
 cisely the same point, viz. the importance of local 
 government, and in like manner it is well known 
 that there are two kinds of federation, the one strong 
 and the other weak. 
 
 In some countries there are so-called local liberties, 
 in others these liberties are wanting. The expression 
 is a very misleading one, as I shall show when we 
 come to consider the subject of liberty. But it ex- 
 presses a real difference, which is observable in states 
 in which central government is decidedly more pro- 
 minent than local. In one class of such states the 
 locality has a modest but at the same time a real and 
 valuable independence. It is freely and fully per- 
 mitted to have its own way and govern itself without 
 external interference in affairs of some considerable 
 importance. In another class this is not so. The 
 independence of the locality is regarded as a necessary 
 evil which should be reduced to the lowest possible 
 point. Pains are taken to attach the local ruler by 
 every "possible tie to the central department, and to 
 detach him by every contrivance of separation from 
 the locality. We often call this system despotism 
 and the opposite liberty, but these terms ought to be 
 appropriated to a quite different use. The proper 
 name for it is centralisation, and th^ opposite ought 
 to be called only decentralisation. Both terms are 
 properly applied only to states in which the central 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 97 
 
 government is decidedly more important than the 
 local, that is, to states called unitary. Thus we com- 
 monly take England as an example of decentralisation 
 and France of centralisation. But when local govern- 
 ment assumes the magnitude which it has had in the 
 United States we do not consider the word decentral- 
 isation appropriate to it. 
 
 Thus there are two kinds of unitary state, the 
 decentralised and the centralised. In like manner 
 there are two kinds of federation. 
 
 The two kinds of federation have been very 
 elaborately distinguished. You may study the subject 
 in the Federalist, or in De Tocqueville, or in Mr. 
 Freeman. I am concerned here only with the results 
 which have been arrived at, and with these only so 
 far as they help us in our classification. To English 
 writers, then, the two kinds are known by the names 
 Federal State and System of Confederate States, by 
 which it is meant to convey that the first, though it 
 allows very great independence to the component 
 members, still deserves the name of a state, but that 
 the second goes too far and cannot properly be called 
 a state at all. The same point is marked by the 
 happier terms used in Germany. There the one is 
 called Bundesstaat, but the other only Staatenbund ; 
 which implies that the one is a state, though only a 
 bundle-state, but the other is no state but only a 
 bundle of states. 
 
 H 
 
98 INTRODCCTION TO lect. 
 
 You may say that if the latter form does not de- 
 serve the name of state it ought not to find a place in 
 our classification. And, indeed, the precise organisa- 
 tion which has received the name of Staatenbund 
 has had attention drawn to it through its great 
 historical importance as a very common blunder in 
 state-building, which has frequently led to disastrous 
 consequences, rather than as a healthy distinct kind. 
 It belongs rather to the pathology than to the descrip- 
 tive physiology of states. But though it marks a 
 degree of weakness in the central power somewhat 
 below the amount of strength necessary for the dura- 
 bility of the federation, it indicates that a kind of 
 federation might exist, somewhat better organised 
 than itself, which would be wholly different from 
 that vigorous, strongly and sufficiently organised kind 
 which is represented by the United States. We may 
 say then that there are at least two kinds or classes 
 of federation. 
 
 I would observe here, what applies to the whole of 
 our classification, that it is a real and not a verbal or 
 nominal classification. We arrange states according 
 to real differences which they present, not according 
 to the descriptions they may choose officially to give 
 of themselves. The United States calls itself a 
 federation; the Holy Eoman Empire which disap- 
 peared in 1806 did not call itself so; but in our use 
 of the word the latter was none the less, and the 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 99 
 
 former none the more, a federation on that account. 
 Every political union which has not sufficient central 
 power to deserve the name of a unitary state must in 
 our system be called federal. For example, almost 
 all very large empires are really, though they are not 
 called, federations, because in them the central power 
 cannot act vigorously at such a great distance. In 
 like manner the feudal monarchy, wherever it was 
 fully developed, was a federation, and a federation of 
 the weaker kind, since feudalism had the effect of 
 almost destroying the central power. 
 
 And this observation suggests another, by which I 
 may conclude this lecture, viz. that the classification 
 which we have laid down has no connection whatever 
 with those favourite categories of ours, popular institu- 
 tions, liberty and democracy. We may not remark 
 this at once, because when I mention the city-states 
 of antiquity we think at once of republican institu- 
 tions, and we have the same association with federal- 
 ism since the United States have given the most 
 successful example of federation. But the old city- 
 states were not invariably republican — nay, they all 
 began as monarchical. In like manner there is no 
 necessary connection between republican institutions 
 and federalism as I define it. The great specimen of 
 federation which for many centuries was familiar to 
 Europe, viz. the Holy Roman Empire, presented the 
 property of federalism in a form so exaggerated that 
 
100 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LECT. IV 
 
 the result was a helpless confusion ; and yet in most 
 parts of Germany the subject was living under 
 monarchical rule, which in some parts, e.g. in Prussia, 
 became a rigid despotism. So too, as I have just said, 
 great military empires are almost always in reality 
 federations, and yet it is in these that government is 
 most usually despotic. It was federalism in Persia 
 that the satrap, or in Turkey that the pasha, was 
 like an independent prince, but to his subjects the 
 satrap or the pasha played the part of an Oriental 
 Sultan. 
 
 The result, then, is that we have two great classes, 
 and under one of these a fourfold division, according 
 to the importance of local government. 
 
 I. — The city-state — L. G. none. 
 II. — The country-state. 
 
 {a) Centralised unitary — L. G. small. 
 
 (6) Decentralised unitary — L. G. considerable. 
 
 (c) Federal state — L. G. predominant. 
 
 (d) System of confederate states — L. G. all- 
 
 powerful. 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 The student of politics is apt to be impatient till 
 he hears of liberty, especially if he has been trained 
 in the English school. I do not think that it is 
 possible to overrate the value of liberty, and yet 
 v^hen I read many of our constitutional writers I feel 
 that the science of government assumes a very strange 
 shape in their hands, owing to the prominence which 
 they give to this conception. We have laid it down 
 that the phenomenon which our science investigates 
 is government — that is, the principle by which the 
 individual will is in certain cases crushed, sacrificed to 
 the public good. Now what is liberty? It is the 
 spirit by, and the principles according to, which 
 government is resisted ! Now these constitutional 
 writers are so mainly concerned in studying this 
 spirit and these principles of liberty, and seem to re- 
 gard this study as so identical and coextensive with 
 the study of political science, that the reader is 
 tempted to ask. Is, then, government an evil to which 
 states are liable, and is it the object of political 
 science to check and keep under this evil? Does a 
 
102 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 state become a state by having a government, or by 
 avoiding as much as possible to fall under the yoke 
 of a government ? 
 
 This curious distortion of the subject is only what 
 might be expected. In my first lecture I pointed out 
 what mistakes arise in science when those who 
 arrange the method of science are intently and 
 eagerly pursuing some practical object. Those con- 
 stitutionalists looked at the matter from a practical, 
 not from a scientific point of view. In practical 
 politics it so happened that government had come 
 before them chiefly as an enemy. Government is 
 a very great power, and we need not be surprised to 
 find that when once it is set in motion in a state it 
 works more efficiently, more overwhelmingly, than is 
 expedient. At an earlier time perhaps the question 
 had been how to make it efficient, but at the time of 
 these writers that question had long ago been settled, 
 and another question had become much more urgent, 
 the question how to prevent it from being over- 
 efficient. Towards this end a number of maxims and 
 observations had been collected during several genera- 
 tions, and these writers treasure them up. 
 
 But if we resolve, laying aside immediate practical 
 objects, to arrange the whole subject in a truly system- 
 atic manner, we shall see that the whole subject of 
 liberty, which in these writers comes first and middle 
 and last, ought indeed to have a place, and an important 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 103 
 
 place, to itself, but not a place very near the beginning, 
 nor yet the most important place in the science. 
 Government comes before liberty ; we must first 
 analyse it and classify the different forms under 
 which it appears ; not till all this has been done, and 
 till in this way we have become tolerably familiar 
 with the nature of government, shall we be ready to 
 consider the danger that may arise from an excess of 
 it, and the necessity of putting limits to it. 
 
 But the example set by these writers has in my 
 opinion introduced great confusion, not merely by 
 making liberty too prominent, but still more by 
 accustoming us to the greatest recklessness in using 
 the word. As they represent liberty as "the one 
 thing needful," so they teach us to call by the name 
 of liberty whatever in politics we want. And this 
 habit falls in so well with the style of popular oratory 
 — for if a political speech did not frequently mention 
 liberty, who would know what to make of it or where 
 to applaud 1 — that it becomes inveterate, and the sub- 
 ject is marred by a great, formless, indistinct concep- 
 tion, blotting the most important parts of it. If we 
 knew what we meant by liberty, if we were always 
 prepared with a clear and satisfactory definition of it, 
 we should have no difficulty in discerning what is its 
 proper place in political science. But we have accus- 
 tomed ourselves to use the term so loosely that the 
 thing henceforth pursues us like a Will-o'-the-wisp ; 
 
104 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 and wherever we meet with debate or agitation of 
 any kind on public affairs we see, as a matter of 
 course, a struggle between the spirit of liberty and 
 its opposite. 
 
 Of course the word " liberty " may be taken in so 
 large a sense as to justify this use : but we are con- 
 cerned with the word only as a term of science, and 
 in this large sense it is wholly useless in science. 
 What makes it so delightful to poets, its unlimited 
 generality, deprives it here of all value. When the 
 poet sings 
 
 freedom is a noble thing ! 
 
 Freedom makes man to liave liking, etc. , 
 
 it sounds very exhilarating; but inquire, and you 
 will find that in that passage "freedom" merely 
 means not being in prison. Now a word which may 
 mean this, and at the same time a hundred other 
 things wholly different, must be left to rhetoric and 
 poetry where it belongs. In science, if it is to be use- 
 ful, it must submit to narrower definition. 
 
 I cannot well advance further without coming to 
 some conclusion as to the meaning to be attached to 
 this word, and it is really worth your while to reflect 
 for a moment on the use or abuse to which it is com- 
 monly subjected among us. By studying this word, 
 better than in any other way, you may become aware 
 in what confusion of thought we cheerfully and good- 
 naturedly live, what sort of arguments arc put forward 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 105 
 
 seriously, and by what sort of arguments they are 
 with equal seriousness answered among us. 
 
 Coleridge has a poem in which he says he had at 
 the outset warmly approved the French Eevolution, 
 because he had always been an admirer of the free 
 motion of the clouds across the sky, and of the free 
 rolling of the waves on the surface of the ocean. 
 This is poetry no doubt, but it is intended to have a 
 serious meaning. What can that meaning be, or what 
 can Coleridge intend to infer from the fact that the 
 adjective " free " may in a certain context be applied 
 to the motion of the clouds, and also in a certain 
 wholly difi'erent context to the institutions of a state 1 
 In any case I should never have thought that the 
 argument, whatever it may mean, was capable of 
 being answered. Mr. Ruskin, however, boldly takes 
 up the gauntlet. He undertakes to show that the 
 clouds in the sky are not free, for are they not 
 subject to the laws of gravitation, light, and heaf? 
 He infers, therefore, that there is no such thing 
 as freedom, for that all things are subject to law. 
 I should have thought that the conclusion to be drawn 
 from this was that the French Revolution never 
 did take place, or at least that it was not really a 
 rebellion against law. Mr. Ruskin prefers to conclude 
 that though the clouds obey law, the French have 
 found out some way of shaking themselves free from 
 the laws of nature ; that though there is no such 
 
106 INTRODUCTION TO lect, 
 
 thing as freedom, the French have somehow made 
 such a thing. Surely it is strange that two really 
 eminent men should in all seriousness, nay, with 
 solemn prophetic eloquence, discuss a most important 
 practical matter in a style so utterly hollow. Here 
 is another example. Shelley in his Masque of Anarchy 
 draws a harrowing picture of the distress of the 
 working classes in England about 1820. They are 
 starving, he says, and one would have thought it was 
 not necessary to say more, for surely nothing can be 
 worse than starvation. Shelley, however, still feels 
 something wanting. He is writing a political poem, 
 and you cannot make a political poem any more than 
 a political speech without bringing in liberty. He 
 therefore boldly affirms that a man who is starving is 
 not free. 
 
 Nay, in countries that are free 
 
 Such starvation cannot be 
 
 As in England now we see. 
 
 So liberty is actually discovered to be something to eat. 
 But if we put poetry on one side and look only 
 at the usage of the most sober and matter-of-fact 
 writers, we shall see, I think, that the term " liberty " 
 is used to describe wholly diff'erent conditions or 
 states of affairs. Horatius and Leonidas keeping a 
 position against the enemy are called champions of 
 liberty, and so are Brutus and Hampden resisting 
 arbitrary government. Surely the two causes are 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 107 
 
 wholly different. To resist the government of the 
 state, however justifiably, is an act wholly different 
 from resistance under the orders of the government 
 to a foreign enemy. If we call the first act a 
 maintenance of liberty we ought to call the other a 
 defence of independence. But liberty and independ- 
 ence ought not to be confounded, and in like manner 
 the word " patriotism," if we consider, is appropriate 
 only to the second class of actions and not to the 
 first. Again, decentralisation is often described as 
 "local liberty." Decentralisation, as we defined it 
 last week, is a certain relation between two kinds of 
 government. Where it exists the local magistrate 
 in performing acts of authority is not under the 
 dictation or tutelage of another magistrate at the 
 centre of affairs. Now observe that in other instances 
 liberty was a freedom from restraint enjoyed by the 
 subject in relation to the government : here it is a 
 freedom from restraint enjoyed by one government 
 in relation to another. The difference between the 
 two things is enormous. For freedom in a govern- 
 ment may easily be equivalent to slavery in the 
 subject, since it is freedom to command, to prohibit, 
 to punish. But such heedless laxity has prevailed in 
 the use of this word liberty, that in many despotic 
 states, where liberty in the proper sense has been 
 unknown, a clamorous controversy about the ancient 
 liberties of the country has continued for centuries 
 
108 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 together. So it was in the Holy Eoman Empire of 
 the German nation. The liberties of Germany were 
 solemnly guaranteed by France in the Treaty of 
 Westphalia. Liberties ! why, what liberties had 
 the subjects of Frederick the Great, or of those 
 Hessian princes who used to sell their youth as 
 mercenary soldiers to England and France? The 
 liberties meant are in fact that very despotism. 
 What France guaranteed was that the minor sove- 
 reigns should be independent of the emperor in the 
 exercise of their authority — that is, should have 
 liberty to do what they chose with their people. 
 
 How then is liberty to be defined as a term of 
 political science 1 Can we give it a more special, a 
 more precise meaning, and can we do so without 
 wresting it out of the meaning it has in popular 
 parlance 1 If we can succeed in finding for it such 
 a meaning, at once definite, important, a meaning 
 which properly belongs to it, and also a meaning 
 properly political, we shall have enriched science 
 with a serviceable term which will probably be of 
 much use to it. 
 
 I say the meaning must be properly political. 
 The word " liberty " may be used quite legitimately 
 and yet in such a way that it does not belong to 
 political science at all. Think of Mr. Mill's essay on 
 Liberty. He spoke there of a certain oppressive 
 power residing in public opinion, and in opposition 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 109 
 
 to this he claimed for the individual a right to hold 
 independent opinions and to indulge personal tastes 
 and preferences in a greater degree than has usually 
 been thought allowable. Now it wals quite legitimate 
 to use the word liberty so, but such liberty is not 
 political liberty. The phenomenon we study is the 
 state, that is, the community held together by 
 government. Government is a power of constraint 
 or compulsion exercised by means of punishment. 
 This power of constraint may in certain circum- 
 stances be oppressive ; in opposition to it liberty is 
 set up. Thus in political science the tyranny to 
 which liberty is opposed must reside in the govern- 
 ment. If at the same time there exists another sort 
 of tyranny, which is exercised not by the government 
 but by public opinion, this fact is very interesting, 
 and may even indirectly affect the government and 
 the state ; but such tyranny is not in itself political, 
 nor is the liberty opposed to it properly political. 
 
 We must look at government, and we must 
 inquire how government may use that power of 
 constraint which is inherent in it in such a way as 
 to infringe liberty. 
 
 Now let us for a moment consider the history of 
 the word "liberty." 
 
 In Latin it expressed properly a certain status 
 which was possessed by certain individuals in the 
 community but was wanting to others. It was not, 
 
 U 
 
no INTEODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 when used literally, a political term, but a legal term, 
 for it expressed a relation not between the citizen 
 and the government, but between some individuals 
 who were not called citizens, and other individuals 
 who were citizens. Metaphorically, in poetry or 
 high-flown oratory, it might be used in a political 
 sense, but when this was done it was done consciously. 
 When the oppressed citizen was called a slave he 
 was deliberately and intentionally compared to the 
 degraded, squalid, half-brutal creatiu'es who kennelled 
 in the outhouses of Roman palaces or worked in 
 chains on the estates of great nobles. 
 
 Now no such servile status exists in modern 
 Europe ; in England for many centuries, with the 
 exception of a few negroes who in the eighteenth 
 century might have been found in a few English 
 houses, no slaves have been seen. But though the 
 thing is quite unknown to us the metaphor founded 
 upon it is constantly used, and we talk of liberty 
 much more habitually than the Romans themselves 
 did. This is a very curious fact, and seems to me 
 to account in a great measure for the reckless vague- 
 ness with which we employ the word. Our liberty 
 is a metaphor which has been, as it were, cut adrift ; 
 it expresses a resemblance, an analogy, which we can 
 never test, because the phenomenon to which it 
 points is entirely unknown to us. 
 
 Now what was the peculiarity of the status of the 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 111 
 
 slave in ancient Eome or in other countries in which 
 slavery has been allowed? Was it that the slave 
 was cruelly treated? Many slaves no doubt were 
 cruelly treated, and the status lent itself to such cruelty. 
 But many slaves, on the other hand, were treated 
 kindly, some were petted and treated affectionately, 
 but they were none the less slaves on that account. 
 
 When, therefore, we use the word slavery to ex- 
 press the condition of those who are subject to a 
 cruel or excessively severe government, we are not 
 using it in a very appropriate manner. For suppose 
 quite a different sort of government, one which is 
 mild and paternal but at the same time interfering, 
 one which decides everything and meddles in every 
 affair, so that the subject is absolutely deprived of the 
 use of his free-vidll and held, as it were, in leading- 
 strings. We shall want to call this too slavery. And 
 yet this condition is not only very different from the 
 other, but may chance to be diametrically opposite to 
 it. For as the mild government may be extremely 
 interfering, so on the other hand the cruel and brutal 
 government may interfere very seldom ; or, in other 
 words, may allow an unusual and exceptional degree 
 of liberty. I will take two extreme examples to 
 illustrate the vast difference between these two kinds 
 of government. 
 
 Take first the government of the Tartars in Eussia 
 from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Nothing 
 
112 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 could be more ruthless and brutal. On the other 
 hand, it interfered so seldom and so little that for the 
 most part the Russian population were scarcely aware 
 of its existence. The ruling horde lived within its 
 own encampment, from which at times it issued on 
 expeditions of plunder and devastation, but it was 
 content in ordinary times if the Russian princes, the 
 dukes of Moscow, or the burghers of Novgorod, made 
 an annual pilgrimage to present their tribute to the 
 great Khan. Thus in this government there was at 
 the same time the greatest degree of cruelty and the 
 greatest degree of liberty. Something similar may 
 be noted in the Turkish Empire, where there is much 
 cruelty but at the same time in some respects a re- 
 markable degree of freedom is granted to the Chris- 
 tian populations. 
 
 Now look at the other extreme in the Jesuit 
 government of Paraguay. Here everything was 
 mild, amiable, paternal. But at the same time such 
 a complete control was established over the minds 
 of the natives that their free-will was absolutely 
 taken from them, and their lives reduced to an 
 unalterable routine. It is said that all the most 
 private acts that a man can do, the acts in which 
 among us no one would allow the least interference, 
 were performed in Paraguay according to a fixed rule 
 and at the ringing of a bell. Was this liberty t It 
 was just the system against which we exclaim most 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 113 
 
 loudly when we are threatened with the introduction 
 of it, and we cry out on slavery and protest in the 
 name of hberty. And yet if liberty means merely 
 the opposite of cruelty and oppression we must con- 
 fess that it was liberty, for it was a government 
 singularly free from cruelty and oppression. 
 
 One of these two inconsistent senses that may he 
 given to the word liberty we must evidently discard. 
 I think we had better discard the sense which puts 
 it in opposition to cruel government, for the simple 
 reason, if for no other, that we do not want a special 
 term for this. Mild government is a simple and 
 sufficient term for such a simple notion ; it is mere 
 waste of a good word to call it liberty. 
 
 Shall we then adopt the other sense? Shall we 
 treat liberty as the opposite of over-government ? By 
 doing so we should keep sufficiently close to the 
 original unmetaphorical meaning of the word. For 
 it was the peculiarity of the status of the slave that he 
 was under an unlimited government. The free citizen 
 might be bound to obey an employer or a state official 
 within certain limits fixed by law or by contract; 
 but the slave had no reserved province of free-will 
 except what his master chose to allow him ; all his 
 time and all his powers might be confisc0,ted to the 
 master's use. If then in any state the government 
 makes a similar unlimited demand, intruding ita 
 authority into the most personal parts of human life, 
 I 
 
114 INTEODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 allowing the subject no rest and no scope for free-will, 
 it may very properly be said to make its subjects slaves, 
 or to deprive them of liberty. Not only may we pro- 
 perly use this expression, but we constantly do use it ; 
 the word liberty used in this sense is familiar to us all. 
 
 Unfortunately we use it at the same time, and 
 even more often, in a sense different from this, and 
 different at the same time from the other senses which 
 I have considered already. Liberty is commonly 
 regarded as the equivalent of parliamentary govern- 
 ment. The rights of parliament were the ancient 
 liberties for which we contended in the seventeenth 
 century, and which were our boast and privilege 
 among the European nations in the eighteenth. Ac- 
 cordingly when we desire to know of any country 
 whether it has liberty, it is our practice simply to ask 
 whether it has a free parliament. If it has this, and 
 by means of this a power of calling the government 
 to account, or of changing it if it does not govern in 
 conformity with public opinion, we say of such a 
 country that it has liberty, and if not, not. 
 
 Now here is a use of the word which is familiar, 
 and which in many cases at least seems highly ap- 
 propriate. But observe that if we adopt it we must 
 give up the, other use of the word, which also seemed 
 satisfactory, or again if we adopt the other we must 
 give up this. For it will not do to assign to the same 
 word two wholly distinct meanings at the same time, 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 115 
 
 Perhaps we do not clearly understand that the two 
 meanings are wholly distinct. We can bring this 
 question speedily to the test,' for we have only to ask 
 ourselves two things — First, Is a parliamentary govern- 
 ment always contented to govern as little as possible ? 
 Secondly, Is an absolute government always ambitious 
 of governing as much as possible 1 For if so, then 
 the two meanings of "liberty" melt into one; a 
 parliamentary government and an uninterfering 
 government are identical, and therefore may both 
 alike be called "liberty," as on the other hand an 
 absolute government is equivalent to a meddlesome 
 government, and both alike may be called slavery. 
 Now I think the fact is not so at all. The two things 
 have no inherent affinity or connection whatever. 
 Many of the most absolute governments in history 
 have been, as I said above, cruel but not at all inter- 
 fering. On the other hand, popular government at 
 some periods has shown itself restlessly busy and 
 meddlesome. 1 
 
 You will observe that there is no reason why this 
 should surprise us, for on the one hand a despot has 
 
 ■' "Look only at the Frenoli Eevolution, When it took its 
 second or Jacobinical shape in 1792, breaking with Monarchy and 
 basing itself decisively upon the many, did it become modest? 
 Did it profess to regard government as a necessary evil, which it 
 was all-important to confiue within the narrowest province possible ? 
 Assuredly not. It interfered with everything and took possession 
 of the whole man. It meddled with religion ; it turned France 
 into a camp. In short, instead of diminishing it extended the 
 province of government as much as it popularised its basis." — From 
 the Fourth Lecture of the 1891 Course. 
 
116 INTKODUOTION TO lbot. 
 
 no peculiar temptation to interfere; on the other 
 hand a popular government has no particular motive 
 for refraining from interference. To the despot inter- 
 ference is laborious, while at the same time he gets 
 nothing by it ; his temptation would rather be to 
 indolent negligence ; but the popular parliament 
 naturally feels an intense interest in those regula- 
 tions of government which affect so powerfully the 
 condition of the people. 
 
 Accordingly I think we may venture to say that 
 what affinity there is is of the opposite kind, that is, 
 that on the whole parliamentary government is 
 tempted to do too much and absolute government to 
 do too little. Surely what we witness in England 
 must lead us to this conclusion, at least as far as 
 popular government is concerned. We have lived in 
 a period in which government has been growing 
 continually more and more popular, and we see that 
 each new reform bill is followed by a new outburst 
 of legislative activity. We are not told that a reform 
 bill is passed in order that we may be let alone more 
 than in former times, but in order that we may be 
 governed more than formerly, not in order that the 
 governing apparatus may be held in check, but in order 
 that it may be made tenfold more active and energetic.^ 
 
 ^ " It was the pride of our country In the eighteenth century to 
 lean less than other countries on legislation, and to helieve in it 
 less. At the time when we had a monopoly among European 
 states of liberty, liberty was understood to moan this. It was a 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 117 
 
 Of course I do not raise the question whether this 
 activity is excessive; there are times when govern- 
 ment has occasion to be very active. But assuredly 
 the temptation to excessive activity besets a popular 
 government, which is full of confidence, of fresh 
 interest in the matter of government, of party excite- 
 ment, and of the consciousness of a mighty support be- 
 hind it, far more than it can beset the languid officials 
 of absolutism in the midst of a silent passive people. 
 
 And De Tocqueville has observed in his examina- 
 tion of the absolute government of France before the 
 Eevolution that in spite of all the pride and parade 
 of absolutism, that government was timid. Not only 
 is such a government inert from want of any interest 
 in action, but it is inert from timidity. Being separated 
 from the people it labours under a want of satisfactory 
 information, and is afraid to advance because it does not 
 know the ground. For the opposite reason, that is, be- 
 
 dislike and repugnance to artificial forms. When the continent 
 groaned iinder over-government, under an excess of restraint and 
 institutions, England was supposed to have succeeded in keeping 
 nearer — such was the language of the time — to the original pattern 
 of nature. We were said to be 
 
 By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand. 
 
 But in those days we were not democratic. We had not yet seen 
 our first Reform Act. The franchise was narrow and exclusive. 
 
 " In the present century all this has been changed. Govern- 
 ment has been put into the hands of many. At the same time 
 the old dislike of government interference has disappeared. The 
 ancient parties have disappeared, which were alike devoted to the 
 ancient constitutions, and another party, devoted to innovation 
 and the enlargement of the province of government, has risen to 
 ascendancy." — Erom the Fourth Lecture of the 1891 Course. 
 
118 INTEODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 cause it knows the ground incomparably well, a popular 
 government advances with the utmost confidence. 
 
 It appears, then, that these two meanings which 
 we give at the same time to the word " liberty " are 
 not, as we seem to think, much the same, but wholly 
 different. Nor are they, if not the same, yet similar 
 or cognate ; so that a state which has liberty in the one 
 sense is pretty sure to have it also in the other. No ; 
 there are two wholly dissimilar characteristics which 
 a state may have ; these two characteristics have no 
 tendency whatever to appear together, they have even 
 some tendency to hurt or neutralise each other, and 
 yet we call them both liberty. 
 
 One of these is parliamentarism, that is to say — as 
 for the present purpose we may describe it — an account- 
 ability of the government to the majority of the people. 
 This may very well be called in popular language 
 " liberty " ; but I doubt if by calling it so we put the 
 word to its best use. Here, again, the word is not par- 
 ticularly wanted ; it is quite sufficient and satisfactory 
 to speak of the accountability or responsibility of 
 government. And if we decide to say liberty here we 
 must find some other term for that other property of 
 certain states which we have discovered to be wholly 
 distinct. But for this the term liberty seems to me 
 perfectly appropriate. All perplexity and ambiguity 
 disappear at once if we consider liberty to be the 
 opposite of over-government. 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 119 
 
 In ordinary parlance liberty does not moan happi- 
 ness or comfort or freedom from hardship ; it means 
 permission to do what you like. It is not, therefore, 
 the opposite of misgovernment, for misgovernment 
 may produce these other evils, but does not, as mis- 
 government, destroy liberty any more than good 
 government does. Good government and misgovern- 
 ment are alike government, and as such necessarily, 
 as far as they go, abridge liberty ; they differ from 
 each other not in this respect, but in the fact that the 
 one abridges liberty in a wholesome manner, while 
 the other does not. 
 
 Liberty, in short, in the common use of language, 
 is opposed to restraint : and as government, in the 
 political department, is restraint, liberty in a political 
 sense should be the opposite of government.^ 
 
 Strictly and properly it is the opposite not merely 
 of over-government but of government itself. Strictly, 
 therefore, there cannot be in a state perfect liberty, 
 for perfect liberty is equivalent to total absence of 
 government, and where government is absent there 
 can be no state. Nevertheless it is quite admissible 
 to speak of liberty as that which some states possess 
 and other states want ; only we must understand 
 clearly in what sense this is said. 
 
 Liberty being taken as the opposite of govern- 
 
 ' I infer, from a pencil note of the author, that it was his 
 intention at this point to introduce some discussion of the Kantian 
 view of freedom as the end of law. — Ed. 
 
120 INTEODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 menfc, we may say that each man's life is divided into 
 two provinces, the province of government and the 
 province of liberty. To the first belongs all that part 
 of his life which is given up to authority, which is 
 guided by a foreign will ; to the latter all that part 
 which he has to himself. Now in some states this 
 part, which is abandoned to individual free-will and 
 which is not invaded by government, is large, and in 
 other states it is small. In the former class we say 
 there is liberty, or the people are free ; in the latter 
 class we say liberty is wanting, or the people are not 
 free. This is quite in accordance with the usage ac- 
 cording to which we call some things "hot" and others 
 "cold," not meaning by "cold" "entirely devoid of 
 heat," but only "below the average of things in 
 respect of heat." 
 
 We may say, then, that liberty is primarily the 
 absence of restraint or the opposite of government ; 
 but in a secondary sense, which is also convenient, 
 it is the absence of excessive restraint or the opposite 
 of over-government. 
 
 When, therefore, we inquire after practical liberty 
 in a state we must not ask whether the laws are 
 good or bad, whether they are enforced by mild or 
 by cruel punishments, whether they are enacted in a 
 popular assembly where all interests are duly re- 
 presented, or in some exclusive, secret, and interested 
 conspiracy of oppressors. These questions are of 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 121 
 
 course all important. If a favourable answer can be 
 returned to them the country will perhaps be happy 
 and in a healthy condition. But shall we call it free ? 
 It seems almost impossible not to use the word, 
 which seems expected and indispensable whenever a 
 people in a healthy condition is to be described. 
 And yet if the word is really to be taken from 
 rhetoric and poetry and made available for science, 
 we must confine it to one notion, and that a notion 
 different from any of these. If we do so, we shall 
 inquire not after the quality of the laws, whether 
 they are good or bad, but after the quantity of them, 
 whether they are many or few. The question, the 
 only question will be. Is the individual frankly let 
 alone ? Is he permitted, wherever it is possible, to 
 do what he chooses ? Is the number of state regula- 
 tions, the number of restrictions upon free-will, 
 reduced to the lowest point '! If so, the people is 
 free, even if their arrangements are bad, even if their 
 life is unhappy. If not, the people is not free, however 
 well governed and healthy and happy they may be. 
 
 I put this proposition purposely in the sharpest 
 language and expect to provoke the objection, "If so, 
 it is very doubtful whether liberty is a good thing." 
 Well ! who said it was a good thing ? The truth is, 
 we have a difficulty in handling a conception which 
 never shows itself but in the perorations of high-flown 
 speeches. Like some kingwho can do no wrong, Liberty 
 
122 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 is disguised in a splendid robe of legal fiction, and if 
 she appears to do harm it is considered decent to say 
 that some one else was acting under her name. The 
 formula runs : " That is not liberty, that is license ! ' 
 Oh ! yes, it is liberty. But like everything else that 
 is real. Liberty is only good in certain circumstances, 
 and in a certain degree. There have been moments, 
 many moments, in history when it has been a price- 
 less blessing, when the highest minds have been 
 passionately devoted to it, so that the very word 
 Liberty has risen to the same sacred height as Virtue 
 or as Heaven, and become a worshipped ideal. 
 
 Now high on waves that idly burst, 
 Like Heavenly Hope she crowned the sea, 
 
 And now, the bloodless point reversed, 
 She bore the blade of Liberty. 
 
 But Liberty is not the universal ideal of every 
 place and age. In some states, we ought to be pre- 
 pared to think, she may appear before her time or in 
 9,n exaggerated form ; and still more, we ought not 
 to assume that Liberty is the only and all-sufficient 
 object of all political striving. Above all, after hav- 
 ing with due care defined the word and attached it 
 to a particular notion, we must not change our mind 
 merely to gratify the demands of poetry. 
 
 But we must not forget for what purpose we 
 entered upon this discussion. Our object is classifica- 
 tion. I have analysed the notion of liberty to-day, 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 123 
 
 not for its own sake, but only in order that wc may 
 make use of liberty as a principle of classification. But 
 the analysis itself has occupied me through the whole 
 hour. It remains to apply to our classification the 
 result we have arrived at. This will be the subject 
 of the next lecture. 
 
LECTUEE VI 
 
 We paused last week in our task of classification and 
 devoted an hour to a different sort of task, to an 
 exercise in the definition of terms. We inquired into 
 the best and most convenient way of applying in 
 political science the term liberty. But we did this 
 with a view to classification. Finding in popular 
 discussion that states are distinguished as having 
 liberty or wanting it, and again as having it in a 
 greater or a less degree, we wished to ascertain 
 whether it would be possible to give precision to this 
 popular classification and make it available for 
 scientific purposes. 
 
 The conclusion we arrived at is this, that it is not 
 convenient to use the word in the sense in which it is 
 most ordinarily used. According to this ordinary 
 usage, liberty is merely constitutionalism or respon- 
 sible government. Where the government, as soon 
 as it becomes unpopular, can be turned out, and 
 another government commanding more popular 
 support installed in its room, there liberty in its 
 fullest form is said to exist, and some degree of 
 
LBOT. VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 125 
 
 liberty is recognised where the popular discontent is 
 allowed to show itself through some recognised organ, 
 and is habitually treated by the government with 
 deference. This is responsibility of government, and 
 it is of course of the utmost importance. But it did 
 not appear to us either necessary or convenient to 
 appropriate to this the term liberty. 
 
 But we found another sense which is just as much 
 recognised in popular parlance, and which is also of 
 great importance, though it may be of not equally 
 great importance, in which the word liberty may 
 most conveniently be taken. What is the phenomenon 
 with which our science deals? It is government. 
 And government is a power of constraint or coercion. 
 Now, liberty in the simplest, most universal, ac- 
 ceptation is the condition of the person who is not 
 under such restraint or coercion. He who is under 
 government does as he is bid ; he who does what he 
 chooses is at liberty. But further, no one is always 
 or altogether under government. Government does 
 not dictate to any one all his actions ; it does not 
 take possession of the whole time, the whole pro- 
 perty, or all the powers, of any one. What it 
 refrains from taking possession of, what it abandons 
 to the man's own free disposal, is his liberty. This is 
 the liberty of an individual. What is the liberty of 
 a people 1 Evidently it is that province in the life 
 of the people over which government assumes no 
 
126 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 control, which is left to the voluntary principle. 
 For instance, if the government decides to refrain 
 from the attempt to regulate trade, by doing so it 
 adds trade to the province of liberty; as we say, 
 trade becomes free. On this principle, what makes 
 one people free and another not free 1 what is the 
 test of liberty and absence of liberty 1 There will be 
 no rigid test, and liberty in all cases will be but 
 comparative. But we shall say that a nation has 
 liberty where the province left to the voluntary 
 principle is comparatively large, and the domain of 
 government, or the domain in which authoritative 
 regulation prevails, is comparatively small, and con- 
 versely. 
 
 To sum up : it may be convenient to contrast 
 briefly the three chief political meanings of the word 
 liberty in popular usage : — 
 
 First, it stands for national independence. This 
 is the case especially in ancient history and poetry, 
 as when we connect it with Marathon, Thermopylae, 
 Morgatten, Bannockburn, and so on. 
 
 Secondly, for responsibility of government. This 
 occurs not only in ancient history, in the classical 
 stories of tyrannicide, but also in our own con- 
 stitutional history, for the main object of our struggle 
 in the seventeenth century was to establish the re- 
 sponsibility of government. 
 
 Thirdly, it stands for a limitation of the province 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 127 
 
 of government. This meaning also is quite usual, 
 but it has seldom been distinguished from the other. 
 Look, for instance, at our own constitutional history. 
 The responsibility of government is the principle 
 most strongly asserted, but when the power of 
 church courts is limited, when religious toleration 
 is introduced and dissenting worship is permitted, 
 when the Licensing Act is allowed to expire, and so 
 the Press acquires freedom, — in all these cases we 
 see government not submitting to responsibility but 
 limiting its province. 
 
 I gave reasons for thinking that the word liberty 
 is best applied when it bears this meaning, so that a 
 people ought to be called free in proportion as its 
 government has a restricted province. 
 
 Thus understood, liberty will appear to be a good 
 or a bad thing according to circumstances. When it 
 is complete it will be equivalent to utter anarchy, 
 and that is not a condition which we have any 
 reason to think desirable. Whatever in human 
 history is great or admirable has been found in 
 governed communities ; in other words, has been the 
 result of a certain restriction of liberty. On the 
 other hand, when government is once established 
 it easily becomes excessively strong. During a great 
 part of their recorded history men have suffered from 
 an excess of government. Accordingly they have 
 learnt to sigh for liberty as one of the greatest of 
 
128 INTEODUCTION TO tEOT. 
 
 blessings, but in accustoming themselves to regard it 
 so they have insensibly modified the meaning of the 
 vtrord. What poets and orators yearn for is not the 
 destruction of government-^though they are not 
 careful to explain this, being accustomed to pre- 
 suppose a government which is certain to be strong 
 enough — but only a reasonable restriction of govern- 
 ment. In taking the word " liberty " out of rhetoric 
 and transferring it to science, we make, as I said, 
 just the same correction in its meaning as in the word 
 " heat." "Liberty" in the rhetorical sense would be 
 in our language "a good deal of liberty," just as 
 what is popularly called "heat'' is in scientific 
 language "a good deal of heat." 
 
 I now proceed to consider the different degrees in 
 which liberty may appear in a state. You see that 
 this may be otherwise expressed as "the different 
 degrees of extension that may be given to the pro- 
 vince of government.'' Here appears very clearly 
 how different is this mode of treating political 
 science from the dogmatic method. 
 
 The province of government has always been a 
 favourite topic among teachers of politics, but they 
 have commonly introduced it under the form of an 
 inquiry. What is the legitimate province of govern- 
 ment? And still more commonly in discussing 
 particular cases of government interference it is 
 argued that they are infringements of natural, 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 129 
 
 inalienable liberty ; in other words, that the right 
 of coercion which belongs to government is a strictly 
 limited right, and also that it has the same limits 
 everywhere. * 
 
 Now I do not say that we may not ultimately 
 arrive at the notion of some such moral limitation of 
 the competence of government, but I say that at this 
 stage we have nothing whatever to do with it. Wo 
 take now a naturalistic view of the subject. ^ The 
 human group, in struggling against the difficulties 
 that surround it, in resisting pressure from neigh- 
 bouring tribes, or from an adverse nature or climate, 
 has recourse to the contrivance of government. By 
 this contrivance it vastly increases its power of with- 
 standing attack or of executing such aggressive plans 
 as it may form. But the principle, once admitted 
 into the group, modifies it greatly and rapidly. We 
 desire to study the modification it produces. Now 
 much evidently will depend upon the amount of 
 government which is admitted, upon the dose of 
 
 ^ In 1891 the author's alienation from the " dogmatic " point of 
 view was more strongly expressed : — "It undertakes," he said, "to 
 lay down dogmatically what things government has, and what 
 things it has not, the right to regulate ; or, in other words, how 
 wide the province of government by the nature and definition of 
 government ought to be. From all such inquiries I am j)recluded 
 by the general principles which I began by laying down. I treat 
 government not as a conscious contrivance, but as a half-instinctive 
 product of the effort which human beings make to ward off from 
 themselves certain evils to which they are exposed. If then you 
 ask, How much government ought we to have 1 the only answer I 
 can give will be, You not only ought to have but you infallibly 
 will have as much government as is necessary for this pui-pose." 
 K 
 
130 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 government which is taken. And to ascertain the 
 amount of government is to ascertain the amount of 
 liberty. Liberty, therefore, becomes important to us. 
 But in this inquiry it does not concern us at all by 
 what right liberty is restricted when government is 
 introduced, or to what degree it is morally allowable 
 to put restrictions on liberty. For the modifications 
 produced by government will be the same whether 
 the government is rightful or wrongful, and therefore 
 our classification will be the same in either case. 
 And this classification we can make at once, while 
 the question of the natural rights of the individual 
 against the government, or of government against the 
 individual, the whole question in fact of the relation be- 
 tween politics and ethics, is not yet ripe for discussion. 
 But though we cannot yet say by what right 
 government crushes the individual will, we may 
 point out the cause which brings government into 
 existence, and may argue that according to the inten- 
 sity with which this cause acts will probably be the 
 intensity of government. I put aside here all those 
 states which I have called inorganic ; in these of 
 course government rests on violence and covetous- 
 ness. It is the organic state that we consider, and 
 in this the political principle is awakened and 
 developed by the struggle of the society with its 
 environment. The community is under a pressure 
 which calls for common action, and common action 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 131 
 
 calls for government. It is reasonable therefore to 
 conjecture that the degree of government wiU be 
 directly proportional, and that means that the de- 
 gree of liberty will be inversely proportional, to the 
 degree of pressure. In other words, given a com- 
 munity which lives at large, in easy conditions and 
 furnished with abundant room, you may expect to 
 find that community enjoying a large share of 
 liberty; given a community which has to maintain 
 itself against great difficulties and in the midst of 
 great dangers, you may expect to find in it little 
 liberty and a great deal of government. 
 
 The historical examples which may be cited in 
 support of this general proposition lie on the surface, 
 and in dealing with them I may be brief. Among 
 European states, which has taken the lead in liberty, 
 in which has government rested content with the 
 most modest province 1 Evidently in our own state. 
 But outside Europe we should all agree in pointing 
 to the United States as a state which has from the 
 beginning shown an equal devotion to liberty. Can 
 any explanation of this be offered 1 A very tempting 
 explanation offers itself at once. In those two states 
 the population is closely akin. And so we say, it 
 is the sturdy Anglo-Saxon race which on both sides 
 alike of the Atlantic Ocean rebels against tyranny, 
 and cannot live without liberty. But now these two 
 populations have another common quality which it 
 
132 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 would be equally plausible to allege. Both alike 
 have an excellent natural frontier. We live in an 
 island and are protected from the enemy by a silver 
 streak. And what the narrow channel does for us 
 is done for them by the broad Atlantic Ocean. Let 
 any historical student ask himself the question why 
 it was that in the seventeenth century, while the 
 development of England was steadily towards liberty, 
 France moved with equal steadiness in the direction 
 of absolutism. Assuredly in Louis XIV. 's reign the 
 dominant fact in France was the frontier. Louis 
 XIV. himself, as Ranke says, was regarded in his 
 own time less as a great conqueror than as the 
 fortifier of France, the man sent to give France a 
 satisfactory frontier. But the more he strengthened 
 the country against the foreign enemy, the more he 
 consolidated his own authority, crushed liberty, and 
 established absolutism. 
 
 I will cite in the second place the example of 
 Prussia and the HohenzoUern Monarchy. This 
 state took its present form in the early years of 
 the eighteenth century, under the reign of Frederick 
 William, the eccentric father of Frederick the Great. 
 That king established a peculiar form of absolutism 
 more rudely and brut9,lly military than had been 
 seen in Europe before. He became almost a laughing 
 stock, yet now after a hundred and fifty years what 
 political experiment of the eighteenth century can 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 133 
 
 be named which has proved so strikingly successful. 
 How can this be explained 1 The Prussian population 
 was Teutonic, and it was also Protestant. Why then 
 did it turn its back so pointedly on liberty t Look 
 at the frontier. Frederick William's territory was 
 the least defensible in Europe. It consisted of three 
 masses wholly separate and without intercommunica- 
 tion ; and we are able to show that this extreme 
 military disadvantage had been in a special manner 
 brought home to Frederick William I. in the early 
 years of his reign by the great war of the North. 
 His innovations were in a great measure an attempt 
 to profit by the military lessons he had learnt in 
 the course of that war from Charles XII. and Peter 
 the Great. 
 
 This generalisation illustrates two principles which 
 I would recommend you never to lose sight of in 
 trying to generalise upon history. The one is, never 
 be content with looking at states purely from within ; 
 always remember that they have another aspect, 
 which is wholly different, their relation towards 
 foreign states. This is a rule which it is particularly 
 necessary to impress upon English students, for there 
 is no nation which has disregarded it so much as 
 our own. We have an inveterate habit of regarding 
 our own history as self-contained, and of assuming 
 that whatever has happened in England can be ex- 
 plained by English causes. So much so, that I 
 
134 INTEODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 think the English history still remains to be written , 
 which shall do anything like justice to the foreign 
 or continental influences which have contributed to 
 determine the course of English afi'airs. The other 
 principle is, that we should be slow to allege mere 
 national character in explanation of great historical 
 phenomena. No explanation is so obvious, or suggests 
 itself so easily. No explanation is so vague, cheap, 
 and so difficult to verify. Why did the English 
 gain freedom early t Any one can answer, because 
 they are English, and it is the nature of Englishmen 
 to love liberty. I call this a cheap explanation. It 
 is easily given, and almost impossible to verify. It 
 is the more suspicious, because it gratifies national 
 vanity. For these reasons it seems to me that this 
 explanation ought to be regarded in general as in- 
 admissible. 
 
 To return : we see that intense government is the 
 reaction against intense pressure, and on the other 
 hand liberty, or relaxed government, is the effect 
 of relaxed pressure. This is the general rule ; as a 
 matter of course it will suffer many exceptions. 
 
 And now, liberty being thus defined and explained, 
 can we use it as a principle of classification? 
 Evidently states will differ through all degrees in 
 the amount of liberty they admit. The only doubt 
 can be whether the differences thus caused are such 
 as to create a moderate number of well-marked 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 135 
 
 groups to each of which we may attach a character- 
 istic name, or whether they are too small, gradual, 
 and numerous to admit of distinction or lend them- 
 selves to classification. For of course it will not be a 
 sufficient reason for putting two states in different 
 classes, that in one of them government is in general 
 more disposed to interfere than in the other. 
 
 But it will be more satisfactory if we can observe 
 that some great and well-known department of affairs 
 is in one state subject to government regulation, 
 but in another state is abandoned to voluntary agency. 
 According to our definition, this is the- very dis- 
 tinction upon which liberty depends. Liberty pre- 
 vails where many departments are thus abandoned 
 by government, and vice versd. 
 
 I must again remind you that I lay down nothing 
 about any absolute limit to the province of govern- 
 ment which may be imposed by some abstract 
 principle. We all know that in the present age 
 it is usual to regard the interference of government 
 in certain classes of affairs as absolutely wrong 
 and inconsistent with civilisation. Thus, though in 
 former times government used almost everywhere 
 alike to interfere with religious belief, or at least 
 religious worship — it cost us a struggle of about 
 half a century to obtain the modest degree of 
 toleration which was granted by the Toleration Act 
 of William and Mary — nothing now seems so 
 
136 INTRODUCTION TO LEcr. 
 
 universally accepted as the absolute duty of all 
 government to grant a practically unlimited religious 
 toleration. The old restrictive legislation seems to 
 be commonly assumed to have been always utterly 
 indefensible. This kind of dogmatism in politics 
 I do not understand. Nothing of course can be 
 more undeniable than that government restrictions 
 on such subjects as these are vrhollj'' incompatible 
 with the ideas that prevail in the present age, but 
 it seems to me very rash to condemn a system which 
 in other ages was well-nigh universal as if in those 
 ages it had been as indefensible as it would be now. 
 There is no limit to the right of self-defence. Govern- 
 ment will assume, and no one can forbid it to assume, 
 whatever powers are necessary to save societies from 
 massacre and destruction. But in this case, you 
 will ask, how can it possibly have any concern with 
 religion ; what dangers of this obvious kind can 
 possibly arise from allowing the most unbounded 
 religious toleration 1 In certain periods, it is true, 
 no such dangers are to be feared. But was this so, 
 for instance, in the days of the Crusades, or earlier, 
 in the age of the Arian controversy 1 It rather 
 appears to me that the great standing dangers which 
 government exists to avert take two forms. First, 
 there is the enemy in the neighbourhood, the next 
 tribe which is waiting just beyond the frontier. But 
 there is also an enemy less visible, less material. 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 137 
 
 I have before shown that religion has a great deal 
 to do with the origin and essential nature of the 
 state. States are composed of men who are in some 
 sense homogeneous, and not only homogeneous in 
 blood and descent, but also in ideas or views of 
 the universe. During very large periods of human 
 history men have refused to live together in the 
 same state who did not hold the same religion. 
 And within these periods, it seems to me, the 
 tendency was irresistible, so that toleration in such 
 times was impossible. It would have led to the 
 violent dissolution of society. It seems to me that 
 religious toleration, if it had been introduced pre- 
 maturely, would have caused those very horrors 
 against which we commonly regard government as 
 having been principally provided. Eeligion is of 
 course the extreme case. All other departments 
 which government has in exceptional cases arrogated 
 to itself will seem more admissible than this. Accord- 
 ingly there is no more conclusive way of establishing 
 what I may call the relativeness of political truth 
 than by advancing that even religious intolerance, 
 which to the present age appears almost the un- 
 pardonable sin, was, in its own time and place, not 
 absolutely condemnable. It may be called the test 
 question upon which depends the choice between a 
 dogmatic and a scientific view of history. Those 
 who think toleration an absolute law allowing no 
 
i38 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 exceptions, must turn away from a considerable part 
 of the history of the world as if it were a bad dream. 
 What can they do with the Crusades or with the 
 Counter -reformation and the whole story of the 
 Spanish Monarchy 1 And yet I should like to meet 
 the man who would venture to tell me plainly that 
 it would have been safe to introduce toleration in 
 the great European states earlier by a century or 
 two than it was introduced ; that, for instance, it 
 might have been introduced into England under 
 Elizabeth, or that Philip II. might have introduced 
 it into Spain, or the House of Valois into France. 
 
 But our business at present is classification, and 
 the immediate question is whether it would be 
 possible and advisable to arrange states in a series 
 according to the extent which they allow to the 
 province of government. We can measure this 
 province roughly by reckoning up the classes of 
 affairs of which government may claim to itself 
 the regulation. According to the view we have 
 taken, the class of affairs which originally and most 
 necessarily belongs to government is the defence of 
 the country against an enemy, together, of course, 
 with any offensive wars the state may undertake. 
 Where war is waged it is more necessarily than 
 anything else the affair of the state. Next after 
 this comes law. The repression of crime and violence 
 we see to be undertaken at an early stage by the 
 
POLITICAL SCIENCE 139 
 
 After law in this restricted sense 
 comes law in its larger acceptation. Distributive 
 justice, the function of composing differences and 
 enforcing contracts, is added in due time to the 
 more necessary functions of government. But now 
 we observe that as government develops in a state 
 another kind of development is also going forward. 
 When we compare the primitive with the more 
 advanced condition of society we see that they differ 
 not merely in government, but more generally in 
 what I have called specialisation. In property, in 
 industry, in occupations and pursuits, society becomes 
 more diversified. At first all property is in land, 
 and almost every citizen is occupied in the same way. 
 No special skills have yet been invented, there are 
 no arts, and labour has not been divided. Every 
 man, for instance, is equally a soldier. The time 
 comes when all this is altered : industry becomes 
 complex, manufacture and foreign trade are de- 
 veloped, capital accumulates, personal property 
 takes its place by the side of real, money comes 
 into use, and after money credit, arts and sciences 
 spring up, education and literature become important, 
 schools and universities are founded. This develop- 
 ment is not in itself strictly political, and yet it 
 continually raises new political problems. For at 
 any stage the question may arise : — This new thing 
 that has appeared in the state, to which of the two 
 
140 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 provinces shall it belong — to the province of liberty, 
 or to that of government? Is there trade? Then 
 ought government to regulate trade ? Is there litera- 
 ture ? Then ought every author to publish at his 
 own pleasure, or ought he to obtain a license from 
 government ? 
 
 You see, I think, that we might arrange a series 
 of states according to the answer which is given to 
 these questions, and we might invent a nomenclature 
 corresponding to the difterent extent given in different 
 states to the province of government. German 
 writers use such a nomenclature. The state where 
 government is at a minimum is often called by them 
 the War -state, Der Kriegstaat. They speak also of 
 the Law -state, Der Bechtsstaat, the Trade-state, Der 
 Handelsstaat, the Police-state, Der Polizeistaat. On 
 the other hand, for states in which the province is 
 very large they have the expression Culture-state, 
 Der KuUurstaat. And you will see that if we adopt 
 a classification of this kind it will consist in the main 
 of two great classes, for the grand question will 
 always be, Shall we, or shall we not, adopt a material- 
 ist view 1 that is, shall we consider that the state is 
 concerned only with temporal objects such as order, 
 comfort, and the repression of crime ? Or, on the 
 other hand, shall we allow to the state a higher 
 character ? Shall we suffer it to concern itself with 
 the great ideals of humanity, with religion, morality. 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 141 
 
 science, and art? Shall we in one word admit the 
 KuUurstaat, or shall we not 1 
 
 As I have explained, it is not my undertaking in 
 this course of lectures to give a dogmatic answer to 
 such questions. I confine myself tb-the classification 
 of states. But I have to notice the mighty drifts of 
 opinion which have prevailed on this very subject 
 during the last two centuries. Till the seventeenth 
 century if there was a universal opinion it was that 
 purity of religion was the principal object of the 
 political union. The state and the church were in a 
 manner identical. This view was but very gradually 
 given up. About the same time that it began to dis- 
 appear we note the germs of a later controversy 
 about the limits of the province of the state, which 
 has disturbed the world almost as much. Toleration 
 was definitively admitted in England under William 
 and Mary. The very same period saw a series of 
 great wars commence for England, which, when we 
 examine their origin, are seen to arise out of trade, 
 and particularly out of the pretension which was 
 then common to all governments of regulating 
 trade. We are thus brought to the eighteenth 
 century, and it was not till the second half of 
 that century had opened that the idea began 
 to seize the minds of men that governments aimed 
 too high and attempted too much. In that strange 
 unrest which was the principal moral cause of the 
 
142 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 French Revolution the feeling was certainly a principal 
 ingredient that government had gone much too far, 
 that mankind was greatly over-governed. In several 
 departments at once, — in religion, education, trade, 
 and politics, — the same cry arose; a demand for 
 more simplicity, for less institution and greater con- 
 fidence in nature. Laissez-faire, laissez-passer, was the 
 watchword of this new school. This watchword em- 
 bodies the principle I have once or twice mentioned — 
 the principle that government is a necessary evil, 
 and that its activity ought to be restrained to a 
 minimum. In other words, it is the watchword of 
 liberty in the sense which we have given to that word. 
 It is, of course, a great question for political science 
 whether this watchword ought or ought not to have 
 succeeded ; but, as I have urged, in laying down 
 any dogmatic conclusion, the relativeness of all 
 political truth ought by all means to be borne in 
 mind. In each state the conditions of government 
 are diiferent. Population is large here, small there ; 
 this state is in an advanced stage, and that in an 
 early stage of development. Is it reasonable, then, 
 to expect that any dogma universally applicable 
 can be laid down with respect to the extent which 
 may be properly given to the province of govern- 
 ment? The doctrine of laissez-faire once laid down 
 in the eighteenth century had a great vogue ; and 
 yet the reaction against it in the nineteenth century 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 143 
 
 has been powerful too. Has it won on the whole, 
 or has it lost? To give a short answer to this 
 question would perhaps be difficult. On some great 
 questions, as that of religion, it has certainly been 
 completely victorious, so that most people at the 
 present day find it difficult to understand how so 
 many nations through so many centuries can have 
 believed that government had any concern with 
 religious worship. But in general I hardly think 
 the watchword itself. Laissez-faire, is popular now. 
 We know, indeed, that on the other great question, 
 that of trade, it won a great victory in England, 
 and that when, forty-five years ago, we adopted the 
 principle of free-trade, the advocates of it among 
 us devoutly believed that their reform would be 
 adopted before long all over the world. We know, 
 hovF^ever, that this did not take place, and that by 
 many great states it is still almost as much as in 
 old times considered to be among the most important 
 functions of government to regulate trade. 
 
 In the main the tendency now sets in the most 
 energetic manner the other way, that is, in the 
 direction of state interference, and what I may call 
 establishment. Thus of late years the state has in- 
 cluded education within its province. Primary educa- 
 tion has been in the fullest sense. established, all the 
 state's power of compulsion being brought to bear 
 upon individuals. Secondary education and uni- 
 
144 INTKODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 versifcies have been vigorously remodelled by the 
 intervention of Parliament. The same may be said 
 of sanitation, and every day new demands are jjre- 
 ferred in behalf of some new interest for the cutting 
 of some knot by the trenchant hand of government. 
 
 But the best proof of the change is to be found 
 in the prodigious activity which now prevails in 
 politics, in the agreement of all parties that there is 
 a vast amount to be done, that we have more work 
 before us than can possibly be overtaken. This 
 shows, not indeed that the province of government is 
 increasing in all directions, but that in one direction 
 it increases vastly. For all this activity is devoted 
 to one kind of work, viz. legislation. 
 
 Looked at historically, the present activity of 
 governments in legislation is very remarkable and 
 abnormal. In other departments the action of 
 governments is regarded with as much jealousy as 
 ever, or more. There never was a time when they 
 were more liable to censure for arbitrary interference 
 in private affairs, or for severity of administration. 
 In these matters we abide by the old tradition of 
 liberty. But we make a distinction in favour of 
 legislation. We think governments ought to be 
 continually busy in passing important laws. 
 
 Historically, this is as unlike as possible to the 
 doctrine of other periods. The state in other times, 
 it may almost be said, was not supposed to be con- 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 145 
 
 cerned with legislation. Communities had indeed 
 laws, and at times, though rarely, they altered them ; 
 but the task of alteration hardly fell to the state. 
 
 To illustrate this I cannot do better than cite an 
 example given by Sir H. Maine. Eunjeet Singh, 
 says he, was not only a ruler but a despotic ruler, if 
 there ever was one ; yet probably in his whole life 
 he never performed an act of legislation. He was, 
 as it were, the state in person, yet, as such, he had 
 scarcely any concern with legislation. 
 
 In earlier times, the state, that is the power which 
 issues commands and inflicts punishments, was hardly 
 supposed capable of making law. It could conduct 
 a campaign, levy a tax, remedy a grievance, but law 
 was supposed to be in a somewhat different sphere. 
 Law was a sacred custom ; the state might admin- 
 ister, or enforce, or codify it ; but legislation, the 
 creating, or altering, or annulling of law, was con- 
 ceived as a very high power, rarely to be used, and 
 concerning which it was doubtful who possessed it. 
 Laws are vxj/i-n-oSe's St aodepa TeKvitiOivre's, " walking on 
 high, born above the heavens.'' Often religion was 
 called in, and commonly some degree of fiction was 
 used to conceal the too daring alteration that was 
 made. 
 
 On this point we have completely broken with 
 the tradition of earlier times. I said the Germans 
 speak of the Law-state ; by this they mean merely 
 
146 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 the state which undertakes to guard rights; we 
 want another name to describe the state of the nine- 
 teenth century. It is the Legislation-state. It has 
 abandoned the exercise of many powers which states 
 used to wield, but the power which states in past 
 time were afraid to claim it uses with the utmost 
 freedom and with indefatigable energy. It makes 
 law and unmakes it, and alters it. Law it conceives 
 simply as the opinion of the majority, founded upon 
 discussion and reasoning. It is the Legislation-state. 
 
 You see that though I am able to suggest names 
 by which states may be distinguished according to 
 the province of state-aotioii, I do not find that I can 
 arrange states in a progressive series according to the 
 degree of liberty. Liberty shifts its ground. Some- 
 times it appears in one department, sometimes in 
 another, of human action. The state that favours 
 liberty in some matters is found adverse to it in 
 others. 
 
 Of course, however, we can discern in general two 
 sorts of state, in one of which liberty and in the 
 other government is chiefly favoured, and we can 
 find in history examples of either sort in many dif- 
 ferent degrees. But the examples which are most 
 obvious, and occur to the mind most naturally, can- 
 not in our system be classified under this head. 
 Nine out of ten of the oppressive and crushing 
 governments presented by history are, in our nomen- 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 147 
 
 clature, simply inorganic, governments founded from 
 the beginning on nothing but force. When, how- 
 ever, all these examples have been rejected, there will 
 remain a small number of states which it is possible 
 to arrange in a progressive series according to the 
 intensity of government ; or, in other words, accord- 
 ing to the extent of the province it assumes. 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
 You have listened to two lectures on the subject of 
 Liberty. What are the conclusions to which we have 
 been brought ? Our first inquiry was, whether it is 
 possible to classify states according to the degree of 
 liberty which they admit. We found that the pro- 
 vince of government, and therefore, according to our 
 definition, the province of liberty, differs very greatly 
 in different states, and that in some states liberty 
 is very small and government very large, in others 
 liberty is very large and government very small. 
 But we also -found that the differences are not 
 merely quantitative, and that the provinces do not 
 simply increase or diminish in extent, but often 
 increase in one direction while they diminish in 
 another. We did therefore arrive at a classification, 
 but not quite such a classification as we expected ; or 
 rather we arrived at two classifications, only one of 
 which can be said to be based simply on the principle 
 of liberty. It will be worth while to recall briefly 
 the difference between the two. 
 
 First, then, some states are intense and others lax. 
 
LEOT. VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 149 
 
 i.e. in some government is strong and active, in others 
 forbearing and passive. And as a general rule it 
 appears that the energy of government corresponds 
 to the need of it, that is, to the difS.culties with 
 which the community has to contend. 
 
 I quoted examples to show that where the frontier 
 is weak, government usually by way of compensation 
 makes itself strong. All the world understands that 
 in a camp there must be much more government than 
 in a peaceful trading settlement, for the simple reason 
 that an enemy is to be feared. A commtmity with a 
 weak frontier has in this respect the nature of a 
 camp, and accordingly it creates for itself a strong 
 government. I may remark that other needs beside 
 that of defence against an external foe may conceiv- 
 ably produce the same effect. Anarchic instincts 
 within the community, an intestine discord between 
 families or sects or parties, may provoke the com- 
 munity to remedy the evil by creating an iron 
 government. 
 
 Governments then may be arranged in a certain 
 gradation of intensity or laxity roughly corresponding 
 to the difficulty of defending the state against destruc- 
 tive influences, external or internal ; the most striking 
 division being between the governments which in any 
 way assert authority over the mind and those which 
 do not. Where a government uses its power of 
 coercion to prescribe some religion or some education, 
 
150 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 or to prohibit certain doctrines or speculations or 
 certain associations for purposes of study or worship 
 as dangerous, it separates itself strikingly from states 
 professing tolerance. Only we must be on our guard 
 against erecting tolerance into an absolute principle, 
 any deviation from which would be a sin. The 
 question is one of self-defence. If tolerance can 
 be allowed in a state, so much the better; that 
 proves that the state is strong. But the majority of 
 states have not been strong enough to bear it, and 
 have been obliged in self-defence to place restrictions 
 upon it. The most Liberal states on the Continent 
 find that they can scarcely tolerate Jesuitism. 
 
 However this may be, there are toleration-states, 
 and an opposite class. Again, we might distinguish 
 between states which impose military service upon all 
 citizens and those which do not. Here, again, is a 
 difference in the intensity of government caused 
 evidently by a difference in the difficulty of defend- 
 ing the state; for such states as Germany, whose 
 frontier is always exposed, adopt the principle of 
 universal service, while England and the United 
 States, which are not exposed to attack, do not. 
 
 Perhaps you may on reflection be able to distinguish 
 other similar classes. And I think you will find it an 
 instructive exercise to seek in history exemplifications 
 of the great law we have been considering, that 
 governments draw the reins tight when dangers 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 151 
 
 threaten the state, and that liberty flourishes where- 
 ever there is little danger. 
 
 But, as we saw, this classification of states accord- 
 ing to the degree of liberty is complicated by another 
 classification according to the kind of liberty. For 
 we find that diff'erent communities turn their attention 
 to different objects, and it is natural that government 
 in each should follow and conform to the inclination 
 of the community. Accordingly government will 
 lean now on one side, now on another, and, as liberty 
 is wherever government is not, there will be just as 
 many varieties of partial liberty. 
 
 We have now to observe that however far we may 
 go in devising classifications of this kind, we have 
 rather missed the mark at which we primarily aimed 
 in undertaking the inquiry. Our object was to give 
 scientific shape and precision to the great broad dis- 
 tinction, which is implied in the current use of the 
 term "liberty "as characteristic of certain states, in 
 certain phases of their development. But when we 
 speak — for instance — of English liberty, or trace the 
 consolidation of it in the constitutional struggles of 
 the seventeenth century, or the adoption of it by the 
 continental states since the French Revolution, we 
 most commonly use the word liberty in a sense differ- 
 ent from that which I have thought it best to adopt. 
 True that since the seventeenth century we have 
 constantly considered the question of the extent of 
 
152 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 the province of government, but the liberty of which 
 in the eighteenth century we had a monopoly, and of 
 which we still boast does not consist so much in the 
 contraction of the province of government as in a 
 peculiarity in the manner in which government is 
 conducted. Let us begin by stating in general terms 
 in what this peculiarity consists. Evidently it has 
 something to do with the power assigned to Parlia- 
 ment. As in the first sense Liberty was opposed to 
 needless interference, so in this other sense liberty 
 is opposed to absolutism or personal government. 
 So far, then, it corresponds to Aristotle's government 
 by few or many in opposition to his government by 
 one. But we never apply the word liberty to what 
 we distinctly recognise as government by a few. The 
 English Parliament now represents a vast niimber of 
 people. In the middle of the last century, when it 
 was still the only " free " Parliament, it represented, 
 we know, a number of people comparatively small ; 
 but if that number had not been positively at least 
 considerable our country would never have claimed 
 in virtue of its parliament to be considered free. On 
 the other hand, it has to be admitted that liberty, 
 taken in this sense, as in the other, is usually in 
 practice comparative rather than absolute. It would 
 be a very extreme view to refuse to reckon England 
 among the states that have liberty on the ground 
 that universal manhood suffrage has not yet been 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 153 
 
 realised in England after so many Reform Acts ; but 
 we recognise that her "liberty" is not absolute but 
 only comparative. A " free " Parliament must re- 
 present at least a good many people : but only if it 
 represents all — or, as in the ancient city-states, 
 actually includes all — do we say that there is liberty 
 absolute, taking liberty in this sense. 
 
 This remark shows that there is a theory under- 
 lying the positive facts which are expressed by 
 the word liberty when it is thus used. Ifc shows 
 that we think we know why the Parliament should 
 have so much power, since we think it not fully 
 developed so long as it does not either repre- 
 sent or actually include all. This theory is com- 
 monly expressed by the word self-government, so 
 that liberty in this sense is often called self-govern- 
 ment. Hitherto we have often spoken of government 
 as the badge by which the state is known. I have 
 considered the essence of it to lie in the imposition 
 of his will by one man upon another, so that A does 
 under fear of punishment not what A but what B 
 wills to do. This statement, you see, excludes such 
 a thing as self-government. But perhaps we may 
 imagine, between the case where a man does simply 
 what he himself wills and the case where he does what 
 another wills, a third case where he does that which 
 is neither simply his own will nor simply another's 
 will, but that which for a special purpose, viz. the 
 
154 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 general good, he consents to have considered as his 
 own will. This would be a sort of self-government in 
 its naked form. The formula of it would be somewhat 
 as follows. A at the present moment would personally 
 prefer to remain wholly inactive, but taking into ac- 
 count the danger which threatens the community from 
 the neighbouring tribe, and the necessity oi vigor- 
 ous common action in order to avert it, he, under 
 no constraint, freely elects and wills to march against 
 the enemy. This, you see, is self-government, and if 
 such a system could be worked out it is perhaps con- 
 ceivable that the operations of the state might be 
 purged of that taint of violence which from the be- 
 ginning has corrupted them, and that such a thing 
 as government without coercion might come to be 
 regarded as possible. 
 
 Here, perhaps, is an ideal to attain which it 
 might be worth while to make some considerable 
 sacriiice. For the purpose, you see, it would be 
 necessary that each individual citizen should be con- 
 sulted in two distinct capacities. First, he must be 
 asked simply what he as an individual wills and 
 chooses. Secondly, he must be asked, as a member 
 perhaps of some universal assembly, what, taking 
 everything, the public good included, into considera- 
 tion, he desires to be considered as his will. This 
 would be self-government, or government without 
 coercion. Is such a thing possible ^ It is often spoken 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 165 
 
 of as if it were not only possible, but had been already 
 realised. Thus it is common among us to say, On this 
 subject the people has expressed its will, and that will 
 is supreme. But you observe that the ideal I described 
 is not attained so long as any one person is obliged 
 to do the thing which, considering everything, he 
 does not wish to do. Now, I put aside for the 
 present that we cannot speak with correctness of the 
 will of the people so long as the suffrage remains 
 short of universal, and that when all the men have 
 been admitted in order to ascertain the will of the 
 people you must also consult all the women and all 
 the children. This is a trifle. Besides this, if you 
 would get rid of coercion the voting in your universal 
 parliament must always be unanimous. For on this 
 principle, what possible right can a majority have to 
 bind a minority ? I think no sufficient justification of 
 this right of the majority has ever been given. A 
 French writer has justly remarked that the right of 
 an enormously large majority may be granted, but 
 that it is almost impossible to defend the right of a 
 small majority. Thus, if out of thirty millions 
 29,900,000 are agreed, we may talk of the will of 
 the people as if it had been pronounced approxi- 
 mately, but it is quite otherwise when it is pronounced 
 only by a majority of ten or twenty in an assembly 
 in which 700 men represent 37,000,000. 
 
 Surely this assumption that in matters of legislation 
 
156 INTEODUCTION TO MOT. 
 
 the majority is to count for the whole, and the minority, 
 even if it amount almost to a full half of the citizens, 
 is not to count at all, is so enormous that we may at 
 least be surprised to find it admitted, as it commonly 
 is admitted, without discussion. But suppose we 
 admit that in political science the majority may be 
 taken to stand for the whole, still the word self- 
 government — which might fairly be applied to a 
 system of government in which no violence was done 
 to individual wills — is not properly applicable to a 
 system in which individual wills may be overridden 
 freely so long as, taken together, they form but a 
 minority of the whole. Such a system may be justi- 
 fied perhaps by convenience or by the difiiculty of 
 devising another, but it surrenders the ideal of a 
 collective will of the people and of government 
 without coercion. 
 
 Instead, then, of laying it down that there may be 
 two kinds of government, the personal government 
 of an individual, and the self-government of all the 
 citizens, we should rather state that the opposite 
 of personal government is the government of the 
 minority by the majority. Though this latter is 
 by no means self-government, it is none the less a 
 system of the utmost importance. I do not see how 
 it can be based upon abstract right ; even to assert 
 that the will of the majority is in all cases, or even 
 in the majority of cases, likely to be i:)referable to 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 157 
 
 that of the minority would be very rash. All, I 
 think, that can be said is that the principle of giving 
 authority to the majority over the minority is simple 
 and easily intelligible, and, where the majority is 
 enormously large, approximately just ; that it reduces 
 to a minimum the odium with, which government is 
 naturally regarded; and that it is so far natural 
 that it gives authority to the section .which, as being 
 the more numerous, would probably win if aii appeal 
 were made to physical force. But in virtue of 
 all these advantages together we may say that the 
 principle of giving rights to the majority is perhaps 
 the greatest and most momeittous practical invention 
 ever made in the department of politics. Only do 
 not let us resort to fiction, and when it is quite 
 suflBcient to say that it is in many respects con- 
 venient to yield to the majority, do not let us say 
 that it is of course just to do so, or that of course 
 the majority is to be regarded as equivalent to the 
 whole. 
 
 This, I say, is the greatest practical invention, 
 though it is commonly regarded as if it were rather 
 a discovery than an invention, and as if it had 
 theoretical justice as well as practical convenience 
 to recommend it. Closely connected with it is 
 another great invention which deserves that name 
 much more evidently. In general we have to be on 
 our guard in political science against attributing too 
 
158 INTKODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 much to conscious contrivance. Most political pheno- 
 mena seem rather to have grown than to have been 
 invented. But the idea of the representative system, 
 which has wholly transformed the aspect of political 
 institutions, constitutes an exception. One of the 
 most fundamental facts which I have to put before 
 you is, that whereas both personal government and 
 government by majority are found in antiquity as 
 well as in modern states, on the other hand the 
 representative system was scarcely known to the 
 ancient world. This grand difference between the 
 ancient and modern world is closely connected with 
 that other broad difference which strikes our atten- 
 tion so instantaneously. That in ancient Greece and 
 Italy the 'State was identified with the city rather 
 than with a large territory, — this is necessarily the 
 first observation we make when we compare them 
 with modern Europe. But the second observation is 
 this, that though notoriously the ancients had what 
 we often call liberty, that is, government by majority, 
 — so much so that the modern movement in the 
 same direction which began in the eighteenth century ' 
 seemed like a revival of antiquity, — yet ancient 
 "liberty" assumed a form which it has been found 
 impossible to revive. The Ecclesia at Athens was not 
 an assembly of the representatives of the Athenian 
 community : it was, we may say, the community 
 itself. And we remark the same thing if we turn 
 
vii POLITICAL SCIENCE 159 
 
 from Greece to Rome. There, too, popular assemblies 
 met and conducted the business of the state. There 
 was the Comitia Oenturiata, which was supposed to 
 have been founded by one of the ancient kings, 
 Servius TuUius ; and there was the Comitia Tributa. 
 Between these assemblies there were great differ- 
 ences, but neither was founded on the representative 
 principle. Both alike were open to all citizens. 
 The Senate at Rome was of course in some respects 
 and at certain periods extremely influential, and 
 this certainly did not include the whole mass of 
 citizens, but neither was it in any degree represent- 
 ative. 
 
 We thus discover two grand differences between 
 the world of classical antiquity and the modern 
 world in respect of political development. Let me 
 now proceed to point out how closely these two 
 differences are connected together. It is by taking 
 note of this that we see what has been the precise 
 line of human evolution in this political department. 
 Both personal government and government by a 
 majority were known to ancient states as well as 
 to modern. But in ancient states, being city-states, 
 the introduction of government by majority implied 
 an assembly in which all the citizens should have a 
 place. The very idea of such an assembly, if it were 
 suggested to any modern politician, would take his 
 breath away. In modern states the utmost point of 
 
160 INTKODUOTION TO lect. 
 
 progress is the creation of an assembly founded upon 
 universal suffrage, that is, a parliament in electing 
 which every citizen shall have an infinitesimal share. 
 But in Athens and Eome every citizen was himself a 
 member of parliament. Now why was this compre- 
 hensiveness of democracy possible to them, while it 
 is impossible to us t You see that it was possible to 
 them simply because they were city-states. In a 
 city-state the population will be small, and the 
 citizens will live near each other. In a city-state 
 such scenes may be witnessed as you will find 
 described near the beginning of the Acharnians of 
 Aristophanes. There you find described the sum- 
 moning and the meeting of the Athenian Ecclesia 
 itself. In the market-place, says the poet, the people 
 are gossiping, and up and down you see them trying 
 to dodge the vermilion-dyed rope. Yes ! there is 
 indeed a picture of uniTersal suffrage. Every person 
 in the market-place has not only a right but a posi- 
 tive duty to take his place on the Pnyx; and that 
 no one might escape, a rope was drawn round the 
 market-place which should sweep the whole popular 
 tion bodily into parliament, and it was dyed that it 
 might at least leave a mark upon those who might 
 try to escape the duty. 
 
 But in a country -state, where the population 
 numbers 30,000,000 and is scattered over 200,000 
 square miles, how shall such a comprehensive da- 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 161 
 
 mocracy be introduced 1 Aristotle himself recognises 
 the difficulty when he asks — speaking of an over- 
 grown city-state — Must not the hei'ald that is to ad- 
 dress such a multitude be a Stentor 'i Here, indeed, 
 is a practical obstacle. We see that to Aristotle it 
 must have seemed insurmountable. He could con- 
 ceive government by many, but he could conceive it 
 only in a city-state. 
 
 But this obstacle has been surmounted by the 
 introduction of the principle of representation, which 
 has this grand advantage, that it is applicable to the 
 country-state. Being so applicable it opened out to 
 mankind the possibility of a new political develop- 
 ment. For a long time the greatness of the ancient 
 world lay with an oppressive weight like an incubus 
 upon the moderns. The ancients, it seemed, had 
 done everything, and nothing remained to be done. 
 Literature, art, philosophy, all were theirs. The spell 
 was first broken perhaps by the maritime discoverers 
 of the fifteenth century, who first extended modern 
 knowledge clearly beyond the knowledge of the 
 ancient world. Among the superiorities of antiquity 
 was its superiority in politics. In the monotonous 
 world of feudalism, where government took always 
 much the same form, and that not a very high one, 
 it was remembered that antiquity had had splendid 
 states, renowned assemblies that had been controlled 
 by the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero. The 
 M 
 
162 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 time came when the modern world was able to rival 
 the ancient in this department too. It did not indeed 
 revive the ancient " Polis," but it invented something 
 analogous, so that at last it became in a position to 
 add a second part to the Politics of Aristotle. It 
 developed the country -state, and showed how this 
 might be made capable of all the splendour, liberty, 
 and glory of the Polis. And this it did by means of 
 the representative principle. 
 
 You see, then, that the system which was thus 
 introduced, and which has taken such deep root, is 
 not only not in a strict sense self-government, but is 
 removed from it by two degrees. Self-government 
 strictly taken would be government in accordance 
 with the wishes of the governed, but this is a system, 
 in the first place, of government in accordance with the 
 wishes only of the majority — a very different thing. 
 But now, secondly, it is a system under which the 
 people itself is not consulted at all, but only its 
 representatives, and you know what a small number 
 of representatives are consulted. Here in England, 
 out of a population of some 37,000,000, the represent- 
 atives in the House of Commons amount to less than 
 seven hundred. Surely under this system the share 
 of power assigned to the individual does not amount 
 to much, even if we suppose the system very com- 
 pletely realised. Let us make the most extreme 
 assumptions. Let us suppose in the first place that 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 163 
 
 the suffrage is extended to the utmost, so that almost 
 everybody enjoys it; secondly, that the Parliament 
 which results has the whole government in its hands ; 
 thirdly, let us suppose that the province of govern- 
 ment is enlarged to the utmost degree, that is, 
 according to our definition, that liberty in the state is 
 reduced to a minimum, yet even then what share of 
 power has the individual ? He has, perhaps, a thirty- 
 millionth part in determining of whom this omnipotent 
 assembly shall consist. I am reminded of a remark 
 made by M. About, who says of the system as it 
 stood some forty years ago in France, where Par- 
 liamentary government was combined with rigid 
 centralisation and restless government interference — 
 he says that it was the pride of every Frenchman, 
 when he looked in his glass in the morning, to think 
 that he saw there the twenty-seven-millionth part of a 
 tyrant, but that he was apt to forget that at the same 
 time he saw the whole of a slave. 
 
 This representative principle, however, has taken 
 such deep root, and we have become so familiar with 
 it, that we perhaps have a difficulty in understanding 
 its prodigious importance or the extreme slowness of 
 its introduction into the world. Look, however, at 
 one of the largest and most palpable facts in history. 
 The older system, that of universal assemblies, came 
 to an end evidently in Eome. That singular revolu- 
 tion, which we call the fall of the ancient Roman 
 
164 INTEODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 republic, or perhaps the fall of liberty at Eome, was 
 in reality the fall of the city-state. It was followed, 
 we know, by the rise of Imperialism, the establishment 
 of an absolutism which grew ever more military. 
 Century after century passed, experiment after experi- 
 ment was tried, but one experiment appeared always 
 hopeless, and that was the restoration of the old 
 republic. Nor could anything of th^ same nature be 
 devised. From that time no government had a chance 
 that was not a form of absolutism. 
 
 Now, if you inquire into the reason of the impossi- 
 bility of reviving the republic, you speedily discover 
 that the old republican institutions of Eome were 
 essentially civic. They were fitted only for a city- 
 state, and a city-state Rome could never again be. 
 The Comitia Centuriata might meet in the Campus 
 Martins to elect the annual consuls, so long as it was 
 not quite absurd to identify the citizens of Rome with 
 the inhabitants of that city. But Rome had become 
 the centre of a vast dominion, limited by the Rhine 
 and the Danube. By this expansion the state had 
 changed its whole aspect and manifestly outgrown its 
 old institutions. But, perhaps you will say, in that 
 case why did not Augustus introduce the representative 
 system. If Rome had ceased to be a city-state, why 
 did he not introduce into it the institutions proper to 
 a country-state ? You might as well ask, " Why did 
 not Augustus discover America?" If, as we have 
 
■VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 165 
 
 seen, the political philosophers of antiquity scarcely 
 realised that there was such a thing as a country-state, 
 can we expect the Roman politicians to have known 
 by what changes of machinery, by what reforms, a 
 city-state could be transformed into a healthy country- 
 state? For this was the problem, which has been 
 somewhat obscured to us by our habit of introducing 
 everywhere the terms monarchy and republic, liberty 
 and slavery. These terms are thought to explain 
 everything in politics ; and so in the Eoman Eevolu- 
 tion we see the fall of a republic and the introduction 
 of a monarchy ; the fall of liberty and the introduc- 
 tion of absolutism. This description misses the 
 essential feature of it. It was the fall of a city-state, 
 and along with that the fall of the institutions proper 
 to the city-state, and, in particular, of the universal 
 unrepresentative Assembly. 
 
 What would happen in government after the fall 
 of the city-state seems to have been a problem wholly 
 beyond solution by any political thinker of those ages. 
 No one divined that the country-state would be found 
 capable of so much development, and in particular no 
 one seems to have guessed that assemblies analogous 
 to those which had been addressed by Demosthenes 
 and Cicero would be seen, assemblies not universal 
 but at the same time large, assemblies founded on the 
 representative principle. To open this new course 
 and enter successfully upon it took much more than a 
 
166 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 thousand years. The English Parliament, which is 
 now regarded as the mother of Parliaments, dates, as 
 we know, in its proper representative form only from 
 the latter part of the thirteenth century. 
 
 But though the progress of this principle has been 
 incredibly slow, it has been so solid that in the 
 present age this principle and what flows from it 
 occupy the very centre of politics. In England, from 
 the thirteenth century to the seventeenth, parlia- 
 mentary government did not make any marked 
 progress. Parliament was always there, and at 
 certain periods very powerful, but in those four 
 centuries the principle of representation by no means 
 developed all that was in it. Then came the revolu- 
 tions of the seventeenth century, which I mention 
 here, not for the purpose of discussing them, but only 
 in order to mark their total result. Other disturbances, 
 which in some of their stages were extremely wild and 
 confused, had a remarkably happy termination in 
 1688. A settlement was arrived at which secured for 
 a great country-state that particular form of govern- 
 ment by majority which is based upon the representa- 
 tive principle. The representation of the people was, 
 of course, extremely imperfect, but the authority of 
 the representative assembly even in the greatest 
 questions was established. A century followed in 
 which for the most part England appeared to have a 
 monopoly of what were called " free " institutions.- 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 167 
 
 But since the wars of the French Revolution a system 
 substantially identical began to spread itself over 
 continental states: in 1848 it made solid progress: 
 and now, if we judge liberty by largeness of suffrage, 
 more than one continental state is in advance of 
 England in liberty. A remarkable uniformity has 
 been attained in the political constitutions of the 
 globe through the universal prevalence of the repre- 
 sentative system. As Aristotle's state, the Polls, has 
 disappeared, so too Aristotle's popular assembly, the 
 Ecclesia, giving direct power of government to the 
 whole multitude of the citizens, has disappeared. 
 Government by many is known now only in a modified 
 form ; it means now government by a comparatively 
 small assembly of representatives. But in this 
 modified form it has received the highest honour 
 which in the political department can be given to 
 anything, for it is called by the name of liberty. 
 
LECTUEE VIII 
 
 In the last lecture we were concerned with the 
 notion of " Government by Many." Before we pro- 
 ceed to consider this further, in the modified form 
 which it has assumed in modern states, we may con- 
 veniently examine more closely that "Government 
 by One " which we are wont to contrast with it 
 under the name of Despotism. 
 
 It is the custom to regard despotism as a sort of 
 unmixed curse, as an incubus or nightmare, as a 
 supernatural evil which, leagued with superstition, 
 crushes the unhappy race of mortals in the dust. 
 This doctrine is the counterpart of that which re- 
 presents liberty as an unqualified divine blessing, 
 equally desirable in all times and places. Now there 
 is a sort of despotism as ghastly as this theory 
 imagines ; in inorganic states, where everything is 
 founded on violence and conquest, such horrors are 
 not rare. But we have nothing to do here with 
 inorganic states. The forms of government with 
 which we are concerned have grown up by a reac- 
 tion of the -political vital principle against some pres- 
 
LECT. vm POLITICAL SCIENCE 169 
 
 sure. Among these forms is the government of one. 
 By the hypothesis it meets some want ; and in some 
 cases it is obvious that one important want which it 
 meets is the want of protection for the people at large 
 against the tyranny of the few. Thus Julius Csesar, 
 as we know, began his career as the head of the 
 democratic party in Eome ; and the Roman emperors 
 were the champions of the provincials against the 
 oppression of senatorian proconsuls, who had de- 
 pended on the aristocracy. Thus the English 
 supported their strong Tudor kings to be their 
 protection against the lawlessness of the armed 
 nobility. Thus in the Dutch Eepublic, when the 
 people entered into politics, they threw up their 
 caps for the Prince of Orange, and raised the cry of 
 " Orange Boven " as the watchword of resistance to 
 tyranny of the burghers. How, again, did the 
 French monarchy in the thirteenth century rise so 
 rapidly to despotic powers in the very country where 
 a century before monarchy had been exceptionally 
 insignificant 1 It was by reaction against the tyranny 
 of feudal nobles, by the support of the Communes 
 who in all parts of France at once found that the 
 king was ready to give them aid in their struggle 
 against the seigneur. Once more, look at the 
 strongest form of despotism which modern Europe 
 has known. What has made Russia for so long a 
 time loyal to her Czars ? The desire of the mass of 
 
170 INTEODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 the population to have a strong protector against 
 the Boyars. Witness the famous scene of the 
 accession of Anne. "When the Boyars called Anne, 
 Duchess of Courland, to a throne to which she had 
 but a poor title, imposing upon her a constitution as 
 the price of their support, what frustrated their 
 scheme ? The people rose in rebellion, knowing that 
 the weakness of the Czarina meant oppression to 
 themselves. They insisted that she should be 
 absolute, and it was like a charter to the Eussian 
 people that she solemnly tore the charter that had 
 been extorted from her by the Russian nobles. 
 
 Examples such as these may awaken in you a 
 certain feeling of dissatisfaction with respect to the 
 popular political philosophy. What I said on liberty 
 will, I trust, have convinced you that we are scarcely 
 so strict as we ought to be in the use of political 
 terms. But those remarks left the citadel of the 
 popular philosophy unthreatened. They tended to 
 show only that it might be more conveniently 
 stated in other terms. They called only for the 
 alteration of a word. Put but popular principles or 
 popular government for liberty, which we found it 
 more convenient to use in another sense, and the 
 accepted theory would still seem as true as ever. 
 But what do you think of the view of despotism 
 which I have just suggested? The popular theory 
 certainly holds nothing in so much horror as 
 
vin POLITICAL SCIENCE 171 
 
 despotism ; in opposition to this, as the government 
 of happiness, it sets up democracy. It does not of 
 course like oligarchy, but it regards oligarchy, so far 
 as oligarchy is republican, so far as it involves debate 
 and discussion in an assembly, as less monstrous than 
 despotism, which it puts almost on a level with some 
 Mexican idol-worship. You see now that it is pos- 
 sible by the help of historical examples to give a 
 different account of despotism, according to which it 
 is not the worst government, but a contrivance for 
 escaping a sort of government more oppressive still. 
 Instead of being opposed to democracy it may, on this 
 hypothesis, be a rude form of it. That is, a great 
 population scattered over a large territory and 
 struggling against the oppression of great magnates, 
 being unable to organise concerted action over so 
 large a space, may collect all its power into the hands 
 of an individual, and arm him with a sort of iron 
 mace strong enough to crush any or all of the 
 enemies of the people. Such a power, compared 
 with an oligarchical Senate, would be rude and in 
 appearance brutal. It would strike hard blows and 
 use no refined artificial eloquence, but its rudeness 
 and coarseness would be democratic. The despot, so 
 regarded, would be only the demagogue armed with 
 power. 
 
 This has certainly been the character of some 
 despotisms, and in other despotisms we may trace 
 
172 INTKODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 that they had this character at the beginning, and 
 have only lost it by corruption. Before, however, 
 we abandon as false the favourite contrast between 
 monarchy and republic, and the doctrine, almost 
 universally held, that democracy is a strong and 
 almost extreme form of opposition to despotism, it 
 will be well to examine the notion of despotism 
 somewhat more closely. For we observe that the 
 word does not merely denote the fact, but is sup- 
 posed in some sort also to explain it. With the 
 name is involved a sort of theory of the phenomenon. 
 For through the whole accepted doctrine there runs 
 an assumption that government is of two kinds, 
 radically distinct, which may be distinguished as 
 government from above and government from below. 
 We keep constantly before our eyes two types of 
 authority, unmistakably different, and these two 
 types serve us as a practical guide which we 
 feel sure can never mislead us. One is inherent 
 authority, speaking in a tone of command and using 
 force. This kind, when it is most favourably de- 
 scribed, may be illustrated by that of a father over 
 infants. In that one instance it is allowed to be 
 good and lawful, but it is maintained that such 
 authority, when claimed by a ruler in the state, can- 
 not be allowed without degrading the citizens into 
 infants, and ascribing to the ruler an inherent 
 superiority which he cannot possibly have. The 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 173 
 
 other type is entrusted auttority. In this the 
 ruler is really the servant, and the subjects taken 
 all together are the rulers. An obvious illustration 
 may be taken from the office-bearers of a club or 
 company, to whom a certain amount of authority is 
 granted merely in order that the wishes of the 
 society may be carried more promptly into effect, 
 but who do not presume to have any opinion of their 
 own ; or at least, if they find themselves so far in 
 disagreement with the majority that they cannot con- 
 sent to sacrifice their own opinions, they are expected 
 quietly to withdraw. This view of government, 
 which, since it was clearly set forth by Rousseau, has 
 been the ferment of the European revolution, is called 
 the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. But 
 how old the theory of the two opposite types is, and 
 how deeply it has penetrated all minds, may be seen 
 from the popular use of the words republic and 
 commonwealth ! One of those words translates the 
 other, and we might suppose neither could ever be 
 adopted as the distinctive name for any one form of 
 government. For surely, however forms of govern- 
 ment may differ, they must at least all agree in 
 professing concern for the commonweal, and must 
 therefore, all be equally "republics." But no; this 
 name is given to states where an assembly rules and 
 where there is no monarch, because it is supposed 
 that the monarch does not necessarily even profess 
 
174 INTEODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 to aim at the common good, but rules by inherent 
 authority. That the kernel of the accepted theory 
 lies in this distinction may be seen from the way it 
 treats rulers like Cromwell and Napoleon. They, 
 to be sure, were monarchs not less despotic than 
 Charles I. wished to be, or than Louis XIV. was. 
 Yet they are regarded quite differently, because we 
 suppose that they acknowledged themselves to hold 
 their power, absolute as it was, from the people 
 and for the people. 
 
 Certainly the distinction, if real, is all -important, 
 and indeed we should have a very terrible view of his- 
 tory if we were obliged to think that Louis XIV. and 
 Charles I., and the long royal lines which in most 
 European countries represented for a long period the 
 same principles of government, ruled their subjects as a 
 master rules a household of slaves, crushing them down 
 by superior force. Assuredly no rhetoric or poetry 
 could ever exaggerate the horror of such a system, 
 but I can scarcely describe it without betraying how 
 difficult it is to conceive such a system at work. Let 
 us try to imagine Louis XIV. crushing down the 
 French people by superior force ! Clearly we can- 
 not take the words literally ! Even a slave -owner 
 does not hold down his many slaves literally by the 
 use of superior force, but by the threat of a superior 
 force which he could speedily call in : for in a slave- 
 holding country all the free population are banded 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 175 
 
 together to hold the slaves in subjection. Well then ! 
 Louis XIV., if the French people had risen against 
 him, would have called in assistance from neighbour- 
 ing kings to put them down 1 Bodies of police would 
 have been sent from Germany and from England to 
 restore order ? You know that nothing of the sort 
 would have happened, and that the French people 
 could not have been led to suppose that it would. 
 What then would have happened ? He would have 
 called in his soldiers. What ? But I thought these 
 soldiers were themselves among the Frenchmen whom 
 he was to hold down. Surely one of his principal 
 difficulties lay in the fact that a large number of his 
 slaves were armed and disciplined. Surely if you 
 admit that Louis XIV. depended upon his army, it is 
 evident that his power too " came from below," just 
 as that of the modern ruler who says that he derives 
 his power from the people. The systems no doubt are 
 different, but in both cases the support is below, not 
 above. For as the modern ruler must yield if the 
 people do not support him, so must Louis XIV. have 
 yielded if the army had deserted him. 
 
 The truth is that the antithesis between govern- 
 ment from above and government from below is 
 illusory. A despot governing by superior force as a 
 father governs infant children is an absurd conception. 
 
 What is true is this. A comparatively small 
 number may by superior concert and organisation 
 
176 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 control a large number, and this small number may 
 have a chief at their head. Cromwell, for instance, 
 could not by his own personal strength control the 
 English nation, but by means of a trained army of 
 50,000 men who were devoted to him, he could easily 
 do so. But to get the services of this army he must 
 in some way have persuaded them. And if so he 
 must have been dependent on them, responsible to 
 them. 
 
 Indeed it seems strange that we should imagine 
 the monarchical of all forms of government to rest on 
 force, since evidently it is the only one of the three 
 Aristotelian forms which cannot possibly do so. The 
 many may of course easily rule by force, for they have 
 the superiority in force ; the few may do so, for by 
 organisation and discipline they may render their 
 force practically superior ; but the one cannot do so. 
 At the utmost we might conceive that in a very small 
 primitive clan some Achilles might for a short time 
 rule by sheer physical superiority ; but if we tried to 
 describe such a heroic personal government we should 
 soon find ourselves driven to admit admiration, hope 
 of reward, and sense of public interest, as well as the 
 sheer intimidation before a superior force, to a place 
 among the motives of obedience. 
 
 In short, while the few and the many alike may 
 depend on themselves alone and use naked force, the 
 monarch cannot do so, but must necessarily persuade 
 
viir POLITICAL SCIENCE 177 
 
 somebody to help him, convince somebody that his 
 rule is desirable, and therefore must depend on some- 
 body, be responsible to somebody. Therefore there 
 is no such thing as irresponsible monarchy, though 
 irresponsible oligarchy, and still more irresponsible 
 democracy, are quite possible and ordinary. 
 
 This would be evident to us if our minds were not 
 clouded with the dust of the old divine-right con- 
 troversy. For that leads us to bring in the idea of a 
 supernatural Power supporting the monarch, with- 
 out closely considering whether we mean that the 
 supernatural Power really does support him, or only 
 that some people erroneously believe this to be the 
 case. 
 
 It has always been taught that the law of duty is 
 enforced by divine sanctions, that what we ought to do 
 it is well for us to do, and ill for us to do what we ought 
 not to do. Religion, especially Christianity, makes 
 it in general a moral duty to obey the government. 
 Accordingly government necessarily enjoys the benefit 
 of this teaching, and is considered to be supported by 
 the Power that rules the universe. Usually, but not 
 necessarily, that Power has been regarded as acting 
 by supernatural means as well as by natural. So 
 far, then, government is regarded as supported by 
 supernatural power, but so far this applies to all govern- 
 ments alike, and not merely to monarchical govern- 
 ments. It has often been remarked that those well- 
 
 N 
 
178 INTKODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 known texts of the New Testament were originally 
 intended to apply, not to a hereditary monarchy, but 
 to an elective imperialism. It is not monarchy only, 
 but in general " the powers that be," that are said to 
 be ordained of God. If this religious sanction has 
 practically been enjoyed more by monarchy than by 
 other forms of government, that, I take it, is only 
 because all over Europe for many centuries monarchy 
 has been the government in possession, " the power 
 that is." Other governments equally, whenever they 
 find it necessary, call religion to their aid; aristocracy, 
 and still more democracy, try to represent themselves 
 as the only right, just, religious form that govern- 
 ment can take, and democracy particularly loves to 
 be regarded as the practical fulfilment of the Christian 
 ideal. 
 
 But the important thing is to note in what way 
 religious sanctions strengthen government, when they 
 do strengthen it. The monarch, I have pointed 
 out, cannot rest on force, because superior force is just 
 the thing which he most evidently lacks. And yet 
 he especially uses a high tone, and seems to depend 
 on an intrinsic superiority. Is this because Heaven 
 actually interferes in his behalf with thunder and 
 lightning? Not so; religion acts by faith, not by 
 sight. It does not alter the actual proportion of force 
 between the ruler and his subjects, but it acts upon 
 the minds of the subjects. It forms in them an opinion 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 179 
 
 concerning their ruler which they would not otherwise 
 have entertained. Louis XIV. in the midst of the 
 French was actually but a puny weakling, but owing 
 to many influences, of which religion was one of the 
 most important, they regarded him with awe. They 
 probably did not believe, any more than we do, that 
 any one disobeying him would have been instan- 
 taneously reduced to ashes by fire from Heaven. 
 Only the prevalent opinion among them was that, 
 taking all things into consideration, — the present and 
 the future, themselves, future generations and the 
 realm, the welfare of their bodies and the welfare of 
 their souls, — it was expedient to render him loyal 
 obedience. If so, you observe that Louis XIV. 
 did not depend immediately upon support from 
 above, but upon an opinion in the minds of his 
 subjects below. 
 
 It may be replied : " True, the one cannot rule 
 purely by force ; but as the few can prevail over 
 the many by adding to force organisation, so the 
 one can eke out his insufficient force by the help of 
 fraud. The despot is an impostor falsely pretending 
 to supernatural power, and maintaining his authority 
 by means of superstition and deception." 
 
 Now in special circumstances and for a short time 
 this may be just conceivable, as we see by the story of 
 the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan. If not by super- 
 natural power, yet by the pretence of supernatural 
 
180 INTEODUGTION TO LEOT. 
 
 power, the one may succeed in being for practical 
 purposes more strong than the many, and so may be 
 independent of his subjects and irresponsible. 
 
 But such a bare possibility does not at all help us 
 in explaining the historical examples of despotism. 
 Let us bring Louis XIV. into court again. The awe 
 with which he was regarded had a strong religious 
 element in it, and we might admit that the religious 
 teaching which had fostered it was not quite true, 
 was tainted with superstition. But if there was 
 deception, Louis XIV. himself was not the deceiver. 
 The extravagant claims had not been put forward 
 mainly by him, nor by others in his pay. A doctrine 
 had sprung up in the French church and nation, 
 which had gathered strength through a long period 
 from many circumstances ; of this Louis XIV. reaped 
 the benefit. Observe, then, the promulgators of the 
 opinion which was so useful to him were distinct 
 from him ; they might change their opinion and pro- 
 mulgate another. He was therefore dependent on 
 them and to some extent responsible to them ; he 
 was under the necessity, if he would reign success- 
 fully, of carefully watching, studying, and humouring 
 the minds of those who taught the people to obey. 
 As Cromwell on his army, Louis XIV. was in a great 
 degree dependent on his bishops; he succeeded on 
 the whole in carrying them with him in his contest 
 with the Papacy, but his whole reign would wear 
 
vm POLITICAL SCIENCE 181 
 
 now a very different aspect if they had chanced to 
 side against him. As it was, while no despotism that 
 modern Europe has known has been much more 
 complete than that of Louis XIV., still few states 
 have had so much unity of feeling or been so 
 thoroughly organic as France was in his age. In 
 that age the devotion of the French to their monarchs 
 became a proverb, and it continued unshaken half 
 through the reign of Louis XV. 
 
 The distinction I am trying to impress upon you 
 is one which I have found to be of great practical 
 importance. According to the popular notion des- 
 potism is a mere incubus, under the weight of which 
 there can be no life or movement of any kind. 
 Under its pressure there can be no play of interests, 
 no political activity, no thought of the common good, 
 but mere abject servility, sloth, and death. It is 
 to be observed that despotism rather favours than 
 combats this notion of itself, since the despot likes it 
 to be supposed that he derives his power from above 
 and prides himself upon his supposed irresponsibility. 
 But to the historical student, I think, despotism 
 comes to wear a somewhat different aspect. In the 
 first place, he finds that it is just as dependent as any 
 other form of government upon support from below. 
 No despotism ever encounters him in the course of 
 his researches concerning which he cannot with great 
 confidence pronounce upon what interests, upon the 
 
182 INTEODUOTION TO MOT. 
 
 support of what group of persons, it leaned. The fancy 
 of two distinct kinds of government — one responsible 
 and one irresponsible, one from above, the other from 
 below — gradually vanishes from his mind. Secondly, 
 though he finds despotism in particular cases quite as 
 terrible, sometimes perhaps even more terrible than it 
 is popularly conceived, yet these cases appear to fall 
 under one class, the class of inorganic governments. 
 That is, when the despotism rests on the support of 
 some group foreign to the community, a horde of 
 conquerors, or a mercenary army, in these cases there 
 is often no limit to its tyranny. But when despotism 
 is organic — and this happens not so rarely — it is not 
 by any means the monotonous death-in-life we are 
 apt to suppose. The despot, like the Constitutional 
 Minister, has to reckon with public opinion. He 
 knows well what interests he must conciliate, what 
 classes he must not offend, what public wants he must 
 satisfy. Study the Tudors, study Louis XIV., study 
 modern Prussia. These despotisms are organic, and 
 therefore they exhibit all the movements and pro- 
 cesses of organic life. 
 
 We may now, I think, reasonably draw the conclu- 
 sion that the accepted distinction between monarchy 
 and republic or commonwealth is incorrect and ought 
 to be abandoned. These two latter words evidently 
 describe a state in which the good of the whole is the 
 object of government. Why then should they be 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 183 
 
 taken to denote any state 'which is not monarchical, 
 as if a monarch, say Alfred or St. Louis, were 
 necessarily, as such, an oppressor, and every govern- 
 ing assembly — say the Venetian Council or the 
 Roman Senate in the time of Sulla — were necessarily 
 well-intentioned ? 
 
 In our system "republic " or " commonwealth " are 
 terms very suitable to describe what we have called 
 the organic state. An organic state, we have laid 
 it down, springs up by the effort of the social 
 organism to resist a hateful pressure, that is, by a 
 striving towards the common good or commonweal. 
 Opposed to this are all those states which we have 
 called inorganic, because they rest upon the violent 
 effort of some group or section to coerce the community 
 for its own advantage. I have had in view principally 
 the case where this group is a conquering horde ; at 
 a later stage perhaps I may discuss the inorganic 
 state more in detail. This state is not necessarily 
 monarchical. The government of the Mamelukes was 
 an oligarchy. But since an army is governed by a 
 general, and since the ruling group in such a state has 
 the nature of an army, the government of an inorganic 
 state is perhaps most commonly monarchical, being in 
 the hands of the general of the ruling group, who is 
 called Emperor, or Khan, or Sultan, or Khedive, or 
 sometimes King. 
 
 This monarch is not really irresponsible, for he 
 
184 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 depends entirely upon the favour of the ruling group. 
 The great Turk himself, most despotic of despots, was 
 often overthrown in a moment by a rebellion of the 
 Janissaries. But with respect to the mass of his 
 subjects he is wholly irresponsible, and it escapes 
 their notice that a class of men exists without whose 
 help he could do nothing. Accordingly in their 
 imaginations he figures as a god upon earth, and he 
 is glad enough to encourage a delusion which is highly 
 useful to him. Here is the genesis of that poetical 
 monster, the irresponsible king, ruling from above 
 and supported on nothing below him, the Kehama or 
 Almighty Man. 
 
 But the European monarch of Divine right does 
 not really belong to this class, though he partly 
 professed to do so. The Tudor monarchy, and that 
 of Louis XIV., rested on a public need, was sup- 
 ported by public opinion, and did not for a moment 
 profess to have anything else in view but the public 
 good. But it did profess that for the measures which 
 it might take for the public good it was not responsible 
 to the people, but only to God. This was a fantastic 
 theory, but we must not allow it to affect our opinion 
 of what that form of government really was. What the 
 government was is one thing, what it supposed itself 
 to be quite another. James II. may have imagined 
 himself not to be responsible to his subjects. This is 
 a pity, but nothing can be more evident than that in 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 185 
 
 SO imagining he mistook the nature of his own 
 authority. And if Louis XIV. himself supposed that 
 his power did not rest on the consent of his people 
 he was just as much mistaken, though his mistake 
 was not exposed in the same overwhelming manner. 
 
 Perhaps, then, we may consider these conclusions 
 as established. Firstly, all monarchy whatsoever 
 rests upon the consent of some tolerably numerous 
 group. This group will in most cases be a section of 
 the community, though we may imagine a case where 
 it lives apart and sends help to the monarch from 
 another country. For instance it may be said that 
 our government in India is supported, not by the 
 help of any section of the Indian population, but by 
 the help of the population of another country, namely 
 England. 
 
 Secondly, there is such a thing as organic mon- 
 archy, which is at the same time despotic. This 
 may be called a monarchical commonwealth or 
 republic • though it has no parliament. Such a 
 despotism must rest on the consent, not perhaps of 
 the people at large, but at least of that part of the 
 people which takes an interest in public affairs; strictly 
 speaking, it has the active consent of the political 
 classes and the passive consent of the rest. The 
 phrase monarchical commonwealth has often been 
 used to describe a parliamentary government with a 
 king at its head. I use it here, as you see, in a 
 
186 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 different sense to denote a government which, while 
 it enjoys popular support, is absolutely in the hands 
 of the king or monarch. 
 
 You ask, perhaps, How can a nation deliberately 
 support a despotism, as though they were in love with 
 slavery ? If their wishes are really consulted, surely 
 they will give their voice for a parliament. I answer, 
 Not by any means always. Often there are practical 
 difficulties which prevent the formation of a parlia- 
 ment such as the people would desire to see. Thus, 
 in Russia at the accession of Anne no assembly 
 could have been formed which would not have been 
 oligarchic, for Eussia contained no class below the 
 noblesse out of which sijch an assembly could have 
 been taken. But the Eussian people deliberately 
 preferred a despotic Czarina to such an oligarchic 
 assembly. More frequent still, perhaps, is the case 
 where the first need of the nation is guidance in war. 
 For the time all other objects are postponed to the 
 public safety, and all classes and interests unite in 
 supporting the chieftain who seems most capable of 
 conducting the nation to victory. If the exigency is 
 transient it will call into existence but a brief 
 dictatorship, but if it is a standing exigency, caused 
 by a weak frontier, as in Prussia, or by the national re- 
 solution to wage war persistently until a strong frontier 
 is gained, as in France, then it will call into existence a 
 dynasty of securely seated despotic monarchs. These 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 187 
 
 considerations explain equally the Russian Czars, 
 Louis XIV., Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. 
 Only it must be understood in all these cases 
 that an organic despotism thus created is always 
 liable to outlast the need that called it into existence. 
 To dissolve it when its work is done is almost- 
 impossible ; it remains to encumber and curse for a 
 generation or two the community it once saved. The 
 corrupt survivals of organic despotism are often as 
 bad as inorganic despotism itself, and increase in our 
 minds the difficulty of conceiving that despotism can 
 ever be a healthy, natural, and beneficial form of 
 government. 
 
 I have been labouring all this time to make room 
 for the true distinction between despotism and 
 government by assembly, by removing an imaginary 
 one. Government from above, it appears, is a 
 chimsera formed by misconceiving the nature of an in- 
 organic government which chances to depend on some 
 small, scarcely visible, group of supporters alien to 
 the community. Such government by an alien group, 
 a mercenary or foreign band, is indeed despotism, 
 and despotism of a kind very frequent in history ; but 
 then it is inorganic, and therefore does not concern 
 us here. Organic despotism may seem at first sight 
 impossible, an incongruous conception, but I trust I 
 have shown you that it is not so, and that the greatest, 
 most civilised despotisms known to history are of this 
 
188 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 kind. Being organic, these despotisms rest on the 
 consent of the people not less than parliamentary or 
 republican governments. And now comes the ques- 
 tion, In what respect then do such despotisms differ 
 from government by assembly 1 
 
 Undoubtedly the question is very bewildering, 
 chiefly owing to a cause of mistake which is peculiar 
 to political science and does not trouble the naturalist. 
 How very trying it would be to the animal phy- 
 siologist if the animals which he studies continually 
 poured into his ears their own views, their own 
 theories, of their own structure and organisation ! 
 The student of political constitutions and institutions 
 can scarcely attend to the actual facts before him for 
 the clamour of explanation, theory, representation 
 and misrepresentation, which deafens him from the 
 subjects themselves of his investigation. We have to 
 go to the English parliamentary debates of the seven- 
 teenth century for information about the nature of 
 parliamentary government ; but who does not know 
 how those discussions teem with legal fiction and 
 obsolete theory 'i It is not an easy thing to detach 
 the simple facts from all that incrustation ! 
 
 We are told that by the English constitution the 
 popular assembly reserved to itself the right of the 
 purse. From this example the general principle has 
 been deduced, as the essence of popular government, 
 that no man is to be taxed without his own consent. 
 
vtll POLITICAL SCIENCE 189 
 
 What a clumsy, helpless, grotesque generalisation ! In 
 its modern meaning, by the way, it is quite erroneous. 
 By taxation we mean the annual subscription upon 
 ■which government absolutely depends. In the time 
 of the Stuarts, government paid its way out of quite 
 another fund, and only resorted to taxation in 
 extraordinary cases. So that the power of the purse 
 did not in those days mean, as we suppose, a power of 
 paralysing government whenever government should 
 take an unpopular course. But, apart from this 
 historical error, what can such a principle mean? 
 What is there specially sacred about taxation that 
 we should hold that a government may in other things 
 act at its pleasure, only not venture to take money out 
 of the pockets of the people. Evidently, when we 
 generalise in this fashion, we confound together the 
 end our ancestors aimed at with the means which in 
 their need they seized because by chance they found 
 them within their reach; we waste upon a mere 
 practical device, a mere accidental expedient of 
 politics, the enthusiasm and awe that properly belong 
 to great universal principles. 
 
 We are misled in another way, as it seems to me, 
 when we lay it down that Parliament in England is 
 the organ of legislative power, and the king or 
 minister that of the executive power, and then pro- 
 ceed to describe the contest of the seventeenth 
 century as a struggle by which the legislative asserted 
 
190 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 its independence of the executive. This, to be sure, 
 is not so grotesque an attempt at philosophising as 
 the other; but I cannot admit it to be at all true, 
 though I cannot at this moment pause to examine it. 
 
 If it were true, those memorable struggles of the 
 seventeenth century would evidently aiTord us little 
 help in our attempt to find a general description of 
 the difference between government by assembly and 
 personal government or despotism, unless indeed we 
 should suppose both forms to be corrupt. For we 
 should have to assume, on the one hand, that in 
 despotism the executive has swallowed up the legisla^ 
 tive power, and, on the other hand, that in government 
 by assembly the legislative power has swallowed up 
 the executive. 
 
 I suggest — and perhaps in the lectures of next 
 term I may take occasion to show in detail — that 
 great caution must be used in generalising upon the 
 revolutions of the seventeenth century. They make a 
 most interesting, but at the same time a diflBcult, an 
 intricate chapter of history, a chapter which the 
 student is scarcely prepared to understand until he 
 has mastered the whole doctrine of "fiction," and 
 learned how large an allowance must be made for 
 fiction in interpreting the contemporary record of any 
 great political transformation. I suggest also that we 
 shall get more light on the particular question before 
 us from our own time than from a past age. 
 
vm POLITICAL SCIENCE 191 
 
 Of late, popular government has assumed in 
 England a peculiarly transparent form. Legal fiction 
 is reduced to a minimum, and the whole process is 
 laid bare, so that it has become really almost too 
 simple, almost too intelligible. We see the country 
 ruled by a statesman who bears the title of Prime 
 Minister, and we see him resting undisguisedly upon 
 the opinion of the majority. While this opinion 
 supports him, he is powerful ; when it wavers, he 
 becomes anxious and timid ; when it declares against 
 him he makes no resistance, but lays down his oflSce 
 without delay and is succeeded by the rival statesman 
 to whom prevalent opinion has transferred its loyalty. 
 Now, as I have shown at so much length, in organic 
 states a system substantially similar — within limits — 
 has always been pursued. For while in all states the 
 ruler has always leaned upon the favourable opinion, 
 upon the choice, of some group of supporters, in com- 
 pletely organic states the ruler has derived his power 
 from the favour of the community at large. It matters 
 nothing, so we held, upon what title the ruler may 
 profess to depend, what theory of his own authority 
 he may adopt or profess to adopt. He may maintain 
 that he succeeds to the post of ruler by the same legal 
 right by which a landowner succeeds to his estate, or 
 that he rules by divine appointment, either in the 
 natural sense, as we may say, that a father is divinely 
 appointed to govern his children, or, supernaturally. 
 
192 INTEODTJCTION TO lect. 
 
 as David is said in the Bible to have reigned as " the 
 man after God's own heart." These theories may be 
 true or false ; in any case they can only be effective 
 as arguments addressed to the community. They are 
 reasons why the community should support the ruler 
 who puts them forth. In themselves they have no 
 power to support anything, but if they convince the 
 community the ruler will stand. In that case we 
 may say, using an abbreviated language, that he 
 stands on such and such a title. In reality he stands 
 and can stand only on the support of certain persons, 
 who give their support for reasons which they regard 
 as good. And if the state is organic, then the 
 opinion that supports the ruler is the prevalent 
 opinion of the community at large, or at least of the 
 classes that take an interest in public aifairs. 
 
 So far, then, despotism and government by 
 assembly, even in its most recent, most frank, and 
 candid form, agree. In what then do they differ? 
 Surely in this, that in the modern system public 
 opinion expresses itself and is ascertained by fixed 
 rules and through certain recognised channels. The 
 favour of the public is recorded, and at the same time 
 measured, by a majority in the House of Commons ; 
 and a change in the favour of the public by a change 
 in that majority. 
 
 This may be expressed in one word by say- 
 ing that public opinion has an organ by means of 
 
Vltl POLITICAL SCIENCE 193 
 
 which it makes, supports, and destroys the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 This formula may be expressed more generally so 
 as to apply equally to all states alike, those which 
 are inorganic, and those (this point, it will be seen 
 later, is important) which are only partially organic, 
 or in which political consciousness is only partly 
 developed. For we may say that in all states there 
 is a government-making power. This name we may 
 give to the group of persons, small or large, foreign 
 or native, disinterested or selfish, upon whose support 
 the government depends. In all states alike, then, 
 this government-making power may have a recognised 
 organ through which it habitually acts ; or again, it 
 may be without such an organ. 
 
 Now, suppose it to want such an organ, what will 
 happen at those moments when it changes its mind ? 
 When the power on which a government has long 
 rested becomes unwilling to support it any longer, 
 and has no official way of expressing this change of 
 mind, what must take place ? Evidently the state 
 will be convulsed. The unorganised force will break 
 forth chaotically. When Enceladus fesswm mutat latus, 
 all Sicily is shaken. This is what we call revolution. 
 It is the chaotic outbreak of the government-making 
 power, for which no organ has been provided. 
 
 Thus, it used to be said, and indeed it may still 
 be said, of the Russian government that it is an 
 
 
194 INTRODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 autocracy tempered by assassination. The truth is 
 that all autocracy, at least pure autocracy, is and 
 must be tempered by assassination. If assemblies of 
 any kind exist the government-making power may 
 work through them and develop them into an organ 
 for its action. But if there is a want even of germs 
 or rudiments, then there is no remedy, and violent 
 actions will infallibly be done. In two notable in- 
 stances the ruler of a vast state, in which for special 
 reasons no assembly capable of becoming an organ of 
 the government-making power existed or could exist, 
 has chanced to be simply a lunatic. I refer to 
 Caligula and Paul of Kussia. In both cases the 
 imprisoned power broke out in assassination. 
 
 We have had no royal assassinations in England 
 for four centuries, and when we had a king who at 
 times lost the use of his reason he was treated with 
 pity and respect, and reigned for sixty years. This 
 is because the power here has an organ. We have 
 also been in the habit of saying that in England we 
 do not have revolutions. This, of course, is intelli- 
 gible, but it would be almost more accurate to say that 
 in England we have always a revolution. Hardly 
 anywhere do governments fall more frequently or 
 more suddenly than in England. Why, then, do we 
 seem in comparison with most states so exceptionably 
 steadfast and stable. It is not because we do not 
 have revolutions, but because we have reduced 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 195 
 
 revolution to a system and given it legal forms. We 
 have always a revolution, and therefore, in a certain 
 sense, we never have a revolution. 
 
 We have arrived then at a mode of stating the 
 difference between despotism and government by 
 assembly. I only offer it for the present as a sug- 
 gestion. Before we can accept it there will be needed 
 much more investigation and much consideration of 
 the various historical examples of either system. As 
 there is no question in political science more im- 
 portant practically nor more prominent historically 
 than this, I shall spare no pains and no time necessary 
 for elucidating it thoroughly. But I am glad to have 
 been able in this last lecture of the present term to 
 carry the inquiry so far as to arrive at least at a 
 tenable hypothesis. 
 
 I close this course, then, with the following theoretic 
 statement, which will be our starting-point when we 
 meet again : — 
 
 1. Government rests upon force or coercion. 
 
 2. In most cases government is forced to assume a 
 form more or less monarchical. In an army there 
 is one commander ; in a law court there is either one 
 judge or a small number. 
 
 3. One person cannot apply force or coercion to a 
 large number except by receiving assistance from at 
 least a considerable number. 
 
 4. Such assistance must be given voluntarily or 
 
196 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 from conviction, thougt the motives of those who 
 render it may be good or bad, selfish or disinterested, 
 low or high. 
 
 5. It follows that in every governed community 
 there must be not merely two things, the government 
 and the governed, as we are apt to suppose, but three 
 things, the government, the government-supporting 
 body, and the governed. 
 
 6. What supports the government also makes it, 
 and when it chooses to withdraw its support destroys 
 it. The government-supporting body or power is 
 therefore the government-making power. 
 
 7. This power may be in a particular instance en- 
 tirely without organisation, or again it may be en- 
 tirely unorganised as such. Louis XIV. was supported 
 by a public opinion almost unanimous but entirely 
 unorganised ; Cromwell was supported by his army, 
 that is, by a body organised indeed, but not organised 
 avowedly for the purpose of supporting him. 
 
 8. In other cases the government-making power 
 may be organised. In other words, some states have 
 not only a government-making power, but also a 
 government-making organ. 
 
 9. In such states there is an assembly which often 
 appears to govern. In reality it usually does not 
 govern, but makes, supports, and destroys the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 10. In the former class of states there is no similar 
 
vni POLITICAL SCIENCE 197 
 
 assembly. The government stands apparently alone. 
 It therefore easily represents itself and supposes 
 itself to govern by an inherent force, or by super- 
 natural or providential assistance. In reality it is 
 supported by a power below, by a power not visible, 
 because not organised. 
 
 11. This is despotism; the other is government by 
 assembly. 
 
SECOND SEKIES 
 
 (Lent Term, 1886) 
 
LEOTUEE I 
 
 The vacation interrupted us while we were examin- 
 ing perhaps the most important of all the differences 
 which are observed among states, the difference which 
 in popular discussion is described as equivalent to 
 the difference of light and darkness or good and evil. 
 If we confine ourselves to pure matter of fact, this 
 difference consists in the presence or absence of an 
 assembly for political debate ; but when we attempt 
 to define the precise function performed by this 
 assembly, and so to measure the difference produced 
 in a state, by having it or wanting it, we meet with 
 difSculties. Some of these diflaculties we thought we 
 had removed, and in the last lecture I was able to 
 lay before you a theoretic statement of the difference 
 between the two sorts of state, which appeared at 
 least intelligible and conceivable. But a theory may 
 be clear without being well-grounded, and the view 
 I took of the political assembly differed from that 
 which is currently accepted, and though consistent 
 with some striking historical facts might appear at 
 first sight inconsistent with others. The theory in 
 
202 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 short was presented and explained, but I have still 
 to establish it. 
 
 Our science is intended before all things to be a 
 guide to history. Now this particular question, the 
 introduction of the assembly, and the increase of its 
 influence, or in certain unfortunate periods its decline 
 and disappearance, occupies historical students more 
 than any other question. This is the chapter headed 
 "Liberty,'' and though we thought it more con- 
 venient to use that word in another sense, yet we 
 cannot help seeing that this and no other has been 
 the question of questions since political debate 
 began. In English history the standing topic from 
 Magna Charta to the Reform Bill is the growth of 
 parliamentary government ; in French history it has 
 been so since the Revolution and before the Revolu- 
 tion ; the main problem is to trace the causes which 
 gave despotism the advantage over parliaments. 
 Ancient history deals with the disappearance of king- 
 ship, and the establishment of government by 
 assembly in city-states, then at a later time of the 
 mishaps that befel government by assembly, and of 
 the restoration of personal government. The medieval 
 history of Italy, reviving the city-state, presents a 
 somewhat similar series of occurrences. Everywhere 
 we meet with this contrast between the assembly and 
 the person. It should be our object, therefore, to 
 furnish an account of the difference which might 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 203 
 
 throw a broad light over the whole field of history. 
 I was obliged to confess that my theory did not seem 
 at first sight to be much confirmed by the history of 
 the Stuart controversy, and that it was necessary to 
 read that chapter of history with much caution. 
 And yet no chapter surely is more memorable or 
 momentous. We cannot be content to leave the 
 subject in a condition so unsatisfactory to historical 
 students. It will be no waste of time if we linger 
 over historical occurrences so exceptionally important, 
 suspending our theoretic exposition for the sake of 
 them, and taking special pains that what stands out 
 most in history should receive the fullest light from 
 theory. I intend, therefore, to devote two or three 
 lectures to English constitutional history in order to 
 remove the difficulties which hamper the theoretic 
 description of parliamentary movement. 
 
 Let me begin by recapitulating the theory. First, 
 we put aside all inorganic states, and attend only to 
 such states as evolve government by a vital process, 
 in which therefore government, of whatever kind, 
 answers a public need and is supported by public 
 feeling. We find that among such states, too, the 
 difference in question exists. These, too, fall into 
 two classes, those which have an assembly and those 
 which have not. Now the theory says that the 
 assembly is an organ by which the government is 
 created and supported or destroyed, and that such an 
 
204 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 organ forms itself in one class of states ; but that 
 there are other states which want the organ, in which 
 therefore government rests upon a support more or 
 less hidden — some support it must in all cases have 
 — and can only be changed violently if the public 
 feeling should demand a change. The former class 
 have great freedom of debate and reform, but great 
 security from revolution ; the latter know no alterna- 
 tive between immobility and revolution, because they 
 want the organ of reconstruction. Now here is a 
 theory which at first sight does not square with the 
 great historical facts of the seventeenth century. It 
 is held that, by the Revolution of 1688, England 
 succeeded after many struggles in establishing 
 parliamentary government, and fairly left the other 
 kind, personal government, behind it. Yet assuredly 
 it was not determined by that revolution that 
 Parliament has the power of creating and destroying 
 governments. The utmost that was claimed was 
 a power of setting aside a ruler who showed an 
 extreme contempt for his engagements. Only in 
 extremity and on the ground of self-defence could 
 the parliament destroy government, and even then 
 the new government created itself by the operation 
 of a fixed law of succession, and Parliament only 
 ventured of its own power to associate with the 
 new monarch her husband and cousin. Yet before 
 it could use these powers, which fell so far short 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 205 
 
 of a power of creating and destroying government, 
 the state was shaken to its centre ; and it was held 
 that in so acting Parliament did not fulfil a 
 normal function, but only called into play an ex- 
 treme power reserved to it for the preservation of 
 the state. • 
 
 Evidently, then, it will cost me some trouble to 
 reconcile the theory I have suggested with facts 
 which seem so much at variance with it. But the 
 theory is a key which fits the lock of our present 
 system much better. Now that the minister rules, 
 and that he rests on the support of a parliamentary 
 majority, sinking at once when that majority fails 
 him. Parliament may perhaps be said to have, at 
 least among other functions, the function of creating 
 and destroying government. At any rate such a 
 statement is not open to the same objections as occur 
 to us against a similar statement applied to the 
 English Constitution of the seventeenth century. 
 Our present system is one thing, our old constitution 
 quite another. I propose, therefore, in the present 
 lecture to speak only of the former, leaving the 
 latter for another occasion. To-day the question 
 simply is whether the theory gives a satisfactory 
 account of the function of Parliament in England at 
 the present time. 
 
 For of course we are aware that quite a diflferent 
 account is current. The rise and fall of governments 
 
206 INTEODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 according to the oscillations of the parliamentary 
 majority cannot of course be denied, but it is not 
 usual to represent them as the effects which Parlia- 
 ment exists to produce, rather as incidental con- 
 sequences which follow from the discharge by Parlia- 
 ment of other functions. . What are these other 
 functions 1 Parliament, we are told, is the Legislatwre. 
 Blackstone will inform you that there are two powers 
 in the state, the legislative and the executive. The 
 executive power, he says, resides in the King, but 
 is exercised by him through responsible Ministers. 
 The legislative power, on the other hand, resides in 
 King, Lords, and Commons acting together. This 
 is the formal statement. But if we are content to 
 recognise facts, we must add that the personal share 
 of the King in legislation has fallen out of use, every 
 Act passed by the two Houses since a particular date 
 in the reign of William III. having received the 
 royal assent without opposition or delay. This power 
 of the Crown, then, having dropped and being mani- 
 festly incapable of revival, it follows that the 
 Legislature is now not King and Parliament, but 
 Parliament alone. Parliament consists of two Houses, 
 but in the present discussion I do not think it will be 
 necessary to consider the Houses separately. At the 
 present day, under ordinary circumstances, legislation 
 by Parliament practically means legislation by the 
 House of Commons : for simplicity, therefore, I shall 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 207 
 
 speak as if Parliament consisted of the House of 
 Commons alone. 
 
 Now if this is a true account of the English Con- 
 stitution, a very tempting generalisation presents 
 itself. We see the personal element prevailing in the 
 executive, the assembly appropriating the legislative 
 power. Now what is the difference between these 
 two powers 1 They seem to us contrasted much 
 in the same way as theory and practice or as 
 principles and details. In legislation, we fancy, the 
 principles of government are laid down, then the 
 executive carries these principles into effect. And 
 we can readily understand that the first task wants 
 an assembly, but that the second is better done by 
 individuals. In our experience of societies and clubs, 
 we meet with a committee or general meeting which 
 in like manner legislates, and then with the active, 
 precise, and punctual secretary, who translates the 
 wishes of the meeting into act. Eeasoning in this 
 way, we arrive at a theory of government which 
 seems very plausible. Government in reality, we are 
 disposed to think, is a very simple thing, and wants 
 only a little common-sense and honesty. Let the 
 citizens — or, in a modern state, their elected repre- 
 sentatives — meet and consider on what general plan 
 they wish to be governed. As soon as a majority 
 of them has decided on this plan they may disperse. 
 But they must leave behind a certain number of 
 
208 INTRODUCTION TO tEoT. 
 
 individuals, whose business it shall be to put into 
 execution what has been resolved, supplying from 
 their common-sense any necessary details that may 
 have been forgotten. Thus in a rational civilised 
 government, the execution and administration of 
 the laws will be assigned to individuals, while 
 the alteration of them, the repealing of those 
 which appear unsatisfactory, the creation of others 
 which may seem advisable, will be in the hands 
 of an assembly. If, however, honesty is wanting, 
 or if barbaric manners prevail, this simple arrange- 
 ment is liable to be disturbed. An individual avails 
 himself of the advantages of his position, of being 
 always on the spot, of superior knowledge, of access 
 to the funds, and gets control over the assembly, 
 intimidating or bribing its members. Sometimes he 
 procures that it shall wholly cease to meet for formal 
 business. Thus creeps in the other type of govern- 
 ment, the personal. It is in reality not another type, 
 but a corruption of the one true type; and the 
 corruption consists in this, that the two powers, 
 which should be held distinct, have been confused 
 together, and the one has encroached on the other. 
 Absolutism consists in the encroachment of the 
 executive upon the legislative power. 
 
 Now what objection canbe made to this explanation 
 of the matter, or what need can there be of resorting 
 to a far-fetched one when this simple one is at hand ? 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 209 
 
 I will point out to you a historical fact which 
 forcibly suggests that all is not right with this theory. 
 In the middle of the last century it had great vogue 
 through the authority of Montesquieu. Thirty years 
 later there commenced a period which is pre-eminently 
 the constitutional period of the modern world. 
 America made a constitution for itself, and speedily 
 France followed its example, constructing for itself 
 four different constitutions in fourteen years, first a 
 Constitutional Monarchy, then a Republic without a 
 President, then a Eepublic with a President (called 
 a First Consul), lastly an Empire. Both in America 
 and in France the constitution - builders had the 
 English Constitution before them, and studied to 
 reproduce its main outlines. They held that in 
 England the King had the executive and Parliament 
 the legislative power. What was the consequence ? 
 In both countries they drew the conclusion that the 
 Ministry ought not to sit in Parliament. Accordingly 
 to this day in the United States the Ministers do not 
 sit in Congress, and in France, when the first Con- 
 stitution came into operation in 1791, the Parliament 
 was called the Legislative Assembly, and in this 
 Legislative Assembly the Ministers did not sit. 
 
 Now it is certainly true of that French Constitu- 
 tion that it was ruined by this peculiarity. By the 
 want of a link between the Government and the 
 Parliament, the two powers were ranged in mortal 
 
210 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 opposition to each other, and within a year the 
 system sank in blood. In America there has been no 
 such failure, but a system has been created which, 
 good or bad, is not the English system, and works in 
 quite a different manner. And nothing is more 
 obvious than that the whole fabric of English politics, 
 as we see it, would fall at once if the principle of 
 excluding Ministers from Parliament were introduced. 
 Can we imagine, then, that a theory of the English 
 Constitution can be sound from which this principle 
 seemed both to the French and to the Americans to 
 follow by logical necessity ? 
 
 Let us consider why they drew this conclusion. 
 They reasoned thus. The function of Ministers is 
 to administer. Their power is executive. But the 
 function of Parliament is legislative. Ministers there- 
 fore have no natural place in Parliament, and if the 
 great danger to be feared is a confusion of the two 
 powers, how could such a confusion more easily and 
 necessarily begin than by allowing Ministers to sit in 
 Parliament ? 
 
 Now I think the force of this argument cannot bo 
 denied. Nevertheless it is not quite conclusive. For 
 we may meet it thus. Ministers certainly, as Ministers, 
 have no place in Parliament, and a place cannot be 
 given to them without danger. But, on the other 
 hand, it is practically very advantageous that they 
 should have seats, and the advantage on the whole 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 211 
 
 greatly outweighs the danger. Nor is there any 
 positive breach of principle in allowing them a place, 
 for it does not follow because a man is a Minister and 
 has executive power, that he cannot also be a repre- 
 sentative and have legislative power, especially if by 
 the contrivance of re-election the consent of his con- 
 stituency be obtained. Thus the English system may 
 be represented as founded on a due distinction 
 between executive and legislative power, but as in- 
 cluding also a very happy practical adjustment by 
 which the two powers are prevented from falling 
 out of harmony, or coming into collision with each 
 other. 
 
 Let us resort again to the club or society for an 
 illustration. Such a society may have a paid secre- 
 tary who is not a member of the committee, and has 
 no vote on it. But this secretary would attend the 
 meetings of the committee, nay, he would be re- 
 garded as more essential to the meetings of the 
 committee than any committee man, and it would be 
 held absurd to discuss the affairs of the society and 
 refuse the advice of the person necessarily best 
 acquainted with them. Now the English system 
 adopts this principle of practical good sense. It does 
 not exclude from parliamentary debate the very men 
 who have the best right by their oflicial knowledge to 
 take a share in it. It attains this end, not indeed by 
 allowing them to be present and to speak but not to 
 
212 INTEODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 vote, but by allowing them to represent constituencies 
 at the same time that they hold ministerial portfolios. 
 
 So the English system may be represented, and in 
 this way it may be defended. But the defence is 
 hollow, and the representation ludicrously unlike the 
 reality. According to this statement the Ministers as 
 such have nothing to do with Parliament. They only 
 happen by great good luck to be there. It is a kind 
 of club where they pass their evenings. They are 
 present under a sort of disguise, not as Ministers, but 
 as members for Tiverton or Midlothian. Happening 
 to find themselves there, and hearing matters dis- 
 cussed upon which they are well informed, they can- 
 not help giving their opinion, and this opinion is natur- 
 ally heard with respect ; but the decision of the House 
 is no affair of theirs, or rather their responsibility ex- 
 tends only to one vote out of six hundred and seventy. 
 Can there be a wilder misrepresentation of the fact ? 
 
 We allow ourselves to be misled by the form. It 
 is true that the Prime Minister or Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer sits in the House of Commons only as 
 representative of some borough or district, and that 
 his office confers no seat. But nothing can be more 
 untrue than that in the House of Commons he acts 
 not as Minister, but only as member for a locality. 
 On the contrary, it is as Minister that the First Lord 
 of the Treasury leads the House, and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer opens the budget. Their executive 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 213 
 
 function is not ignored in the House, but makes the 
 foundation of all the proceedings, the plot of the 
 whole drama. Properly speaking, indeed, the English 
 parliamentary session ought not to be considered as a 
 series of legislative debates at which the Ministers 
 give the benefit of their official knowledge. Such a 
 description misses the principal feature. It is a series 
 of conferences between the executive government and 
 the representatives of the people. 
 
 The mistake, then, of those legislators who in 
 France and America tried to reproduce the English 
 Constitution did not consist simply in this, that they 
 overlooked the expediency of allowing the Ministers 
 to be present and take part in the debates. They 
 overlooked that the essence of the English system lies 
 in this, that the Ministers are present and take the 
 lead not in another character but as Ministers, and 
 that the whole business of Parliament is to talk to 
 them and to be talked to by them. Here lay the great 
 failure of Mirabeau. It had been his ambition to 
 dominate the French Revolution as he had seen the 
 elder Pitt dominate the politics of England, i.e. by 
 combining in one person the characters of a com- 
 manding popular orator and of a great administrator; 
 but no such combination was possible to a Minister 
 who was either excluded from the assembly, or was 
 only allowed there in disguise ; it required a Minister 
 leading the House as Minister. 
 
214 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 But if all this is admitted it seems to me to follow 
 that the whole theory which would make Parliament 
 the special organ of legislative power falls to the 
 ground. For the essence of the institution appears to 
 lie rather in some sort of negotiation or parley with 
 the executive power. 
 
 It is true of course that a new law cannot in general 
 be made except by a bill passing both Houses of 
 Parliament, for I will not insist on the fact that a 
 certain amount of law comes into existence in another 
 way through the decisions of the judges. It is true 
 also that the executive power is wielded by the 
 Ministers in their respective departments. Parliament 
 has legislative, and the Ministers have executive power, 
 but it is not true that parliamentary power is correctly 
 described as legislative, or ministerial power as 
 executive, for parliamentary power is executive as 
 well as legislative, and ministerial power is legislative 
 as well as executive. In fact the distinction of legis- 
 lative and executive, though theoretically perhaps 
 unobjectionable, appears practically to have been 
 quite disregarded in assigning the powers of the 
 Crown or Ministry, and of Parliament. 
 
 What is the principal business of Parliament 'i To 
 grant money for the annual expenses of administra- 
 tion. If you examine the plan according to which 
 the parliamentary session is arranged, you will see 
 that everything is made dependent on this main 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 215 
 
 task, which extends over the whole of it. It is still 
 possible to mark the traces of the old system, accord- 
 ing to which legislation, instead of being the work of 
 parliament, was the concession extorted from the 
 Crown as an equivalent for the money granted. The 
 session, as I said, is a conference or negotiation ; 
 the parties to it are on the one side the government, 
 on the other side the representatives of the people ; 
 these arrange the terms of a bargain according to 
 which certain sums shall be granted and certain 
 grievances redressed. The redress of grievances is 
 legislation, but the grant of money cannot properly be 
 called legislation. At least if the word legislation be 
 so loosely defined as to make it include the levying of 
 a sum of money in one year for the use of government, 
 it ceases to have anything distinctive, and therefore 
 can no longer be distinguished from executive power. 
 Thus the main or principal business of Parliament is 
 one which cannot be properly described as legislative. 
 The truth is that a circular argument influences us 
 here. We have grown accustomed to call granting 
 money legislation, because it is done by the body 
 which we call the Legislature. But if you still fancy 
 that it might be possible to frame a definition of law 
 and legislation that might include the granting of 
 taxes, let me ask you this : if it takes legislation to 
 grant a tax, does it not take legislation to make war ? 
 Surely it is absurd to maintain that the former act is 
 
216 INTEODtJOTION TO lect. 
 
 more of the nature of a law than the latter. But in 
 England when war is to be made it is not made by 
 Parliament but by the Ministry. You will observe 
 that I do not raise the question whether it is reasonable 
 or unreasonable that parliamentary power should be 
 necessary to raise the smallest tax, but not necessary 
 to declare the greatest war. I inquire only wherein 
 the difference consists between parliamentary and 
 ministerial power. Now I think you must admit one 
 of two things. Either granting taxes is not legislation; 
 but in this case the principal power that Parliament 
 possesses is not legislative ; or making war is legisla- 
 tion; but in this case the Ministry, too, have legislative 
 power. 
 
 The theory I am discussing would represent 
 the Ministry and Parliament as having each respect- 
 ively its province of affairs in which the other has no 
 right to interfere, whereas the very essence of our 
 constitutional system lies in the negation of this, and 
 in the principle that the Ministry and the Parliament 
 have absolutely the same subjects of interest and 
 occupation. The difference is strikingly brought 
 before us by a remarkable letter written by Napoleon 
 to the Abb6 Si^yfes at the time when he was meditat- 
 ing his coup d'itat No one, he says, can have greater 
 respect for the independence of the legislative power 
 than he; but legislation does not mean finance, 
 criticism of the administration, or ninety-nine out of 
 
1 POLITICAL SCIENCE 217 
 
 the hundred things with which in England the 
 Parliament occupies itself. The Legislature should 
 legislate, that is, construct grand laws on scientific 
 principles of jurisprudence, but it must respect the 
 independence of the executive as it desires its own 
 independence to be respected. It must not criticise 
 the government, and as its legislative labours are 
 essentially of a scientific kind there can be no reason 
 why its debates should be reported. 
 
 You see at once that he has in view a system 
 precisely opposite to the English. With us whatever 
 the Government does becomes a subject of discussion 
 in the House. No appointment can be made, no 
 circular be issued from any government department, 
 but it is liable to be canvassed in debate. And when 
 a Minister is thus called to account he does not rise 
 in his place and ask Mr. Speaker whether it is orderly 
 in a legislative assembly to mention or discuss matters 
 which can only concern the executive power. On 
 the contrary, he renders his account with anxious 
 humility, and we have seen powerful governments en- 
 dangered by such incidents as that on« Minister had 
 returned a rough answer, another had jobbed an 
 appointment, a third had evaded a statute. Parlia- 
 ment, in short, is interested in everything that the 
 Ministry can do. Its resolutions, its votes of censure 
 or of confidence, in which it does not even pretend 
 to legislate, are regarded as just as important and 
 
218 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 perhaps even more interesting than its ponderous 
 achievements of legislation. 
 
 And now look at the Ministry. Does that confine 
 itself to exercising executive power 1 Really I must 
 apologise for raising such questions. Who does not 
 know what a clamour is raised whenever a new 
 government takes oflBce, how we ask what will they 
 do? what is their programme? have they really a 
 policy? or do they really mean to face Parliament 
 with no policy at all t Policy ? what is this ? It 
 commonly means the introduction into Parliament of 
 a number of bills ; in other words, it means legislation. 
 What we call the policy of a government is scarcely at 
 all its exercise of executive power; a Ministry which 
 confined itself to that would be said to do nothing. 
 Imagine how it would be received should a Minister 
 in reply to the appeals of the House say that he was 
 and would continue to be industrious in his office, 
 that that was his policy, and that as Minister he 
 could have no other policy, for as Minister he had 
 only executive power ; in his legislative capacity he 
 had no more responsibility than other members of 
 the House, and that his policy as Member would con- 
 sist in faithfully representing the interests of his 
 constituency. 
 
 The truth is that the Ministry, and the Ministry as 
 such, has legislative power in a far higher sense and 
 greater degree than Parliament. It has the task of 
 
r POLITICAL SCIENCE 219 
 
 initiating, designing, and working out the details of 
 almost all important legislation. Nominally, of course, 
 no Act can pass but by the will of the majority of the 
 House. But consider under what conditions this 
 power is exercised. In almost all important cases the 
 bill is brought forward upon the responsibility of the 
 Ministry. Now the Ministry, it is understood, has 
 a majority in the House, otherwise it would not be a 
 Ministry. In important cases, therefore, their consent 
 is secured beforehand — at least it is known that if the 
 Parliament refuses an important bill they by the same 
 act expel the Ministry from office. For a Ministry 
 in dealing with an important bill will stake its own 
 existence upon success. It will allow the House a 
 certain freedom in dealing with its minor provisions. 
 Some things the House will be permitted to alter, 
 but in its main parts the House must take the bill or 
 be prepared to dismiss the Ministry. Now by the 
 very nature of our system the House will not be 
 prepared to do this, for to dismiss the Ministry 
 means at the same time to install the opposite party 
 in office : but by the hypothesis the majority of the 
 House are favourable to the Ministry and adverse 
 to its opponents ; they have been sent to Parliament 
 to support the Ministers and to oppose their opponents. 
 Now, if by legislative power be meant a free power of 
 deciding what shall become and what shall not become 
 law, can it be said that the House of Commons 
 
220 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 standing in this relation to the Ministers possesses in 
 itself and apart from them much legislative power 1 
 With respect to any given proposal it has little 
 freedom. Its one substantial power is that of turning 
 out the Ministers with whom in the main it agrees, 
 and substituting in their place other Ministers with 
 whom in the main it differs. Such a power as this, 
 instead of being called a power of legislation, should 
 perhaps be rather called a veto on legislation, and a 
 veto which it is not easy practically to use. 
 
 To sum up, then, it is said that Parliament has 
 legislative power but not executive. In reality it has 
 but a certain veto on legislation, which it exercises 
 under great difficulties, and a certain power of altering 
 the minor details of bills. But besides this it has a 
 most formidable power of oversight and criticism 
 upon thei proceedings of the executive. Again, it is 
 said that the Ministry have executive power, but not 
 legislative. Executive power they have, but only 
 under the strict and jealous control of the House ; 
 legislative power they have in a far greater degree than 
 the House, so much so that the House has ordinarily 
 only so much legislative power as the Ministry consent 
 to allow it. It may be said, in short, as in execution 
 the Ministry is afraid of the House, so in legislation 
 the House is mortally afraid of the Ministry. 
 
 The source of error has been that technically our 
 Ministers are also members of the House ; this has led 
 
1 POLITICAL SCIENCE 221 
 
 US to imagine that in legislation they do not act as 
 Ministers but as members ; but there can be no greater 
 mistake. 
 
 The result of all these considerations is to show 
 that that tempting image of Parliament as representing 
 the general meeting of a society, and the Minister as 
 its paid secretary, who carries into effect the wishes 
 expressed by the members, is utterly misleading. 
 The Minister is not the servant of Parliament, but its 
 king. He does not carry into effect the wishes of 
 others, but his own wishes. It is a sort of high treason 
 against the state when the Minister gives up his own 
 view in deference to Parliament. If he must give up 
 something, it is his duty to give up, not his view, but 
 his office. 
 
 But now, if the Minister is king, not servant, of 
 Parliament, what is Parliament ? The remark I just 
 made will suggest the answer. Parliament is king- 
 maker, and at the same time can deprive its king of 
 his office. It cannot dictate what he shall do ; on the 
 contrary, he dictates to it. But it can bid him retire, 
 and it can put another Minister in his room. And 
 this is its main function. In legislation, as I have 
 urged, its power is more nominal than real. But it is 
 really true that the Minister is such because Parlia- 
 ment wills it, and ceases to be such when Parliament 
 wills it. 
 
 There is something very singular — I imagine 
 
222 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 unique — in the unceasing interest with which in Eng- 
 land we follow the proceedings of Parliament. What 
 would become of conversation among us if there were 
 no Parliaments We should all be struck dumb. 
 This is often explained by saying that the English- 
 man is a political animal, and King Louis Philippe 
 used to say that the French would not have so many 
 revolutions if they could learn the English habit of 
 talking politics after dinner. But the cause is more 
 special. Mr. Woodrow Wilson, in his interesting 
 volume on the American constitution, entitled Con- 
 gressional Politics, remarks that no one in America 
 reads the debates of Congress. Not a few there are, 
 he says, in America who read the English debates, 
 but none who read the debates of Congress. Surely 
 this is not because the American is less political in 
 his tastes than the Englishman. Surely the reason 
 is this, that Congress is only a legislative assembly, 
 but not an assembly that makes and unmakes the 
 government. For such is the fact. The President 
 in America is chosen for four years by popular elec- 
 tion ; he chooses his Ministers, who have no seats in 
 Congress, and are not, as a general rule, dependent 
 on its vote. But this being so, the session of 
 Congress is not, like the session of our Parlia- 
 ment, a drama. There is no important action 
 in it. 
 
 We may see, then, in what we ourselves feel the 
 
I POLITICAL SCIENCE 223 
 
 importance of Parliament to consist. Why do we 
 read the debates 1 Simply to see whether the 
 Government is likely to stay in or to go out. We 
 follow the session with precisely the same interest 
 with which we follow a boat-race, and the successive 
 division lists show us whether the Opposition is or is 
 not gaining upon the Government. We may no 
 doubt occasionally feel interested also in the fate of 
 some particular bill, but what fixes the attention of 
 the whole nation with unflagging eagerness upon the 
 proceedings of Parliament is this, that by our system 
 no important bill can fail without bringing the 
 Government down with it. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that the theory I have sug- 
 gested is fully confirmed by our system as it is now, 
 and also that the other theory might have been seen, 
 even in the time of Montesquieu, to be incorrect. I 
 do not assert, however, that in the time of Montes- 
 quieu it would have been possible to discern the king- 
 making power of Parliament. The present system 
 was then only in embryo. Godolphin and Walpole 
 were not such kings as modern Ministers are, nor 
 were they in the same degree dependent for their 
 position on Parliament. Even those who, near the 
 end of the eighteenth century, devised the Con- 
 stitution of the United States seem not to have 
 been aware how much the king's power had de- 
 clined — that, for example, his veto had perished, — 
 
224 INTEODUCTtON TO POLITICAL SCIENCE leot. I 
 
 nor how much the Minister was taking the king's 
 place. 
 
 The eighteenth century phase, as well as the seven- 
 teenth century phase, of our Constitution must be 
 reserved for separate treatment. 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 I DREW last week a distinction which may have 
 struck you as somewhat subtle. It is commonly 
 held, I said, that Parliament rules, and the Minister 
 is but the servant of Parliament. Not at all ; the 
 Minister rules, and is the king, not the servant, of the 
 nation and the Parliament alike. But Parliament 
 makes him king, and can unmake him. A distinction 
 without a difference, perhaps you say. If Parlia- 
 ment can dismiss a Minister at pleasure, it is evident 
 that it can force the Minister by the threat of dis- 
 missal to obey it, — it is evident that the Minister will 
 execute the will of Parliament in order to retain 
 office. 
 
 But there is all the difference in the world 
 between a representative and a delegate. We recog- 
 nise this in the case of members of Parliament The 
 member is sent to the House of Commons to speak 
 the mind of his constituents. Does that mean that 
 he is not to speak his own mind 1 Not at all ; he 
 represents the constituency not by giving up his 
 mind to theirs, but by having the same mind, 
 Q 
 
226 INTEODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 Accordingly we think that if the representative 
 holds conscientiously an opinion different from that 
 of his constituents, it may or may not be proper for 
 him to retire, but it cannot be proper for him to set 
 his own opinion aside and adopt slavishly that of his 
 constituents. In other words, by becoming their 
 representative he becomes in no sense their servant, 
 and it is his duty in all cases to do what he himself 
 thinks right, not what they think right. 
 
 This is true in a still higher degree of the 
 Minister. He has the same mind as the Parlia- 
 ment ; that is why he is Minister ; but he has not 
 borrowed their mind. They choose him, not because 
 he is pliant, not because he, has no opinion of his 
 own, and will readily conform himself to any view 
 that may become prevalent among themselves. 
 They choose him for the very opposite reason, — 
 because his convictions are, or at least seem, excep- 
 tionally strong, because they can count upon him 
 that he will have the energy and force of one whose 
 heart is in his work. It has always been recognised 
 as a corruption of the ministerial system when the 
 Minister has waited on the good pleasure of the 
 House, when he has been ready to take back his 
 plans and bring them up again amended, to say to 
 the House : 
 
 The piece, you think, is incorrect ; why, take it ! 
 I'm all submission ; what you'd have it, make it. 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 227 
 
 Why is this a corruption 'i Why ought this not to 
 be '? If the House were sovereign and the Minister but 
 its secretary, such conduct would be reasonable and 
 natural, as we hold it to be in the secretary of a 
 society. But it is not so. The Minister is indeed 
 chosen by the House, but he is chosen to rule, not to 
 serve ; the House does not dictate to him, but com- 
 missions him to dictate to itself. Perhaps the word 
 Minister may contribute to mislead us ; for does not 
 Minister mean servant ? But I need hardly remind 
 you that the Minister is not Minister to the Parlia- 
 ment, but to the Crown. On the whole, then, the 
 English Minister is a ruler. If he is dependent upon 
 others who can make and unmake him, so is every 
 ruler, as I showed in a former lecture. What is 
 singular in his position is only the curious refinement 
 of machinery by which the government-making power 
 is enabled to exercise its function at pleasure and 
 without delay. 
 
 In a great number of states this power, though it 
 exists, for it must exist in all states, has, as I showed, 
 no organ. It is therefore only called into action by 
 extreme pressure, and then it acts with spasmodic 
 violence. But I have propounded the theory that 
 generally where we see an assembly taking a leading 
 part in public affairs, we are to regard it as the organ 
 of the government-making power, and I now consider 
 myself to have shown this theory to afford a sufficient 
 
228 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 explanation of one prominent example. In this 
 instance we see that the organ has a peculiar mode of 
 action, viz. that the ruler is deposed by failing to get 
 a majority in the assembly upon an important question. 
 But as this system is very peculiar, — only found in 
 England and some European states, which in recent 
 times have adopted it from England, — and yet the 
 political assembly is by no means uncommon, you will 
 ask, in what way does the government-making organ 
 usually perform its function 1 Putting aside for the 
 present difficult cases which may require special 
 investigation, I must try to show that the theory is 
 widely applicable by pointing to some simple mode of 
 action which in the ordinary constitutional or re- 
 publican state supplies the place of this refinement. 
 And I think I shall find this easy. 
 
 In the English system the truth has to be detected 
 under disguises and bewildering misnomers. The 
 ruler is not called ruler ; oh no ! he is a Minister, he 
 has received Her Majesty's commands to form an 
 administration. The ruler is not appointed by 
 Parliament ; heaven forbid ! the ruler succeeds by 
 hereditary right ; still less can he be deposed by 
 Parliament, for indeed no power on earth can depose 
 him ! It is only by obstinately disregarding these 
 assertions and fixing our eyes resolutely upon the 
 facts that we discover that the person called Minister, 
 that is, servant, would be more properly called magis- 
 
n POLITICAL SCIENCE 229 
 
 trate or ruler, and that he is virtually, though not 
 nominally, appointed and also dismissed at pleasure 
 by Parliament. 1 
 
 Now in other states a direct course has been taken. 
 The rulers have been actually elected by the assembly. 
 This has been the method of appointment. Deposition 
 was more difficult. How bring to trial a man who 
 at the moment was in possession of all the power of 
 the state 1 The difficulty has been met by a simple 
 expedient, that of choosing the magistrate for a short 
 term only. Misconduct in a ruler, even extreme 
 misconduct, may be endured if the people have a 
 security that it will soon come to an end. Thus in 
 the eighteenth century, when our American colonists 
 
 ^ "You must begin by distinguisHng two great developments 
 which have taken place in modem England, the development which 
 has given so much power to the representative assembly, and the 
 other which has given so much power to the Minister. You must 
 consider also that he wields this power in accordance with the rules 
 of the party system. These things are wholly distinct. Parliament 
 might have gained supreme power and yet the Minister might not 
 have taken the place of the Crown. And again, these things might 
 have happened without the establishment of that strict party system 
 which we see, under which the leaders of Parliament and holders 
 of ministerial departments are persons who agree in opinion on the 
 great questions of the day. 
 
 " With us these three things go together, and it is the sum total of 
 them that makes the English Constitution of the present day : (1) 
 the decision of all questions by the vote of a representative assem- 
 bly ; (2) the unbounded power of a ministerial cabinet combined 
 with the nominal maintenance of royalty ; (3) the party system. 
 And all these things have reappeared in some Continental states, 
 e.g. Belgium and Italy, with the difference that the party system 
 has not there worked with the same regularity, a number of 
 cliques taking the place of the two great rival parties which have 
 commonly confronted each other among ourselves." — From the 
 Seventh Lecture of the 1891 Course. 
 
230 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 tried to reproduce the substance of our English Consti- 
 tution without the legal fictions in which it was 
 wrapped up, they created a President who should be 
 chosen by popular election. They might have 
 entrusted the choice of him to Congress, and some 
 think they ought to have done so, but they considered 
 that as he was to be the king of the whole people, and 
 to lean on universal consent, the whole people ought 
 to take part in his election. So much for the appoint- 
 ment of the ruler ; for his deposition they provided a 
 method of impeachment, but as they did not consider 
 this sufficient they decreed also that the President 
 should hold ofiice for four years only, so that the 
 citizens of the United States might have the assurance 
 that the worst reign in their annals should not be 
 much longer than that of James II. in England. 
 
 The history of what is called liberty in the Athenian 
 and Eoman republics shows in full the development 
 of this system. Out of hereditary kingship we trace 
 the growth of a system by which popular assemblies 
 elect their rulers for a term of one year. This is 
 common to the constitutional history of Athens and 
 Eome, but the Athenian system has some peculiarities 
 which require a special explanation. I will dwell for 
 a moment on the Roman system in order to show you 
 how easily and naturally our theory may be applied 
 to it. 
 
 The assemblies at Eome were called comitia. They 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 231 
 
 were three in number, but of the three one was in the 
 historical period effete ; the other two had certain 
 differences upon which it is not necessary here to 
 dwell. By the side of these assemblies was a sort 
 of council, neither popular nor representative, but 
 similar to our ancient Witenagemot, or to our modern 
 House of Lords, called the Senate. Power in the 
 strict sense of the word may be said to have been 
 confined to the popular assemblies ; what the Senate 
 possessed was described in Latin as audoritas, that is, 
 a high kind of influence, which on certain subjects 
 was allowed to have the force of law. Now when we 
 compare these assemblies to our Parliament we see 
 that their main function is one which among us is 
 formally performed neither by Parliament nor by 
 the constituencies, that of electing magistrates. In 
 Roman politics and in English alike popular election 
 is a very prominent topic, but the offices which are 
 filled by election are quite different. In England we 
 elect members of Parliament, but in Eome, as I said 
 last term, every citizen might be called a member of 
 Parliament, and the Senate was not strictly elective 
 at all. Elections were held at Rome for those oflSces 
 which we call executive, for the Ministry, in short, 
 though the Romans more correctly called them the 
 Magistracies ; and to make these elections was the 
 main business of the assemblies. 
 
 At Eome, then, much more evidently than iii 
 
232 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 England, the assembly was the government-making 
 power. In legislation it had much the same share as 
 we have seen that our Parliament has. As with us, 
 the active and constructive part of legislation belongs 
 to the Ministry, so, or rather still more, it belonged 
 at Eome to the magistrates ; to the assembly in both 
 states remains the passive part, the right of ratifica- 
 tion. But to make the government, which here is 
 virtually the function of the assembly, was there 
 its function avowedly and technically. So much 
 so that the word comitia, which is the name of the 
 assembly, is also the recognised Latin word for an 
 election. 
 
 The assembly made the government then ; did the 
 assembly also unmake or destroy it? No. But in 
 that period of Eoman history about which we have 
 full information, the magistrates were elected for the 
 term of one year only. The consuls, or secretaries 
 of state, the praetors or judges, the ajdiles, or com- 
 missioners of public works and police, the quaestors or 
 junior lords of the treasury, the tribunes or guardians 
 of the poor, all the magistrates except the censor, 
 whose office was often in abeyance, had an annual 
 term. Accordingly, their power of doing harm was 
 strictly limited. Their competence was indeed ex- 
 tremely ample. The magistrate's edict decided many 
 things without appeal. For example, the whole 
 system of legal procedure seems to have depended 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 233 
 
 absolutely upon the will of the praetor, whose edict, 
 issued at the commencement of his term, might sub- 
 vert all received usage. But, in Lord Camden's 
 phrase, it was only " a forty days' despotism." Time 
 speedily undid any possible mischief, and the con- 
 sciousness of this limitation tamed and humbled the 
 ambition of the magistrate. 
 
 Of the process by which this system grew up we 
 have but imperfect information. But the traditional 
 statement that, after the expulsion of Tarquin, the 
 Eomans resolved to abolish monarchy and to set up a 
 republic is probably not very accurate either in form 
 or in fact. I have already argued that the distinc- 
 tion of monarchy and republic is unreal, and, if it 
 were real, it was probably quite unknown to the 
 primitive generation that expelled Taiquin. The 
 story itself, moreover, suggests that the change made 
 was not sudden or abrupt but gradual, for we are 
 told that after the flight of Tarquin a member of his 
 family, Collatinus, held the consulship, and that a 
 second revolution was required to rid the city of him. 
 Just so, after the fall of the Bourbons in 1830, a 
 younger branch in the person of Louis Philippe held 
 the sceptre for eighteen years. Now, when we look 
 closely at the story we find that there is absolutely 
 no reason to suppose that the first magistrates ap- 
 pointed after the flight of Tarquin were consuls 
 holding office for one year. For the story of the 
 
234 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 establishment of the consulate is but a vague tradition 
 without chronology. The later Eomans when they 
 read of consuls could scarcely avoid thinking of 
 annual consuls such as they were themselves accus- 
 tomed to. But it seems most probable that there 
 was no such cataclysm as the tradition describes, 
 that there was no sudden abolition of the office of 
 king, no sudden creation of the annual consulate, but 
 a gradual decline of royal power such as has been 
 witnessed in England. After Tarquin, CoUatinus 
 seems to have succeeded by hereditary right. 
 Wheth'er or not he was called consul, it is probable 
 that his term of office was not yet limited. Then 
 perhaps by a series of changes the monarchy shrank 
 up into the annual consulate of later times, which 
 indeed in form and ceremonial always continued to 
 resemble monarchy. If so, we may see that the 
 development consisted in two things — first, in making 
 the office elective instead of hereditary ; secondly, in 
 reducing the term of it to a single year. 
 
 It seems, then, that our theory is confirmed by the 
 example of ancient Rome as well as by that of modern 
 England. In describing shortly the constitutional de- 
 velopment of ancient Eome we may henceforth reject 
 the unmeaning formula that monarchy was abolished 
 and a republic set up. Henceforth we shall prefer to 
 say that a government-making organ was developed, 
 and that in order to make room for its action the 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 235 
 
 monarchy was made elective and restricted to an 
 annual term. 
 
 And when, later, what is called the republic de- 
 cayed and monarchy (so-called) revived, it may be 
 seen that this process was reversed. Augustus caused 
 himself to be elected consul year after year. In 
 other words, the revival of monarchical power was 
 marked by the abolition of the limited term. Other 
 of&ces also the Emperor held in a similar manner 
 year after year, and on coins the tenth year of an 
 emperor's reign is expressed by the words " tribune 
 ten times." 
 
 I return now, as I promised, to English constitu- 
 tional history, in order to examine that earlier 
 phase in which, though certainly the modern Minister, 
 chosen by Parliament to rule the country and deposed 
 by Parliament at pleasure, did not yet exist, still 
 we had a parliamentary government, and resisted 
 despotism with most conspicuous success. What 
 greater triumph has constitutionalism ever had than 
 the Eevolution of 1688 ? Yet in 1688 Parliament did 
 not assert that it existed in order to make and un- 
 make governments, but only at the utmost that in a 
 desperate extremity Parliament might venture to 
 interfere in a slight degree with the fixed law by 
 which the succession of rulers in the state, like the 
 succession of proprietors on a landed estate, was 
 regulated. Constitutionalism, then, it would appear. 
 
236 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 may exist without any government-making organ, yet 
 it is in this organ that our theory finds the essential 
 feature of constitutionalism. This objection I will 
 now deal with. 
 
 I begin by admitting very freely the facts upon 
 which the objection is based. This is not always 
 done. That Whig view of our history which has 
 been fashionable since the time of Hallam and 
 Macaulay exaggerates the importance of the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688 so much, that many of us, I think, 
 suppose that the present ministerial system has 
 prevailed ever since that date. We fancy that the 
 abeyance of royal power dates from the disuse of the 
 royal veto in William Ill's reign, and Macaulay 
 traces the rise of the party system to the same period. 
 I take quite a different view. It seems to me that 
 royal power was not weakened by the Revolution, 
 that William and Anne were just as powerful 
 sovereigns, in some respects more powerful sovereigns, 
 than their predecessors. I do not discover any 
 symptoms of decline in royal power till about the 
 middle of George II. 's reign, and even after this the 
 Monarchy had a period of revival. Party principles 
 began to prevail, in my opinion, at the accession of 
 the House of Hanover, but for a long time after 
 that they were materially different from the party 
 principles of our own time. Altogether the modern 
 system, so far from being traceable back to the 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 237 
 
 Revolution, that is, to the seventeenth century, is 
 scarcely to be discovered even in the eighteenth, and 
 has taken shape in the main since the first Eeform 
 Bill. 
 
 The constitutional development of modern England 
 has not been a single movement culminating in the 
 Revolution, but two distinct movements of which the 
 one belongs mainly to the seventeenth century, the 
 other partly to the eighteenth and partly to the nine- 
 teenth. The result vfhich has been attained by these 
 movements I have already described. A very 
 powerful government has been created, and by the 
 side of it a government-making organ highly sensitive 
 and working with peculiar ease. This government 
 is called a Ministry, and it is held together by a 
 Monarch, who is called the Prime Minister. But it is 
 the later, not the earlier, development which has 
 given this character to the Prime Minister and to the 
 Ministry. I must take some pains to point this out. 
 
 We have seen great Ministers in our own time, 
 but surely, so perhaps you may say, there were great 
 Ministers in the eighteenth, in the seventeenth, ay, 
 in the sixteenth century too. In what were the Pitts, 
 or Walpole, or Marlborough, or Clarendon, or 
 Strafford, or Buckingham, or Burleigh, or Wolsey, so 
 decidedly inferior to the Ministers of this age that 
 they should be put in quite a different class 'i Only 
 in one point, but then this point is all-important, — in 
 
238 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 exclusive dependence upon the Parliament, as the 
 organ of public opinion. 
 
 The change has been gradual. The Minister is 
 now dependent solely upon the Parliament and the 
 people. There was a transition-period, which may- 
 be said roughly to cover the whole reign of George III., 
 when popular influence was extremely useful to a 
 Minister, and some Ministers for a short time depended 
 exclusively upon it ; but in that perjod the support 
 of the Crown was equally, and for the most part more 
 essential, and only such Ministers held a secure 
 position as enjoyed, like the younger Pitt, the favour 
 of the Crown and the people together. But if we 
 ascend beyond this period, beyond the elder Pitt, the 
 first Minister of public opinion, we come to an age — 
 and still we are distant seventy years from the 
 Revolution of 1688 — when the Minister rested on 
 the Crown and not on the people or the Parliament, 
 when he was still in fact as well as in name His 
 Majesty's Minister. Such were all Ministers in 
 England till William Pitt the elder forced the gates 
 of power by the help of the people in the year 1757. 
 In that old time the Minister was not necessarily at 
 all less great or less prominent and shining than now. 
 He might outshine at that time the king who made 
 him as much as now the Parliament who makes him. 
 In France under the absolute king, great Ministers, 
 Eichelieu, Mazarin, Fleury, were more usual even 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 239 
 
 than in free England. This is because kings, where 
 they have as much power as they will, are often 
 enough glad to devolve the burden of government, 
 either wholly or in part, upon a wise man. But this 
 is at their pleasure, and the greatest Minister under 
 that old system, a Marlborough or a Burleigh or a 
 Wolsey, cannot properly be called a ruler or monarch, 
 since his power depended upon the caprice of an 
 individual, who, moreover, was always at liberty in 
 particular cases to reject his advice. 
 
 I would advise any one who would understand 
 how little the Minister was dependent on Parliament 
 and how much on the Crown, even long after the 
 Revolution, to study in Coxe's Life of Marlborough 
 the change of Ministry which took place in 1710. It 
 was then that Godolphin went out and Harley came 
 in. You will see how completely the decision lies 
 with Queen Anne. The Queen wants an adviser; 
 that is all. Godolphin has served her for eight years, 
 but they are no longer on such agreeable terms as 
 formerly. She no longer feels the same confidence in 
 him. She begins to wish to hear other advice. It 
 is rumoured that she talks to Harley in private. 
 Then the Duke of Shrewsbury is appointed Lord 
 Chamberlain. Shrewsbury to be sure is not of the 
 opposite party ; still the appointment looks a little 
 odd, and Godolphin does not like it. Thus suspicion 
 grows, and the breach between Queen and Minister 
 
240 INTEODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 widens until at last he receives a letter from her in 
 which she tells him that she means to put the 
 Treasury into other hands, but that she will give him 
 a pension of four thousand a year, and that he may 
 break his staff instead of returning it to her, which 
 will be " more easy to us both." From first to last 
 scarcely a word of Parliament, or of public opinion, 
 though no doubt it was true even then that a 
 sovereign of moderate prudence was attentive to the 
 changes of public feeling, and that Godolphin might 
 have held office longer, but for the agitation pro- 
 duced by Sacheverell's trial. 
 
 "Well then, in what sense was England a constitu- 
 tional country in Queen Anne's reign, since the 
 Minister is merely an adviser, dismissed as soon as 
 sovereign is tired of him ? And yet Queen Anne had 
 helped to expel her own father for violating English 
 liberties, and was at this very time keeping her 
 brother out of his inheritance in order to protect 
 the English people against arbitrary power. 
 
 My answer is in one word this : Parliament was 
 not then avowedly a government-making organ, and 
 the doctrine that the ruler of the country could be 
 dismissed and another appointed in his place by 
 Parliament would have been rejected with abhor- 
 rence. But yet we need neither deny that England 
 was already a constitutional country, nor need we 
 abandon our theory and seek for some new definition 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 241 
 
 of constitutionalism, for the power claimed then by 
 Parliament, and asserted decisively at the Revolu- 
 tion, was of the same kind, though much more modest 
 in degree. Not an unlimited power of making and 
 unmaking governments, far from it, but still a cer- 
 tain power in certain circumstances of making and 
 unmaking governments was asserted by Parliament, 
 and it was in virtue of this power, and not of some 
 other power, for example legislative power, possessed 
 by Parliament, that England might be called a con- 
 stitutional country. 
 
 Very irresolutely in words, but without any 
 practical hesitation. Parliament had deposed a king. 
 By doing so they had asserted a right of destroying 
 the government. They had been just as reluctant 
 to assert the right of creating a government ; it had 
 been their intention to allow the rule of succession to 
 operate in filling the vacant throne. Mary was to 
 succeed James precisely as if he had died or 
 abdicated. But they had been hurried farther than 
 they intended, and had been forced to make William 
 
 king- 
 Whatever then it might profess, Parliament was 
 really to a certain extent a government -making 
 organ. No doubt only in an extreme case, but still 
 in a certain case, where the King departed from all 
 the traditions of his o:ffice, it could depose a king. 
 And within very narrow limits it could choose a 
 R 
 
242 INTKODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 king. Not that it professed for a moment to make 
 the Crown elective, or dreamt of asserting a power 
 of putting Halifax or Danby or Churchill in the 
 vacant seat of James II. But it could venture to 
 confer royalty upon one who, both by birth and 
 marriage, was a member of the royal house, when 
 he had rendered an inestimable service to the state. 
 
 The unmaking and making of governments is at 
 all times a serious matter not to be taken in hand 
 lightly. Under the modern system it is indeed 
 always in a certain sense in hand. No sooner does a 
 new government take office than we begin to watch 
 the division list in order to see whether it is likely to 
 be turned out again. Yet even now, when the 
 government - making power of Parliament is so 
 supreme and its machinery works so easily, govern- 
 ment would be felt to be impossible if no margin 
 were allowed to the Ministry, if on the slightest 
 pretext the support of Parliament were withdrawn 
 from them and their majority deserted them. In 
 Queen Anne's time it may be said that Parliament 
 had the same power, but that the reluctance to use 
 it, which even now is traceable, was immeasurably 
 greater. Modern constitutionalism means that a 
 government in England falls in no long time after 
 it has begun to be unpopular; constitutionalism in 
 Queen Anne's time meant that a king who incurred 
 dislike and disapprobation, going beyond a certain 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 243 
 
 point, could and would be dismissed by Parliament, 
 and that the Crown would be given at the discretion of 
 Parliament to some other member of the royal family. 
 The difference no doubt is great, but it is still only a 
 difference of degree. Compared with despotic states, 
 England under Queen Anne may be said to belong 
 to the same class as England under Queen Victoria. 
 
 Even now, as I have said, the true function of Parlia- 
 ment, as the government-making organ, is somewhat 
 disguised. Parliament still professes to be a legislative 
 body, a money-granting body, almost anything rather 
 than a government-making body. In Queen Anne's 
 time the disguise was so deep and impenetrable that 
 it would not have occurred to any one to speak of 
 Parliament as a maker or destroyer of governments. 
 Only twice in a century had it ventured to destroy a 
 government. It had destroyed that of James II., 
 and earlier that of Charles I. ; but of its treatment of 
 Charles I. it had afterwards bitterly repented. It 
 had repented, too, of the revolutionary governments 
 which it had set up in the place of his. It had 
 also on two occasions created a durable government 
 in England. It had made William king, and it had 
 conferred the Crown on the heir of the Electress 
 Sophia. During nearly two-thirds of the Stuart 
 period Parliament had been in pretty constant session, 
 and had worked industriously ; yet only in these rare 
 cases, and then only on the plea of absolute neces- 
 
244 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 sity, had it pretended to be a government-making 
 organ. 
 
 Nevertheless, in real importance these few excep- 
 tional acts far outweighed a whole century of grant- 
 ing taxes and redressing grievances. A single 
 successful precedent like the Eevolution of 1688 
 altered the whole character of government in England. 
 Shall we say it made government responsible 1 Let 
 us remember the conclusion at which we arrived last 
 term. All monarchical government is responsible, 
 for all such government must rest upon the consent 
 of some body of persons, and this consent must in 
 some way be earned. Under the Tudors, when the 
 power of Parliament was inconsiderable, govern- 
 ment, as we have seen, was responsible, and 
 supported by public opinion, so much so that it was 
 able to dispense with the support of an army. 
 What new thing then was introduced by the 
 Revolution of 1688? 
 
 Our theory supplies the answer. States are of two 
 kinds. In some states the power that supports the 
 government is latent and has no organ; in .such 
 states the responsibility of government is, as it were, 
 a secret. Those who are in fact able to control the 
 government are not conscious of the power; the 
 government assumes an air of irresponsibility, de- 
 clares itself to rule by divine right, and in every 
 way studies to conceal its own dependence. In the 
 
II POLITICAL SCIENCE 245 
 
 other class of states the power that makes the 
 government has an organ through which it can act 
 with regularity and legal formality. Where this 
 organ exists the responsibility of government cannot 
 be concealed. It is not more real than in the other 
 class of states, but it is not merely real — it is also 
 evident and undeniable. 
 
 England passed into this class of states at the 
 Revolution of 1688, through which it was shown, 
 not that government could be brought to account, 
 but that it could be brought to account with legal 
 formality and through a qualified organ. Many 
 kings had been brought to account in England — 
 Edward II., Richard II., Richard III., Charles I. 
 Their fate had proved sufB.ciently, if any one 
 doubted it, that one man cannot with impunity 
 tyrannise over thousands. But those revolutions 
 had been lawless and terrible, and had disquieted 
 the conscience of the nation. Most of all had the 
 last revolution, that which overthrew Charles I, 
 appeared lawless, precisely because it had tried to 
 observe the forms of law. Parliament had been set in 
 motion, but it was a sham Parliament, a Parliament 
 mutilated by the soldiers. Accordingly a violent re- 
 action had followed, and the paradoxical doctrine of 
 the irresponsibility of monarchy had found favour for 
 a time. England still belonged to the class of states 
 in which there is no government-making organ. 
 
246 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE lbot. ii 
 
 It passed out of this class of states at the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688. Then was discovered a way of destroy- 
 ing and creating government sufficiently legal and 
 formal to satisfy the conscience of the nation. This 
 time it was found possible to use Parliament as a 
 government-making organ without monstrous perver- 
 sion and abuse. A revolution was made which after 
 ages could look back upon with satisfaction, approval, 
 and pride, to approve which has ever since been the 
 principal point of our political orthodoxy. 
 
 In one word, then,'"our present England is widely 
 different from the England of Queen Anne, but yet 
 they belong to the same class of states, and may both 
 alike be called constitutional as contrasted with 
 despotic, because both alike have a government- 
 making organ in Parliament. The difference is that 
 under the present system Government, that is, the 
 Ministry, rests solely upon the active support of 
 Parliament, and falls as soon as that support is 
 withdrawn; whereas under the old system the 
 Government, that is, the King, rested on the passive 
 support of Parliament, and only fell when Parliament 
 was roused into active hostility. We may say, 
 perhaps, that under the modern system it requires 
 the action of Parliament to support a ruler, whereas 
 formerly it required the action of Parliament to 
 overthrow him. 
 
LECTUEE III 
 
 We are engaged in an attempt to classify a multitude 
 of things which, we regard as living organisms, viz. 
 states. As living organisms these things may be 
 expected to have the characteristic of passing into 
 each other by almost insensible gradations. For life 
 works in this way. When we deal with inorganic 
 things or with abstractions, classification is a com- 
 paratively simple matter, because here the differences 
 are large and plain. The geometer has no difficulty 
 in describing the difference between a triangle and a 
 parallelogram, and is in no danger of mistaking one 
 for the other. Nor is the chemist in danger of 
 confounding air with water or. nitrogen with oxygen. 
 It is otherwise with animals and plants. Here you 
 have innumerable small variations. Some individuals 
 are widely different from each other, but the distance 
 between them is filled up by a number of inter- 
 mediate forms. And since everywhere in the 
 domain of life we find development at work, we 
 are not surprised to find here not only organs, 
 but rudiments of organs that have not yet come 
 
248 INTEODUOTION TO LBOT. 
 
 fully into' play, and survivals of organs that have 
 become useless. 
 
 Political philosophers in earlier times did not 
 much apply these physiological conceptions to states. 
 They distinguished classes of states by very plain, 
 inelastic tests, and, as a natural consequence, they 
 conceived historical revolutions, when states have 
 changed their form, as much more abrupt and cata- 
 clysmal than history shows them to have been. In 
 the last lecture I gave you an example of this when 
 I spoke of the fall of monarchy in primitive Rome. 
 Historians have described this as if the shepherd 
 warriors who clustered round the shrines of the 
 Palatine and the Capitoline had been familiar with 
 the Aristotelian classification of states, and had on a 
 particular day resolved, in consequence of events 
 which had thrown a strong light on the disadvan- 
 tages of monarchy, to discard that political form 
 and to adopt another form, that called republic. I 
 remarked that nothing of this sort seems really to 
 have happened, that monarchy was perhaps not 
 consciously abolished at all, nor a republic consciously 
 set up, but that the monarchy dwindled by a gradual 
 process, so that after a certain lapse of time, perhaps 
 after a hundred years, it became natural to say that 
 monarchy had ceased to exist. And I remarked 
 that just in the same gradual way when the re- 
 public in its turn declined, monarchy was restored 
 
ni POLITICAL SCIENCE 249 
 
 by a series of small alterations between the time of 
 Marius and that of Augustus. 
 
 If such is the general character of political develop- 
 ment we must be prepared in the classification of 
 states to find a great many transitional forms. By 
 the side of states in which the organs are fully 
 developed we may expect to find others in which the 
 organs are rudimentary, and if this is true in general 
 it will be true of the particular organ we have lately 
 been considering, the government-making organ. We 
 have laid it down that some states have this organ 
 and others want it. The former we may call despotic 
 states, the latter we might perhaps call constitutional. 
 But we may now proceed to lay it down that in many 
 states this organ is imperfectly developed, in some 
 perhaps so imperfectly that a question may be raised 
 whether it exists at all. Such in general, then, is the 
 view I take of England at the end of the seventeenth 
 century. It is a constitutional state, but imperfectly 
 developed. The government-making organ is dis- 
 cernible, but it is only half differentiated. 
 
 If this were so, nothing would be more natural 
 than that it should be misunderstood and misdescribed 
 at the time. It is by comparing Parliament as it ■ 
 then was with the same Parliament as it now is after 
 the further development of a century and a half that 
 we have arrived at our conception of it. But this 
 comparison the philosophers of the seventeenth and 
 
250 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 eighteenth centuries were not able to make, and 
 therefore they were liable to misconceive the essential 
 function of Parliament — the rather because the com- 
 parison of other states gave them no help. Imper- 
 fectly developed as the English Parliament was, it 
 was far in advance of any assemblies of estates that 
 could be found in other countries. 
 
 Again, nothing was more natural than that the 
 process of differentiation should be exceedingly slow, 
 drawn out over more than a century. Development 
 in a large country -state is always slow and diffi- 
 cult, and England was hampered also by its con- 
 nection with Scotland and Ireland. The wonder 
 rather is that the differentiation was possible at all 
 than that it should be accomplished slowly. From 
 the thirteenth century to the sixteenth Parliament 
 had already existed without becoming a government- 
 making organ, and in other countries assemblies not 
 essentially different had also existed for centuries 
 without developing in this manner. 
 
 But as the English Parliament is the classical 
 example of a Parliament, it seems to me worth while 
 to arrive at a clear conception, not only of its function, 
 but also of its history and of the stages of its develop- 
 ment. I took some pains in the last lecture to 
 describe the degree of development which it had 
 acquired at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
 and before that I had described it as it is in our own 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 251 
 
 day. I will proceed to fill up the outline of the 
 history by tracing through what stages it arrived at 
 the condition in which the eighteenth century found 
 it, and then through what further stages it developed 
 itself into what we now see. You will understand 
 that I shall attempt nothing like a continuous" 
 history, that I shall content myself with marking 
 epochs, with distinguishing phases. 
 
 In the seventeenth century the growth of Parlia- 
 ment occupies the foreground of our history as it had 
 never done in the three earlier centuries during which 
 Parliament had existed. In the sixteenth century we 
 find Parliament subservient to the Crown. Then in 
 the latter part of the reign of James I. it gathers vigour 
 and aggressive spirit. Against Charles it becomes 
 rebellious, plunges into a war in which it proves 
 victorious, but is itself at the same moment overcome 
 by the military power. The country falls under the 
 yoke of imperialism, until the military power in its 
 turn is broken by intestine division. At the 
 Eestoration, King and Parliament are once more 
 confronted with each other, as they had stood at the 
 moment when the Civil War broke out, the whole 
 period of discord being as far as possible cancelled 
 and forgotten. But after a time a second struggle 
 takes place between the second son of Charles and 
 the Parliament, a struggle not unlike that in which 
 Charles himself had engaged, but shorter and less 
 
252 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 tragic ; and whereas the former struggle had ended 
 first in the complete victory of Parliament and then 
 in its defeat and surrender, this later one, conducted 
 with more modesty and circumspection, ends in a 
 solid and decisive victory for the Parliament. 
 
 These are the superficial facts which every one 
 knows. What the total result of the long controversy 
 was is not so generally understood, but I have already 
 considered this question in a summary manner. I 
 proceed now to inquire through what stages and in 
 what way this result was attained by the struggles of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 In the first struggle, that of the reign of Charles 
 I., we see an audacious experiment, but one which 
 by universal consent ended on the whole in 
 failure. Parliament undertakes to make and un- 
 make governments. It sits in judgment on the 
 King, it abolishes the kingly office and establishes 
 a new kind of government. But so disastrously ill 
 does the experiment turn out that in the next 
 generation the whole nation repudiates it, and for a 
 time the prevalent opinion is not only that a wrong 
 method had been chosen, but that actually a wrong 
 object had been pursued, and that Parliament should 
 not pretend in any way to make and unmake govern- 
 ment — that government ought to be irresponsible. 
 This failure is partly retrieved by the second struggle, 
 from which it appears that Parliament may after all 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 253 
 
 pretend to a certain power of making and unmaking 
 government, if only this power is used with due 
 caution. 
 
 So far, then, it appears that the first struggle had 
 been successful only in proposing a question, and had 
 failed altogether to find the true answer to it. But 
 was it such a complete failure ? Did Parliament at 
 the Restoration fall back to the position which it 
 had occupied when the civil contest began, and re- 
 place the Stuarts upon the almost imperial throne 
 of the Tudors ? We must not suppose this for a 
 moment. 
 
 The system established after the Eestoration in 
 1660 was wholly different from that which had pre- 
 ceded the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640. 
 It seems to me that the view of English history 
 which has been made fashionable by Macaulay under- 
 rates the importance of the Restoration, as it in some 
 respects overrates the importance of the Revolution. 
 At the Restoration, as I understand the matter, and 
 not at the Revolution, the English monarchy and 
 system of government took the form which they 
 retained throughout the eighteenth century. 
 
 Of course I could point to many changes which 
 date from the Restoration. But in a large view of 
 our history the Restoration takes its character, not 
 from these minor changes, but from one change of 
 capital importance which it introduced. It is the 
 
254 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 epoch from which we may say that the permanence of 
 Parlicmient dates. 
 
 Before Parliament could become an effective 
 government-making organ it was necessary that it 
 should become a fixed and permanent feature of our 
 body-politic. Now, it acquired this character at the 
 Eestoration, and we may say that herein consists the 
 solid enduring benefit which the nation gained from 
 its struggle with Charles I. 
 
 At a much earlier period, under the Plantagenets, 
 Parliament had, it is true, already had this character. 
 Professor Stubbs will tell you that in the fourteenth 
 century Parliament was usually convened every year, 
 and often more than once in the year. I should be 
 led too far if I inquired into the early centuries of 
 Parliament, and therefore I must content myself 
 with remarking that this had ceased to be the case 
 under the Tudors. Take down the records of Parlia- 
 ment, for instance, under Queen Elizabeth; inquire 
 how often in that reign Parliament was summoned, 
 and how long the session of it lasted ; you will cer- 
 tainly perceive that the Parliament of those times 
 was not only less powerful, but was a wholly dif- 
 ferent institution from the Parliament of our age. 
 Parliament now has a permanent unity and a con- 
 tinuous history ; it is a living thing ; it is so, politi- 
 cally speaking, in a higher degree than anything else 
 in England ; so much so that I often complain that 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 255 
 
 in the eyes of historians it eclipses everything else, 
 and that in recent times what is called the history of 
 England is often only the history of Parliament. 
 
 But Parliament now meets every year, and sits 
 half the year. Now, look at the Parliament of Queen 
 Elizabeth. It met, I think, about ten times in a 
 reign of forty-five years, and each time its session 
 lasted about a month, or two months. The whole 
 time during which Parliament sat was perhaps a 
 year and a half in forty-five, and between these 
 sessions, so short and few, there occurred intervals of 
 three or four years. 
 
 Now, I say that such a Parliament could hardly 
 be called an organ at all. It could have no policy, no 
 systematic action, no corporate character. Such an 
 Assembly was less like our Parliament than like the 
 States-General of the old French Monarchy. France, 
 too, had sometimes grand meetings of the Estates, 
 and it is not to be supposed that these meetings 
 were unimportant. But they only occurred at long 
 intervals — perhaps once in a reign, or three or 
 four times in a century. Accordinglj^, it could not 
 be said that the States-General formed any part of 
 the French Constitution. In the ordinary routine of 
 French political life the States-General had no place 
 whatever. Its function was neither to govern nor to 
 control government. It was called in exceptionally 
 when there was need of some fundamental change, of 
 
256 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 a new remedy for some new evil. As for the last 
 time in 1789, so in earlier centuries, when the state 
 was at a deadlock, when men were at their wit's end, 
 they called out for the States-General. 
 
 The English Parliament under Elizabeth met no 
 doubt oftener than the French States-General, but 
 still scarcely often enough to deserve to be con- 
 sidered a part of the ordinary machinery of the 
 state. We often say now that England is governed 
 by Parliament ; in Queen Anne's time it might have 
 been said that England was governed by the Crown 
 and Parliament together; but in Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign it would not have been natural, I think, in 
 describing the government of England to mention 
 Parliament at all. Not exactly that Parliament was 
 subservient, but that, in general, Parliament was not 
 there. 
 
 Does not the Church service put before us this 
 phase of England? In the Litany, the work of 
 Cranmer, all the institutions of the country are 
 passed in review in a series of petitions, but Parlia- 
 ment, in our view incomparably the most important, 
 is not mentioned. When he has prayed for the 
 King, the Eoyal Family, the Lords, and others of the 
 Privy Council, the Magistrates, and all the Nobility, 
 Cranmer is satisfied. If the Divine blessing rests on 
 these it is enough, all is well. 
 
 The Prayer-book has no doubt a form of prayer 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 257 
 
 for the High Court of Parliament to be used when it 
 is in session. But here, too, the words chosen to 
 describe its function seem to apply not so much to a 
 governing or government-making body, such as the 
 modern Parliament is, as to a constituent assembly 
 called together exceptionally to make fundamental 
 changes. We pray that all things may he ordered and 
 settled hy their endeavours upon the best and surest founda- 
 tions. 
 
 When we have realised this old condition of 
 things, and then turn to the Restoration period, we 
 see, I think, in a moment what result had been 
 attained by the struggle between Charles and the 
 Parliament. The ambitious experiment of the Parlia- 
 ment to set itself up without disguise as a govern- 
 ment-making organ has failed ; but a great step has 
 been made. Not yet a government -making organ, 
 but Parliament is henceforth really an organ. The 
 most prominent feature of the middle period of the 
 seventeenth century is the two Long Parliaments. 
 First came the Long Parliament of the Eebellion, 
 which sat for thirteen years before it was dissolved 
 by Cromwell, and met again after the fall of the 
 Protectorate. And this was followed by the Long 
 Parliament of the Eestoration, which sat for seven- 
 teen years, though during that period it suffered 
 some long adjournments. 
 
 The great idea of that generation, which is to be 
 S 
 
258 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 clearly distinguished from the dreams, idle or pre- 
 mature, in which it occasionally indulged, was to give 
 Parliament permanence and solidity. From being a 
 comet, occasionally and rarely crossing the political 
 sky. Parliament is to become a fixed star. It 
 begins by declaring itself permanent, and after 
 the Restoration one of the first steps taken was to 
 pass a Triennial Act, of which the object was to 
 guard against a revival of the old system, and to 
 prevent the King from trying to dispense with Parlia- 
 ment for considerable periods. And though the 
 particular arrangement made by that Act did not at 
 that time prevail, yet the idea which suggested it 
 prevailed. The Long Parliament of the Restoration 
 imitates and, as it were, ratifies the Long Parliament 
 of the Rebellion. The permanent Parliament takes 
 its place from that time forth among English institu- 
 tions, and with a certain interval in the closing years 
 of Charles II. and in the reign of James II., an 
 exceptional, revolutionary period, we have had it ever 
 since. 
 
 But this Parliament of the Restoration, though in 
 strength and firmness as superior to that of Queen 
 Elizabeth as a man is to a child, is still weighed 
 down by the failure which had brought it under 
 the yoke of the army, and had at last compelled 
 it to humble itself once more under the monarchy. 
 Then begins a second revolutionary period which 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 259 
 
 covers ten years, from 1678 to 1688. It is a second 
 struggle with the monarchy, in which, so long as 
 Charles II. lives, the monarchy on the whole has the 
 better; but afterwards, through the perversity of 
 James II., the Parliament is enabled to win a victory, 
 which in great part effaces the memory of the former 
 defeat. At the Revolution of 1688 our system arrives 
 at a point which seems like a triumphant consum- 
 mation and close of all development, and has proved 
 so to this extent, that all later development has been 
 so gradual and easy as to disfigure history with no 
 new revolutions, and scarcely even to leave a trace 
 on our constitutional law. For though, as I have 
 pointed out, the modern system is quite different 
 from that which was established at the Revolution, it 
 has been found possible to make the alterations 
 without legislation. 
 
 In the period following the Revolution our state 
 is what is called a limited monarchy. The King is 
 subject, as it is said, to constitutional checks. There 
 are some things which he may not do. From the 
 point of view of law the question would be. What are 
 these limits to the royal prerogative ? But from our 
 point of view the question is rather. How are the 
 checks made operative ? or in other words. What will 
 be done to the King if he transgresses the limits? 
 And the answer is, That will be done which was done 
 in 1688. In short. Parliament will depose him and 
 
260 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 set up another king. To this extent, then, Parliament, 
 which had become, in consequence of the struggle 
 with Charles I., a fixed and permanent organ of the 
 state, is made by the Revolution of 1688 a govern- 
 ment-making organ. 
 
 The result was a position of stable equilibrium 
 which lasted a long time. A remarkably convenient 
 modus Vivendi had been established between King and 
 Parliament. It was agreeable to both parties; it 
 ensured the public tranquillity; it was so generally 
 liked that in later times, when further alterations 
 were needed, it became the custom to conceal them 
 by means of fiction, and up to the present day we 
 have not ceased to believe that we are living under 
 the Revolution system. In reality, however, that 
 system has been left far behind. 
 
 I have described the modern system of government 
 by a Minister, which has taken its place. How this 
 grew up I may trace in the next lecture. Meanwhile 
 I may say something on the manner in which the 
 intermediate system, the system of limited monarchy 
 or limited parliamentary power, practically worked. 
 
 The books say that after the failure of the attempt 
 made by the old monarchy to rule by prerogative, it 
 fell back upon a system of government by influence, 
 and that this system for a time worked successfully. 
 But they leave the origin of this system somewhat 
 vague. It was admittedly prominent in the reign of 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 261 
 
 George III. ; in that reign attention was drawn to it, 
 it was named and described, it was analysed and 
 denounced. But it had certainly prevailed long 
 before ; and my view is that it came in soon after 
 the Restoration — as soon after as the necessary 
 consequences of that event came to be under- 
 stood. It was at the Restoration, I said, that Parlia- 
 ment began to be a permanent, fixed organ of the 
 English state. I add now that Influence is simply 
 the new weapon to which the Crown had recourse in 
 this changed state of things ; that as the Crown used 
 prerogative so long as the Parliament was but an 
 occasional assembly, it naturally fell back upon 
 influence when Parliament gained the strength that 
 comes from permanence. 
 
 Influence is a general name for all the difierent 
 means of persuasion which the Crown by its great- 
 ness, splendour, wealth, and patronage could exert 
 upon individuals. It could be brought into play as 
 soon as the individual came within its reach or con- 
 tact. Now, when Parliament became permanent the 
 Crown had this compensation, that Parliament also 
 came within its reach, and so became subject to its 
 influence. The country gentlemen and noblemen 
 who in former reigns had lived for the most part in 
 the country, and only attended Parliament for a 
 month or two once in four or five years, began now 
 to be regular inhabitants of London for part of every 
 
262 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 year. They were thus brought into the neighbour- 
 hood of the Court, and Charles II. had thus an 
 opportunity of trying in England the experiment 
 which was succeeding so wonderfully on the other side 
 of the channel in the hands of his cousin Louis XIV. 
 — that of turning the governing aristocratic class into 
 courtiers. Under Charles II. accordingly the Court 
 comes more than before into prominence ; the 
 pleasures and vices of the Court, the King's charm of 
 manner and conversation, are a favourite topic of the 
 historians of this reign. 
 
 Influence on its worst side is bribery. In George 
 III.'s reign the great complaint of the reformers is 
 that the Crown has the command of so much wealth, 
 the appointment to so many posts, the bestowal of so 
 many pensions, that he becomes a sort of Corruptor- 
 General, as Bentham calls him, to the whole com- 
 munity. Accordingly, the cry of that age was for 
 an economic reform which should diminish the Bang's 
 fund of bribery. Now, the question has often been 
 discussed, When did the bribing of members of Parlia- 
 ment first begin 1 Clearly not in G-eorge Ill's reign, 
 for the outcry against corruption was quite as loud in 
 Walpole's time. But as clearly not in Walpole's 
 time, for in the reign of William III. there was not 
 merely an outcry, but already a strong and systematic 
 party movement against this very corrupt influence. 
 The agitation which produced the Place Bill and the 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 263 
 
 Triennial Act arose from the observation, which was 
 already made, that members of Parliament were ex- 
 posed to an overwhelming influence, and* that no 
 constituency could hope to be long faithfully served 
 by its representative, tempted as he was by the bait 
 of pension and place. And so we arrive at the 
 Revolution. But the Revolution certainly did not 
 create the evil, and when we look beyond it we find 
 that the Long Parliament of the Restoration was so 
 much exposed to corruption that it was called the 
 Pensioned Parliament; a tradition indeed says that 
 the first Minister who bribed members of Parliament 
 was Olifibrd, who managed the finances in the 
 Ministry called the Cabal. 
 
 Now, it may be said of the Cabal that it was the 
 first Ministry which deliberately adapted itself to the 
 new state of things created by the Restoration, for 
 the earliest Minister of Charles, Clarendon, notoriously 
 did not do this, but adhered to an obsolete system. 
 
 And thus you see that historically government by 
 influence did really begin at the time when Parliament 
 began to be permanent. 
 
 It is by putting together these two things, — the 
 limited control exercised by Parliament over the 
 Crown, the secret influence exercised by the Crown 
 over Parliament, — that we acquire a conception of the 
 eighteenth-century phase of the English Constitution. 
 The foundation of it was laid, I said, at the Restora- 
 
264 INTRODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 tion. Then Parliament becomes permanent, and then 
 the monarchy, recognising gradually the importance 
 of this flew feature, meets it with the new and re- 
 doubtable weapon of influence. Charles II.'s reign is 
 in some parts very similar to a reign of the eighteenth 
 century. But the system is not firmly established 
 until it has undergone the fiery trial of 1688. What 
 we call the Eevolution was rather the warding off of 
 a revolution. It did not so much introduce new 
 things as confirm and save from violent destruction 
 what had been introduced before. When this storm 
 had been once weathered, the vessel glides into port. 
 There begins a long period of constitutional tran- 
 quillity. In the eighteenth century it seemed as if 
 Englishmen could never grow weary of contemplating 
 the perfection of the system they had devised, and 
 it was at the same time the " envy of surrounding 
 nations." Very strange in truth it was to see so 
 much liberty and yet so little turbulence, a prodigious 
 commercial development, a commanding military 
 power, an onward march in the van of nations, — all 
 this with so much order and security, with such easy 
 and happy retention of old forms and time-honoured 
 institutions. 
 
 The secret lay in this play of action and reaction 
 between the King and the Parliament, in the sort of 
 modesty with which either behaved to the other, in 
 the sedulous concealment of power which both prac- 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 265 
 
 tised. The Parliament had claimed and exercised 
 the formidable power of making and unmaking kings, 
 and the Monarchy assuredly had taken the lesson to 
 heart. Yet the Parliament was as far as possible 
 from presuming upon its power. On the contrary, it 
 studiously professed and took the greatest pains to 
 prove that it had never either exercised or intended 
 to exercise any such power. The King had not been 
 deposed — he had abdicated; or if there had been some 
 irregularity in the proceedings of 1688 they were not 
 to be drawn into precedent, and Parliament acquired 
 from them no new right. At most Parliament had 
 but followed the instinct of self-defence and used 
 that ultimate right which belongs to every living 
 creature in extreme, but only in extreme, circum- 
 stances. And in this modesty there was nothing 
 hypocritical, as we may see from the fact that the 
 success of the Revolution did not redeem the Eebellion 
 from discredit. What republican feeling had existed 
 in the country died out, the Church gained in strength, 
 and dissent, especially political dissent, lost its hold. 
 The country remained throughout the century 
 steadily monarchical ; and in George III.'s reign the 
 most influential writers, such as Hume, inclined even 
 to the Tory view of the seventeenth century con- 
 troversies. 
 
 On the other hand, the Crown showed a similar 
 modesty in its bearing towards the Parliament. It 
 
266 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 would seem to have made the deliberate calculation 
 that it could best preserve its substantial power by- 
 withdrawing somewhat from public view. It had 
 become aware that in its splendour, wealth, and 
 patronage, in the profound loyalty and reverence of 
 the people, it possessed a fund of indirect power, of 
 influence, which, well husbanded, might last for 
 centuries. But in order to husband it wisely the 
 Monarchy must practise reserve. It must as little as 
 possible appear in opposition to Parliament, but must 
 rather endeavour to throw upon Parliament the 
 responsibility of its acts. It must manage Parliament, 
 and again in the management of Parliament not the 
 Crown itself but only its Ministers must appear. As 
 yet the apprehension had not arisen that a time 
 might come when the Ministers would usurp the 
 power of the Sovereign. Now the Minister speaks 
 through the Sovereign ; when we say the Queen wills, 
 the Queen appoints, we mean the Minister wills or 
 appoints ; but in those days the Sovereign spoke, or 
 could, if he chose, speak, through the Minister. But 
 on the relation of King and Minister I shall speak 
 more at large in the next lecture. 
 
 We say now, the Sovereign reigns, but does not 
 govern. In the present century this has gradually 
 grown to be the case. But the very opposite seems 
 to have been the scheme or intention of the Eevolu- 
 tion Monarchy. It seems to have designed to govern 
 
Ill POLITICAL SCIENCE 267 
 
 without reigning, that is, to give up the appearance 
 of power in order to preserve the substance of it. 
 This it could do by means of the Minister so long as 
 the Minister continued really to be the King's 
 Minister, as through the eighteenth century in the 
 main he did. And this may suggest to you how we 
 ought to regard that famous surrender of the royal 
 veto which began in the reign of William III. 
 This is usually treated as a mark of the decline of 
 royal power. I confess it does not strike me so. I 
 see in it rather an evidence of the King's consciousness 
 of power, but at the same time of his inclination to 
 conceal his power. In a letter to Lord North, 
 George III. expressly says that though he will never 
 consent actually to resign the right of the Crown to 
 dissent, yet he hopes he shall never be driven to the 
 necessity of using that right. Just so : the veto fell 
 into disuse not because the Crown was not strong 
 enough to maintain it, but because the Crown was 
 strong enough to do without it. The Kings of the 
 eighteenth century calculated that so long as their 
 own Ministers took the lead in the proceedings of 
 either House, and so long as either House was full of 
 courtiers profoundly anxious, both from loyalty and 
 from desire of honour and of promotion, to win the 
 favour of the Crown, they had ample means of 
 defeating any measure that might be disagreeable to 
 them, and could scarcely be driven to use a power so 
 
268 INTEODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LBCT. Ill 
 
 invidious as the veto, which would draw the Monarchy 
 forth from behind the veil under which in this period 
 it chose to conceal itself. 
 
 Such was the mutual arrangement between King 
 and Parliament. It was calculated to work well and 
 to last a long time. But it was more admirable in 
 practice than in theory. To explain and justify on 
 abstract principles that Revolution which had led to 
 such a happy settlement was always found difficult. 
 And that is just the reason why I am obliged here to 
 give special attention to it. I am concerned here 
 with theory, and when I lay it down that Parliament 
 exists to create and destroy government, I have to 
 explain why one of the most successful of all parlia- 
 mentary systems carefully renounced all such claims 
 for Parliament. I do so by laying it down that the 
 organs of the body politic develop themselves slowly 
 and gradually, and that at the Revolution the 
 government-making organ did not suddenly come 
 into mature existence, but only that an old institu- 
 tion in that crisis began to take the character of a 
 government-making organ and naturally endeavoured 
 to conceal the usurpation by embarrassed and un- 
 satisfactory argument. 
 
LECTUKE IV 
 
 I HAVE represented the Parliament of the Restoration 
 as a government-making organ half developed, and 
 have compared it with the Parliament of our own 
 time, which is fully developed. But this representa- 
 tion will not be satisfactory till I have considered 
 the striking difference that exists between the two 
 Parliaments in another respect. The modern Parlia- 
 ment is not merely more fully developed than that 
 of the eighteenth century, — it directs its controlling 
 power upon another object. At the time of the 
 Eevolution it was grappling vsdth the King ; now it 
 does not trouble itself about the Sovereign at all, but 
 grapples with the Minister. 
 
 I have remarked the stammering and hesitating 
 manner in which, at the time of the Revolution, 
 Parliament asserted its right to make and unmake 
 government, and have laid it down that this hesita- 
 tion was only the natural mark of imperfect develop- 
 ment. What should we expect then ? Surely to find 
 the hesitation disappear as development advanced. 
 If at the Revolution nothing more was asserted than 
 
270 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 that self-defence, which will justify almost anything, 
 may justify Parliament in deposing the King, it might 
 be predicted that, as time went on and the good 
 effects of the first audacious experiment were seen, 
 after the Crown had reconciled itself to a more 
 modest tone and the Parliament grown accustomed 
 to a prouder tone, the theory and practice of 
 Parliament alike would grow more decided. The 
 Revolution would be treated as a precedent, in spite 
 of so many protests that it was never to be drawn 
 into precedent. It would be argued that the power 
 which Parliament might use in the last extremity 
 it might clearly resort to in order to prevent such 
 an extremity from arising, — that in short the Crown 
 had become practically elective. We should expect, 
 therefore, to see the royal power in the eighteenth 
 century gradually dwindle, until at the end it should 
 become a mere presidency with a short, perhaps an 
 annual, term, as I supposed the Monarchy at Rome 
 to have dwindled down to the consulate. 
 
 Now this did not take place. The tide which had 
 been rising in the seventeenth century, which had 
 flowed and ebbed, and then flowed again against the 
 Monarchy, . now changed its direction. The theory 
 of government-making power which had been timidly 
 sketched at the time of the Eevolution was not 
 developed further, but laid on one side and forgotten. 
 No further attacks were made upon the Monarchy 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 271 
 
 considered as an institution. It was left in possesion 
 of all its power. But gradually the result which had 
 been aimed at in the stormy movements of the 
 seventeenth century was attained by a circuitous 
 route. Few chapters in political history are stranger 
 than this development, in which an elaborate and 
 subtle plan might seem to have been executed by a 
 whole nation through a whole century, and yet it 
 would be difficult to show that any plan was formed, 
 or that any generation in the eighteenth century 
 foresaw what system it was preparing for the nine- 
 teenth. So gradual was the development, and so 
 much was it disguised at every step with legal fiction, 
 that even now, I think, it is by no means clearly 
 understood. 
 
 I suppose the common impression is simply that 
 at the time of the Eevolution an ingenious expedient 
 was adopted. The national mind being puzzled 
 by sophistries concerning divine right and passive 
 obedience, certain enlightened statesmen saw the 
 necessity of waiving a question which was too meta- 
 physical for the popular understanding, and hit upon 
 the contrivance of substituting in all discussion the 
 name of the Minister for that of the King ; that they 
 said, We will admit that " the King can do no 
 wrong" provided it is admitted that the King by 
 himself can do nothing; we will admit that he is 
 irresponsible, provided it is allowed that every act of 
 
272 INTEODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 his must be countersigned by a Minister who is 
 responsible ; that in this way the Monarchy was 
 shelved, with all its mystical pretensions, and a plain 
 Ministry, with which Parliament 'could deal freely, 
 substituted in its place. And so it is supposed that 
 though at the Eevolution the Crown was left in 
 possession of all its theoretical pretensions, yet those 
 pretensions were then deprived of all serious mean- 
 ing, and therefore, though theoretically there is no 
 dwindling of the Monarchy in the eighteenth century, 
 yet practically the Monarchy withered up and became 
 effete at the beginning of it. 
 
 This is a kind of legend or myth by which the 
 popular mind explains to itself the fact that the 
 Monarchy has now lost all effective power. To 
 imagine that such a change can have taken place 
 without any revolution, and by mere imperceptible 
 gradations, is difficult, and as no other revolution can 
 be found, the popular mind clutches at the Eevolution 
 of 1688. And the vague hypothesis is supported by 
 one real fact. As I have pointed out, since the 
 Eestoration, but most decisively since the Eevolution, 
 the Monarchy adopted the policy of retiring from 
 public view, and of throwing as much responsibility 
 as possible upon Parliament. In particular, they 
 dropped the veto. The effect is that the kings of 
 the eighteenth century appear in history with less 
 strongly-marked features, more like each other and 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 273 
 
 more conventional in their language and bearing, 
 than those of the seventeenth. This conventionality 
 may easily be mistaken for a loss of power. At the 
 same time it is easy to point to powerful Ministers 
 in those times, some of whom are contrasted with 
 Sovereigns of less striking ability, and this is held 
 sufficient to prove that the power which the Crown is 
 supposed to have lost had passed to the Minister. 
 Add to all this that the change which this theory 
 supposes to have been complete in the eighteenth 
 century did undoubtedly begin in that century, — that 
 at certain moments of that century the Crown really 
 was powerless and Ministers did rule by the same 
 popular support as the Ministers of our own time, — 
 and we shall see out of what ample materials the 
 legend has been composed. 
 
 That it is a mere legend, I think it will not be 
 difficult to show you. Kings may look featureless in 
 history, and yet may have wielded great power. 
 And certainly those who lived in the eighteenth 
 century under these somewhat featureless kings did 
 not complain that they had too little power, but more 
 commonly that they had too much. There are 
 certain exceptions, which I shall consider later, but, 
 as a general rule, we may say that the eighteenth 
 century, like the seventeenth, is occupied with a 
 perpetual struggle to curb the exorbitant power of the 
 Crown. In the middle of George III.'s reign a 
 
274 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 resolution was proposed in the House of Commons 
 that "the power of the Crown has increased, is 
 increasing, and ought to be diminished." Nearly a 
 century after the Eevolution this resolution was pro- 
 posed, and it might have been proposed at many other 
 moments, both earlier and later. Pass in review the 
 kings of this period. William III. was the great 
 statesman of his age, dominating the politics of 
 Europe ; and how powerful he was felt to be at home, 
 in spite of his doubtful title, appears from that 
 agitation for Place Bills and Triennial Acts which 
 marks his reign. Anne, personally, was not strong, 
 but her insignificance serves to set in a stronger light 
 the power of the Monarchy in her time. She by her 
 own will turned out Marlborough; she contributed 
 the largest share in that memorable change of policy 
 which brought about the Treaty of Utrecht. George 
 I. was a competent statesman, but certainly somewhat 
 featureless. Both he and his successor retire in 
 history behind Walpole their Minister. But, as I 
 have said before, this is no proof of any decline in 
 the Monarchy, unless you think that the French 
 Monarchy declined, instead of gaining enormously in 
 power, under Eichelieu and Mazarin, Nevertheless, 
 in the latter years of George II., I do perceive 
 symptoms of decline, and from that time forward I 
 note that new causes are at work from which the 
 Monarchy suffers. But, as yet, these symptoms are 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 275 
 
 rare and intermittent. For the greater part of 
 George III.'s reign the Monarchy was, as all con- 
 temporaries thought, rather too strong than too 
 weak. 
 
 It appears then, in the first place, that the decline 
 of monarchical power, which has certainly taken place 
 now, cannot be traced back to the Eevolution, but at 
 most only to about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. Now, let us consider the rise of the Minister 
 and the encroachment of the Minister upon royal 
 power. The Eevolution had nothing to do with this. 
 Macaulay does indeed think he can trace our system 
 of party government back to the reign of William III., 
 but he is thinking of another feature of our modern 
 system, not the efiacement of the Sovereign by the 
 Minister, but the agreement in opinion of the 
 Ministers among themselves ; and even so his view 
 seems open to question. I have referred already to 
 the change of Ministry which took place in 1710, that 
 is, twenty-two years after the Eevolution, and have 
 pointed out how dependent G-odolphin and Marl- 
 borough seem to be even so late upon the caprice of 
 the Queen. Will you say, Walpole was a Minister of 
 the modern type? Let us ask ourselves precisely 
 what this modern type is. Powerful Ministers and 
 Ministers holding office for a long time are no symptom 
 of a declining Monarchy. I rather think that under 
 despotism powerful Ministers holding office securely 
 
276 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 are more usual than where Parliament is strong. It 
 is in despotism that we iind the Wolsey, the 
 Burleigh, the Eichelieu, the Mazarin, the Kaunitz, 
 the Hardenberg, the Metternich, the Bismarck. What 
 we inquire is, not when Ministers began to be power- 
 ful, but when they began to be powerful against the 
 Sovereign, to hold office not at his pleasure but at 
 the pleasure of Parliament. Now the Eevolution, I 
 think, had no influence in bringing this about. 
 
 Very far back in our history the Parliament has 
 occasionally dictated to the Sovereign what Ministers 
 he shall Tiot consult. Almost as far back as the 
 beginning of Parliament is the beginning of the 
 practice of controlling the King by attacking his 
 counsellors. Buckingham, Strafford, and Danby are 
 obvious examples of it in the seventeenth century. 
 Such a practice proves only that the state is organic 
 and has real vitality, that public opinion is alive. It 
 is no evidence that the Monarchy is declining, or that 
 the Minister is taking the place of the Monarch. The 
 case is different when public opinion dictates to the 
 Monarch, not only whom he shall not, but whom he 
 shall, consult. Still more, when this is done, not once 
 in some moment of extreme party struggle, but again 
 and again — when it is done so often that the Minister 
 ceases to be in any true sense the Minister of the 
 King, and begins to be the nominee of the Parliament. 
 In England we see that this has taken place. It is 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 277 
 
 understood now that the function of the Sovereign is 
 only to interpret the will of Parliament in the choice 
 of a Minister, that for the most part this will is 
 unmistakably clear, and that at the utmost the 
 Sovereign can only hesitate between two names, and 
 even within these narrow limits ought not to indulge 
 a personal preference. The question then is, when 
 and in what way the Sovereign parted with the power 
 of appointing the Minister, when the Minister became 
 independent of the Sovereign. 
 
 Now, I have said already that this did not happen 
 at the Revolution. If, in the last years of William, 
 when his position was materially weakened by the 
 death of Mary, some signs of the approach of such a 
 change may be discerned, they led to nothing. It was 
 a transient phase, not a decline, but only a momentary 
 depression of the Monarchy. But I say further that 
 I cannot perceive that the change was even an in- 
 direct consequence of the Eevolution. The current 
 theory requires that we should consider it a further 
 step taken by the same enlightened party which had 
 made the Eevolution, as if this party, having decided 
 in secret council that the superstitious populace would 
 not endure to see the Monarchy directly attacked, 
 dexterously changed its policy and determined, leaving 
 the Sovereign alone, to secure for Parliament the 
 nomination of the Minister. I find that no such party 
 existed, and that no such plan was ever formed. I 
 
278 INTKODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 find that there was no desire in any large or influential 
 party to reduce the Crown to a mere pageant, and 
 accordingly that no party was likely to imagine any 
 such contrivance. I find that half a century passed 
 away after the Eevolution before the King began to 
 perceive that he had not full liberty in the choice of 
 his Ministers, and when this happened it was the 
 result of circumstances which were only very remotely 
 connected with the Revolution. 
 
 According to me, the first distinct indications of the 
 growth of a new system, in which the Minister would 
 be independent of the Sovereign, appeared in the last 
 fifteen years of the reign of George II., and are con- 
 nected with the rise to power of the elder Pitt. The 
 immediate cause of them was not any conscious design 
 of weakening the Monarchy, but rather the working 
 of the very peculiar system of party that came in with 
 the House of Hanover. 
 
 Party principles were first adopted by the govern- 
 ment of G-eorge I., but we must be careful not to 
 imagine that the party principles then adopted were 
 the party principles of our own time. Under George 
 I. the Whigs came in, and the Tories were excluded, 
 just as in our time the Ministry is all of one colour, 
 either Liberal or Conservative. But the modem 
 doctrine is that the Government ought to reflect the 
 changes of feeling that take place in the public mind — 
 that when the nation is in a Liberal mood it ought to 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 279 
 
 be governed by Liberals, and by Conservatives again 
 when its mood changes. No such fancy ever crossed 
 the mind of a politician in the reign of George I. 
 The doctrine which prevailed at that time was, not 
 that the nation ought to be governed by Whigs and 
 Tories alternately, but that it ought to be governed 
 by Whigs always, and by Whigs alone. The argu- 
 ment — -you will find it most distinctly stated in 
 a paper which Lord Chancellor Cowper handed 
 in to George I., printed in Campbell's Lives of 
 Chancellors — ran thus : — The House of Hanover derives 
 its title purely from the Revolution. It must there- 
 fore rest for support on those who sincerely approve 
 the Revolution. Now, previous sovereigns, William 
 and Anne, have regarded both parties, Whigs and 
 Tories alike, as faithful friends of the Revolution 
 settlement. But though the Tories have professed in 
 a half-hearted way to approve the Revolution, yet it 
 is impossible they can be sincere. The Revolution is 
 evidently inconsistent with Tory principles ; if Tories 
 profess to approve it, this can only be because they 
 are unwilling to exclude themselves from oiSce and 
 from the favour of the Crown. And though for the 
 most part the system of dividing the favour of the 
 Crown impartially between the two parties was 
 applied not unsuccessfully by William and Anne, 
 yet in the last years of Anne, the unsafeness 
 of such a policy has been made manifest. The 
 
280 INTKODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 wild reversal of English policy at the Treaty of 
 Utrecht, and the alarming revival of the party of the 
 Pretender, are only the natural consequence of 
 allowing the Tories to have a share in government. 
 The new dynasty therefore must take a new course in 
 this respect. It must no longer endeavour, as William 
 and Anne had done, to be impartial between the 
 Whigs and the Tories, or to play off one party against 
 the other, but must frankly and once for all declare 
 for the Whigs, its true friends. As for Tories, the 
 King must not persecute them — on the contrary he 
 must be a true father to all his people ; but he must 
 not allow them to hold office. 
 
 It was under this form that party government first 
 grew up in England. The Crown declared itself 
 Whig, and this system prevailed till the fall of 
 Walpole. I think it was a more dangerous system 
 than that which it replaced. It drove the Tories 
 into the Jacobite camp, and probably it is largely 
 responsible for the two Jacobite rebellions which 
 mark this period. But it had another less direct 
 effect, which I think was never contemplated. It 
 gradually weakened the Monarchy. Under it the 
 King became a sort of ward under the guardianship of 
 the Whig party. And henceforward if he wished to 
 change his counsellors, it was not easy for him to do 
 it. For the Whigs had only to close their ranks, to 
 adopt the tactics of a Trades Union, to impose their 
 
IV POLITICAL SOIEKCE 281 
 
 terms on the King by threatening a strike, and the 
 King was in danger of a checkmate. He had alien- 
 ated the Tories by treating them as rebels. Hence- 
 forth he could not throw himself into their hands. 
 He could only appeal from one section of the Whigs 
 to another, and this thrust the Whigs might parry by 
 taking pains to efface sectional divisions in their body. 
 
 This came to light in the year 1745. The Pel- 
 hams then in office proposed to give William Pitt a 
 place in the administration, but the King refused his 
 consent. Upon this the whole Pelham connection 
 resigned office together. Thereupon the King sent 
 for Carteret and Pulteney, but these found it im- 
 possible to obtain the support of other public men. 
 They were forced to restore the seals of office into 
 the King's hand, and the King was forced to reinstate 
 the Pelhams. Here, I take it, begins the decline of 
 the Monarchy in England, for I imagine that no 
 English king had been treated so before. Yet I see 
 no reason to think that the Pelhams acted so from 
 an enlightened intention of carrying the Revolution 
 further, and reducing to a lower point the power of 
 the Crown. 
 
 Before the end of the same reign another great 
 occurrence tended to raise the Minister at the expense 
 of the Monarch. This was the ascent of William Pitt 
 to supreme power on the shoulders of the people — 
 one of the most memorable events of the eighteenth 
 
282 INTRODUCTION TO LBor. 
 
 century. But it is an event which cannot be brought 
 into any connection with the Eevolution, nor repre- 
 sented as a further development of the principle of it. 
 It is an event of a wholly different order. The 
 Eevolution had been a triumph of Parliament. If 
 Parliament had now forced George II. to take William 
 Pitt as his Minister, this might have been regarded as 
 a further encroachment of the same kind. But it 
 was not Parliament that advanced WiUiam Pitt; 
 just here lay the newness and strangeness of the 
 event. It was not Parliament, but the people outside 
 Parliament. And so George II. said to him, "You, 
 sir, have taught me to look for the sense of my 
 people elsewhere than in Parliament;" and Glover, in 
 describing the state of the nation at the beginning of 
 his first administration, says, "You saw a strange 
 division in the country : William Pitt and the people 
 on one side; King, Lords, and Commons on the other." 
 There was no indication here of the further advance 
 of the principles of 1688. Something quite different 
 was at work. The growth of commerce and wealth, 
 I suppose, had quickened intelligence and was causing 
 the people to outgrow its institutions. Public opinion 
 had come into existence, and the rising tide chafed 
 just as much against the House of Commons as 
 against the Crown. 
 
 George II. was the first English king who was 
 conscious of a paralysis creeping upon the Monarchy. 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 283 
 
 When some one praised the English Constitution in 
 his hearing, he said, " It was a good Constitution for 
 the people, but not a good one for the King." 
 When George III. revived royal power he did not, as 
 is often represented, kick against the Eevolution. 
 He only rebelled against this new usurpation of the 
 Minister which had been introduced by the Pelhams 
 fifteen years before. And throughout his reign you 
 will find him steadily insisting on one principle, that 
 the Minister shall be Ms Minister. On the whole he 
 is successful. The disturbed period before 1770 ends 
 in the Ministry of Lord North, who is emphatically 
 the King's own Minister, and who holds ofSce for 
 twelve years ; the second short period of disturbance 
 ends in the Ministry of the younger Pitt, also 
 agreeable to the King, which lasts eighteen years- 
 and after Pitt's death the other side can only hold 
 office about a year. 
 
 The party that had humiliated his predecessor is 
 held by George III. at arm's length. The party of 
 the Pelhams, directed after the retirement of New- 
 castle by Rockingham, and after Rockingham's time 
 by Fox, and known in this reign simply as the Whig 
 party, can only at long intervals during this reign 
 force its way into power. The King will tolerate 
 them for a moment if he sees no alternative, but 
 always under protest. They are not his Ministers, 
 and it is his fixed opinion that he has the right to 
 
284 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 appoint Ministers at his pleasure. Accordingly lie 
 receives them sullenly, watches them narrowly, and 
 struggles, if he cannot appoint the whole Cabinet, at 
 least to have representatives on it, some Thurlow or 
 EUenborough. And then he waits for his oppor- 
 tunity, which commonly arrives in about a year, 
 dismisses them, and once more chooses a Ministry for 
 himself. 
 
 For about half a century George III. was able to 
 keep our system at this point. But under George 
 IV. and William IV. the Minister's independence of 
 the Crown grows again rapidly. Canning forces 
 himself on George IV., and if it cannot exactly 
 be said that Earl Grey forced himself on "William, 
 it is at least true that the share of the King in 
 his appointment, compared to the share of the people, 
 was as one to a hundred. 
 
 In the middle of this reign, in 1834, it finally 
 appeared that the King had lost the power of 
 appointing the Minister. William IV., tired of the 
 Reform Ministry, seized the opportunity of Lord 
 Althorp being called to the Upper House to make, 
 as he said, "a new arrangement," dismissed his 
 Ministers, and sent for Sir Robert Peel. Then it 
 appeared how our Constitution had insensibly altered. 
 The problem proposed to Sir Robert was insoluble. 
 There was no more skilful manager of the House of 
 Commons. But no skill could convert a minority 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 285 
 
 into a majority. The House did not dispute the 
 King's right to appoint his own Minister, they treated 
 that Minister with all due respect; still when he 
 unfolded his policy to the House it failed to obtain 
 the approbation of the majority. 
 
 Now I hope you will not content yourselves with 
 remarking that the principles of liberty were by this 
 time too far developed to allow the House to 
 acquiesce in any appointment the King might choose 
 to make. We want to know precisely what altera- 
 tion had taken place. Let us inquire, then, if a 
 similar appointment had been made in George II. 's 
 reign instead of William IV. 's, in what way would 
 the Minister have avoided the same fate? Pelham 
 or Newcastle stood surely as much in need of a 
 majority in the House as Sir Eobert Peel ; how then 
 could they be less dependent on the House 'i 
 
 My answer is this : We are accustomed to think 
 that a statesman must have a majority before he can 
 become Minister, but in the eighteenth century a 
 Minister had a majority because he was Minister, 
 and acquired a majority by becoming Minister. You 
 may think I am hinting at bribery, but no ! We 
 must learn to understand in what way members of 
 Parliament in those days regarded the Minister. 
 The explanation flashes upon me when I read the 
 speech of the elder Pitt on the Eepeal of the Stamp 
 Act. In answering Grenville he said, "The gentle- 
 
286 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 man must not tell us that we passed the Act our- 
 selves, and are therefore as much responsible for it 
 as he is. No ! we took it on his credit as Minister." 
 And then he went on to say, " I wish the House had 
 not this habit. But so it is; even that chair, Mr. 
 Speaker, looks too often towards St. James'. When 
 I was in office it annoyed me that no one would 
 make any objection to the war. Night after night I 
 came down and said. Is any gentleman against a war ? 
 No one would avow it ; at last a gentleman who has 
 since gone to the other House (Sir F. Dashwood — 
 Lord Despenser) said he did not like a war! I 
 honoured him for it, and was sorry when he left us." 
 
 How this passage brings back the old state of 
 manners and feelings ! You see with what profound 
 deference the Minister was regarded just because he 
 was Minister. The chair itself looks towards St. 
 James'. We often overlook this; surely Macaulay 
 overlooks it when he describes the unbounded 
 personal ascendency of Pitt during his war adminis- 
 tration. You see Pitt himself did not think it was 
 from any awe of him personally that the members 
 were dumb, but from reverence for his ministerial 
 functions. So far from being proud, he is annoyed 
 at it. 
 
 The truth is that in those days a parliament was 
 still distinctly felt to be a conference between the 
 representatives of the people and the Sovereign, 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 287 
 
 present by his Ministers. Whatever the Sovereign 
 might propose was received with profound deference. 
 And it had not yet entered the mind of the repre- 
 sentatives that they were entrusted with the govern- 
 ment of the country. They were in the habit of 
 thinking that it was the business of the King to 
 govern the country. When therefore he was pleased 
 through his Ministers to explain what measures he 
 intended to take, they scarcely considered that they 
 were either entitled or qualified to judge of their 
 general expediency ; they took them on the King's 
 credit j only they held themselves bound to consider 
 these measures as they affected the people, their con- 
 stituents. If they pressed hardly upon the people, 
 took too much out of the subject's purse, or en- 
 dangered any of his liberties. Parliament must inter- 
 vene, but scarcely otherwise. In general, therefore, 
 the Minister had a majority as a matter of course. 
 His majority was secured by the loyalty of the 
 people to the Crown. 
 
 But again, when I compare Sir Robert Peel with 
 Pelham or Newcastle I see another great difference. 
 Sir Eobert is sunk up to the neck in great legislative 
 plans. The country has just been through a sort of 
 revolution. The Reform Bill has been passed, and 
 every institution of the country is being overhauled 
 in succession. A new poor law is to be carried, the 
 colonies are convulsed by the abolition of slavery, the 
 
288 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 Irish Church is threatened, municipal reform is at 
 hand, financial reform is urgent. In Pelham's time 
 nothing of the kind ! Scarcely any legislation in 
 that age was either offered by Ministers or required 
 of them. They neither had nor needed to have any 
 policy in the modern sense of the word. The old 
 institutions of the country continued for the most 
 part to suffice the people. Government in those days, 
 in short, did not mean legislation. It meant keeping 
 order, administering the laws, and very often waging 
 war. 
 
 I have already remarked how exceptional and 
 strange is the prominence of legislation in our time. 
 The immediate cause of it evidently was the vast 
 convulsions that followed the French Revolution. 
 When peace came in 1815 everything had changed 
 throughout the Empire, and the demand for new 
 legislation in every department was such as had 
 never been known before. 
 
 Now it was just at this time that without any 
 violent change, imperceptibly yet irresistibly, the 
 Minister rose to the head of afiairs and became 
 dependent on Parliament instead of the Sovereign. 
 I believe that the effect was produced in a great 
 degree by this extreme and unprecedented promin- 
 ence of legislation. And it was aided by the com- 
 plete decay of royal influence which had taken place 
 during the long reign of George III, 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 289 
 
 That profoundly deferential and devoted feeling 
 towards the government which we have remarked in 
 the reign of George II. was partly based upon the 
 immense wealth and patronage of the Crown. The 
 Eockingham Whigs succeeded in greatly reducing 
 this, and I imagine that the immense growth of the 
 nation in wealth and population during the latter half 
 of the eighteenth century caused the importance of 
 the Court to dwindle insensibly. In the comparatively 
 small, simple, and rustic society of the earlier time, 
 the Court had been an object of immense magnitude, 
 and the King seemed capable of buying up the whole 
 community, as Cosmo de' Medici corrupted all Florence. 
 AU this imposing magnitude was lost in the crowded, 
 commercial, manufacturing England of George IV. 
 Parliament did not cease to be loyal, but the members 
 ceased to be courtiers either in feeling or interest. 
 They considered now with perfect coldness and 
 impartiality the proposals which the Minister put 
 before them. 
 
 And these proposals now for the most part con- 
 cerned vast questions of legislative reform, questions 
 in which large classes were interested, questions in 
 which the Crown was not specially interested. In 
 legislation the Crown had rarely since the Tudors 
 taken a leading part. Dealing with foreign powers, 
 making war and peace, or suppressing rebellion and 
 maintaining order, this had been the province of the 
 
 IT 
 
290 INTRODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 Crown. Legislation had usually been a department 
 in which the King rather presided than took the lead. 
 In a peace of forty years, filled with the most 
 momentous legislation, the King naturally fell into 
 the part of a silent president, and his power of 
 appointing the Minister became useless to him. It 
 Vas now the main business of a minister to legislate, 
 to legislate not on the succession to the Crown, or on 
 the pretender, or on tests and abjuration oaths, or 
 other matters in which the King was interested, but 
 on workhouses and factories, and banks and tariffs 
 and navigation laws, — questions on which the Crown 
 could only be neutral, and on which the Minister 
 could not advance a step without the support of a 
 majority. And so in 1834 the King might appoint 
 Sir Eobert Peel, and Parliament made no objection 
 to the appointment, but in the next year Sir Robert 
 himself was obliged to confess that he could not 
 govern. By an inevitable change, against which it 
 was vain to struggle, the Minister had ceased to be 
 the King's Minister, and had become the Minister of 
 the Parliament. 
 
 I have wandered further perhaps than was neces- 
 sary from theory. All that for my immediate pur- 
 pose was absolutely necessary was to show that our 
 system during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies was not inconsistent with the theory of a 
 government -making organ, but that it shows the 
 
IV POLITICAL SCIENCE 291 
 
 organ imperfect and in course of development. In 
 the seventeenth century Parliament was assuming 
 the character of a fixed organ, and asserting very 
 timidly a government - making power ; in the 
 eighteenth, as I have now shown, during a long 
 period of apparent calm, a further development was 
 prepared. The Minister became practically inde- 
 pendent of the Sovereign, and dependent on the Par- 
 liament. The fact is simple and obvious enough, but 
 I thought it worth while to linger on the details, both 
 because they are not clearly understood, and because 
 the development was much more casual and acci- 
 dental, much less necessary than is commonly supposed. 
 I have shown you that it was not a necessary result 
 of the growth of the " spirit of liberty," but a very 
 peculiar result of very special circumstances. It 
 follows, I think, that we ought not to consider a 
 Minister of the English type conducting legislation 
 and administration at once, and rising and falling at 
 the pleasure of Parliament, to be necessarily the 
 normal and only proper result of political develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Nevertheless he is an extremely clear illustration 
 of the working of government-making power. So 
 long as Parliament dealt with the King it could assert 
 this power only hesitatingly, with many reserves and 
 qualifications. Dealing with the Minister it takes up 
 a bolder position. And so in modern England, more 
 
292 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LEOT. IV 
 
 clearly than in any other state, we see embodied the 
 working of the great process which must go forward 
 in every organic state, — government supported by the 
 consent of an influential group in the people, and 
 sinking when that consent is withdrawn. 
 
LEOTUKE V 
 
 Our long inquiry into the nature and function of 
 political assemblies has led us to give, as it were, a 
 new version of Aristotle's division of states according 
 to the number of rulers. Some states, says Aristotle, 
 are governed by one, some by many. Modern writers, 
 in applying this classification, seem often to decide 
 that a state is "governed by one," or "governed by 
 many," according as it has or has not some person 
 bearing the title of King. Perhaps it might seem 
 frivolous to urge against this statement that even at 
 Athens there was a person bearing the title of King, 
 for one of the Archons had the title ^acn\eii<;, as at 
 Rome a certain priestly functionary had the title Bex ; 
 but at any rate the modern world has produced 
 many examples of kingship maintained in all its state 
 and magnificence by the side of the most influential 
 political assemblies. T9,ke England — I will not say 
 now — but England in the eighteenth century; the 
 King was not only there, but had stiU great powers ; 
 and yet in the eyes of Europe, England seemed 
 governed by an assembly. How is the Aristotelian 
 
294 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 classification to be applied to such a state ? Are we 
 to say it was governed by one or by many 1 
 
 Again, there are States which have no King, in 
 which, nevertheless, some one functionary is as 
 prominent as the King in such a "monarchy" as 
 England. Such was the Stadtholder in the Nether- 
 lands, who having been practically King for the 
 greater part of two centuries, at last after 1815 
 actually assumed the title. Similarly, there was once 
 a Protector in England, a First Consul in France, 
 and there is a President in the United States. "What 
 are we to say of such States 1 Are they governed by 
 one or by many 1 
 
 Again, we surely ought not to take the word "one" 
 too literally. If the government is divided iiito a 
 number of departments, but within each department 
 it is in the hands of one man, such a state ought not 
 to be simply regarded as an example of government 
 by many. This remark will apply to such a state as 
 ancient Eome. There, to be sure, was found neither 
 King nor President. There were two consuls, and in 
 a rank just below them a number of magistrates, 
 each supreme in his own limited province. Are we 
 to say that Rome was governed by many because there 
 were two consuls, or because the functions of govern- 
 ment had by degrees been distributed among a number 
 of officials ? Rome at least was largely governed, I 
 should say, by individuals, not by assemblies. 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 295 
 
 The fact is that in almost all states the one and 
 ,the many may be discovered side by side, though in 
 some the one, and in others the many, are more 
 prominent ; and it rather appears that public affairs 
 are in some way divided between them. In what 
 way then? I have suggested that, in most cases 
 at least, the function of the Assembly is not pro- 
 perly to govern, but that another description ought 
 to be found for it. Sometimes we find the Assembly 
 electing magistrates, sometimes criticising their 
 conduct, passing votes of censure or want of con- 
 fidence, sometimes rejecting or accepting laws. The 
 business they transact seems very miscellaneous, but 
 it is not quite so miscellaneous as it seems. For if 
 those votes of censure, those votes by which a proposal 
 is rejected, lead to the retirement of a ruler, and the 
 replacement of him by another ruler, then they are 
 equivalent to elections. And it will appear that 
 what is attained in some states by short terms of 
 ofiice and frequent elections is attained in others by 
 the rule which makes the tenure of ofiice dependent 
 on the support of a majority. In all these cases alike, 
 then, the principal function of the Assembly proves 
 to be not government, but the making and unmaking 
 of government. 
 
 Thus we regard the proposition that government 
 may be in the hands of one or of many as not much 
 confirmed by history. We say rather, government is 
 
296 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 mainly work for individuals, not for assemblies. The 
 difference between a so-called republic like ancient 
 Rome, and an extreme monarchy like Turkey, is not 
 that assemblies in the one do the work that an 
 individual does in the other, but it consists in this — 
 first, that in one the individual is chosen and fre- 
 quently changed, in the other he holds office for life and 
 then transmits it according to a fixed rule ; secondly, 
 that in the one there are several governing individuals, 
 in the other only one. 
 
 I must call your attention again to the ambiguity 
 that lurks in the word " many." " Many '' may mean 
 an assembly, or it may mean a number of persons 
 acting separately. In the former sense we say, 
 government is not work for many, but in the latter 
 sense it is not only true but important that some 
 states are governed by one and some by many. Both 
 for its own sake and for the sake of removing more 
 completely the ambiguity, it will be worth while to 
 dwell for a few minutes on this kind of government 
 by many. 
 
 Among the large differences between states which 
 it is the object of these lectures to set forth there is 
 one which I have not yet mentioned, perhaps because 
 it was so obvious. I have indeed remarked that 
 when a state grows large it is obliged to have two 
 kinds of government, local and central, whereas when 
 it is small this distinction is not called for. I might 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 297 
 
 have laid it down more generally that some states 
 have a simple, some a complex or highly developed, 
 organisation. A state which is small and consists of 
 primitive people, where life is uniform, where occupa- 
 tion and property are all of one kind, where there is 
 no variety of business, requires but a simple govern- 
 ment. One man can be general and judge, and some- 
 times also teacher, of such a simple community. But 
 as population increases and industry becomes multi- 
 form, the government of one in the strict sense 
 becomes impossible, simply because the powers of one 
 man are limited. One man cannot understand 
 everything, nor find time to attend to everything. 
 Accordingly an alteration must be made, but it is an 
 alteration in machinery only, not in principle. 
 Instead of government by one there is introduced 
 government, not properly by many, but by a number 
 of ones. 
 
 In England the King used to preside in the law- 
 courts. One of these courts is still called the King's 
 Bench, another was the court of those Common Pleas 
 which Magna Gharta forbade to follow the King, and 
 fixed at Westminster for the convenience of the 
 people. Now the King not only does not, but could 
 not, do the work of a judge. Why 1 because through 
 the increased complexity of society law has become 
 complex. What is the remedy 1 To suit a complex 
 state of affairs we make, as it were, a complex King. 
 
298 INTRODDOTION TO LBOT, 
 
 Judges are created who represent separately a single 
 aspect of the kingly office. The different powers of the 
 King are distributed among a number of individuals. 
 
 Sometimes we surprise this development in the 
 act of taking place. Thus in England the Lord 
 Chancellor, who represented the principle of change 
 or development in jurisprudence, was for a long time 
 supposed not to require any special learning. He 
 was to use his natural sense of right. But we are told 
 that in Charles II. 's reign Sir Antony Ashley Cooper, 
 the iirst Lord Shaftesbury, who held the seals with- 
 out being even a lawyer, became aware that equity 
 had reached a point when it could no longer be 
 handled by the cleverest amateur. Specialisation 
 had advanced another step. Henceforward the 
 Chancellor must be a lawyer. 
 
 In England, as I remarked before, it is our custom 
 to alter things but to leave their names unaltered. 
 Accordingly this great process of differentiation by 
 which the functions of government have been distri- 
 buted among a number of individuals has been some- 
 what veiled. The King is still supposed to do every- 
 thing. It is he who legislates "by and with the 
 advice of his Lords and Commons in Parliament 
 assembled." It is he who governs, by the advice of 
 responsible Ministers. It is he who judges, through 
 the mouth of Chancellors and Chief Justices. Now 
 in other states the same process of differentiation has 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 299 
 
 gone on without the same attempt being made to 
 conceal it. Look at early Rome, where, as I have 
 already said, the Consul appears, not as a repub- 
 lican oflSoial who has been put in the place of the 
 King, but as the King himself, diminished by a 
 series of encroachments and deprived of his title. It 
 seemed to me that the earliest consuls may perhaps 
 have ruled for life and have been taken exclusively 
 from the Tarquin family. But it is written most 
 distinctly in the history that their functions were 
 gradually distributed in just the same manner as we 
 have seen the kingly functions distributed in England. 
 For we are told that at a certain date the office of 
 prsetor, and at a certain other date the office of 
 censor, was created. The praetor was a judge, the 
 censor had certain high financial duties beside the 
 function of a Eegistrar-General. It appears that at 
 first all these functions were performed by the Consul. 
 Like the English King he was at first judge, but the 
 function was taken from him, not as in England, by 
 a fiction that he pronounced the law through the 
 mouth of another, but avowedly. When these sub- 
 tractions of power have taken place, the Roman 
 Consul appears for a long time chiefly as a military 
 commander, but in the last years of the republic he 
 loses this character too. War is now committed 
 chiefly to proconsuls and propraetors, and the Consul 
 in Cicero's time was a sort of civic dignitary. 
 
300 INTllODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 In Eome this distribution of the functions of 
 government was concurrent with the growth of 
 popular power, with the triumphs of the principle of 
 popular election. In like manner in England the 
 same distribution has been concurrent with the 
 growth of Parliament. Since the time of the 
 Stuarts governmental departments have been steadily 
 growing in number and distinctness. I have spoken 
 of the judicial department. In like manner the 
 military department has formed itself, has differenti- 
 ated itself from the naval department, and both have 
 grown to be independent of the Crown. The number 
 of Secretaries of State has largely increased. A 
 department of local government and another of 
 education has been formed. All this development 
 has been contemporaneous with the development of 
 parliamentary control over government. But observe 
 now that the one development is wholly distinct from 
 the other, independent of it, and proceeds from 
 different causes. The distribution of the functions of 
 government is made necessary by the growth of the 
 community in magnitude and complexity. It is not 
 an effect of the advance of popular principles, and it 
 would take place none the less if there were no 
 advance of popular principles. This remark is con- 
 firmed by history. 
 
 Some European states grew large and complex at 
 a time when they were still under a despotic govern- 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 301 
 
 ment. This is especially true of France, which in 
 the earlier part of Louis XV.'s reign was the most 
 civilised state, and in wealth, commerce, and colonies 
 was still running an equal race with England, yet 
 was under a government which was absolute and 
 almost Byzantine. Was then France really governed 
 by the person called Louis XV. 1 Did he invent and 
 issue laws, sit in law-courts, command armies and 
 fleets^ Of course he did not. He did not even 
 exercise the general control which, if he had been 
 an energetic man, would have been within his power. 
 His personal government was perhaps almost as null 
 as is that of the English Sovereign now. Yet France 
 was under an absolute government. 
 
 The explanation is that the King's functions had 
 been distributed among a number of oflScials. France 
 was governed by a First Minister, a Chancellor, a 
 Comptroller-General, a Minister of War, a Minister of 
 Marine, a Minister of Police. Under these heads of 
 departments intendants governed the provinces. But 
 these officials in their several departments were, 
 under a weak king, practically absolute. This shows 
 us how despotism may take two forms. It may be 
 completely in the hands of one man, but this is only 
 possible where the state is small and simple. Where 
 it is large and complex, and almost all modern states 
 are of this kind, despotism tends to be distributed, 
 not properly, as I said, among many, but among a 
 
302 INTEODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 number of ones. A clumsy name has been invented 
 for despotism so distributed. It is called bureau- 
 cracy, and this is practically the chief form of 
 despotism known to the modern world. The 
 Assembly being absent, or if not absent insignificant, 
 bureaucracy is none the less despotic because it 
 divides power among many hands. 
 
 Government, then, according to this view, is usually 
 personal, usually individual, but it may be collected 
 in the hands of one person or distributed among 
 many. 
 
 But by the side of government — so we lay it 
 down — there must exist in every state another 
 power not less important, a power creating govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Now as we regard the state as a vital organism, 
 we expect in every limb of it to find gradual develop- 
 ment. As we consider government itself to take a 
 distinct shape only gradually, as we trace it back 
 through embryonic forms of priesthood and paternity, 
 so shall we expect to find the government-making 
 power in every stage of imperfect development, and 
 we shall not be surprised to find it occasionally 
 wholly unorganised. No chapters of history, there- 
 fore, seem more easy to understand than those which 
 show us nations and communities devoid of any 
 organ for the making of government, but perplexed, 
 alarmed, and at a loss, when they are confronted 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 303 
 
 with the problem of changing government, of bring- 
 ing government to an end, of creating a new govern- 
 ment. We remarked of laws that, whereas to make 
 a law seems to us extremely simple, in other periods 
 it has been held that laws must come from heaven 
 and cannot be made by men. The same may be said of 
 governments. Men have been thankful to find them- 
 selves under government — they have understood the 
 duty of obeying government; but when by some chance 
 government disappeared and a new one was needed, 
 or when, from being a blessing, government, through 
 the perversity of the ruler, became an intolerable 
 incubus, they have stood bewildered and dismayed. 
 They have looked up into the sky for intimations, or 
 listened to the birds who had access to the sky, or 
 consulted the entrails of sacrifices on which the deity 
 might have deigned to write his will, or asked the 
 advice of prophets. This perplexity is the growing- 
 pain, the impulse of development, in the political 
 organism. It indicates the want of an organ. In 
 such a state the orga,n of government has been 
 already formed, but the government-making organ is 
 still to form. 
 
 During the long period of waiting for the growth 
 of this organ, while the making of government is 
 still regarded as an insoluble problem, a provisional 
 solution is discovered which is sufiicient for ordinary 
 cases. A bad king indeed can only be removed by 
 
304 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 violence, but the demise of the Crown that occurs in 
 the course of nature is remedied by the rule of 
 hereditary succession. As in property so in govern- 
 ment, the son may be regarded as a sort of equivalent 
 to the father, as the father over again. A diflBculty 
 indeed arises when sons are wanting, still more when 
 there are absolutely no descendants. In some states 
 this difficulty is smoothed away by lawyers, who 
 devise a complete scale of succession. But other 
 states have found it insoluble, and have been reduced 
 to a pitiable condition of dismay by a failure of 
 direct royal heirs. Slavonic states in particular have 
 shown themselves unable to admit the fiction of in- 
 heritance beyond a certain point. In Poland the 
 whole system of hereditary monarchy broke down 
 with the failure of the line of Jagela, and in Eussia 
 the extinction of the line of Eurik introduced a period 
 of terrible convulsions and wild popular hallucinations 
 arising from this cause. 
 
 But now a further development takes place. The 
 ruler has been in the habit of summoning assemblies 
 for various purposes. In ancient times the citizens 
 have been summoned to take the field as soldiers, 
 and before the march began have been addressed 
 and appealed to by the ruler on some public matter. 
 After his address the chieftains have been permitted 
 to give their opinion, and the crowd to express assent 
 by clamour or dissent by murmur. In more modern 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 305 
 
 times the ruler has found himself compelled to apply 
 for money to the representatives of his people, and in 
 return to listen to their complaints. In either case 
 the Assembly is a germ capable of much development. 
 The murmur or complaint may be developed into 
 opposition, and opposition into rebellion. Opposition 
 observing certain forms may acquire a legal character, 
 and in course of time even rebellion, considered as a 
 developed form of opposition, may become in certain 
 circumstances legal too. 
 
 And thus by slow steps the Assembly advances to 
 the assertion of a government-making power. The 
 earlier steps of such a process we studied in the 
 English Eevolution. But we found that in England 
 after the Revolution the development did not proceed, 
 as it were, in a straight line, but from accidental 
 causes, which we partly traced, followed a most 
 extraordinary circuitous course. This later English 
 development is exceptional, and therefore theoretically 
 the less instructive. 
 
 The normal ^ process is rather that which I imagine 
 to have taken place in ancient Eome. After assert- 
 ing a government-making power to be used only in 
 extreme necessity, the Assembly would begin to 
 assert that something short of extreme necessity 
 
 ^ On this word I find a pencil note giving an explanation of 
 tlie meaning attached to it by the author, " Normal because name 
 corresponds to reality." — Ed. 
 
 X 
 
306 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 would justify the use of it, and next that in order to 
 avoid the risk of such extremities the ruler's power 
 should be limited to a term of years ; then that the 
 Assembly should take part in naming his successor. 
 Gradually the term of office would become very 
 short, and the free choice of a successor would be 
 claimed by the Assembly. They might also control 
 his power by giving him a colleague, and so at last 
 two consuls would take the place of the King. 
 
 But now observe that, by the side of this, another 
 development will almost always take place. The 
 population is growing, wealth and arts are growing ; 
 almost necessarily therefore government is becoming a 
 burden too heavy, a task too difficult for one man. 
 Its functions begin to be distributed ; military duties 
 begin to be separated from judicial duties or duties of 
 police. By the side of the consuls will now appear 
 prsetor, a censor, quaestors. Where this distribution 
 of functions takes place in a state in which the govern- 
 ment-making organ has not yet appeared the result 
 is bureaucracy, and the King may easily maintain the 
 external show of undiminished power, the new officers 
 passing as his delegates or mouthpieces. But what if 
 it take place where the kingship has already been 
 diminished to a consulate, has become elective and 
 annual '! In this case the new officials may easily 
 appear side by side with the King or Consul, and 
 almost on an equality with him. And in such a state 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 307 
 
 the original unity of government may almost dis- 
 appear. Monarchy quite passes away, and its place 
 is taken by a number of magistrates, all nearly equal, 
 and none of them very imposing. 
 
 Meanwhile the Assembly has been growing in im- 
 portance, and may at last completely eclipse in the 
 eyes of the world a government which has thus 
 dwindled. At Eome this would have happened to a 
 greater extent than it actually did if the government- 
 making assemblies, the comitia, had been scenes of 
 grand debate. This was not so. The debating 
 Assembly at Rome was the Senate, and this was 
 not a government-making Assembly. At Athens it 
 took place. There by the side of the Ecclesia, the 
 officials, who had once been great, dwindled till they 
 almost disappeared. The consuls and praetors of 
 Rome never lost their imposing dignity, but the 
 Athenian Archons became wholly unimportant. 
 
 In these circumstances it may appear as if the 
 State were actually governed by the Assembly, and 
 not by the officials. The Assembly is seen energetic- 
 ally occupying itself with public affairs, and is far 
 more prominent than the officials. If we use the 
 word " govern " without precision, such a state may 
 be said to be governed by the Assembly. But as I 
 have now shown, the occupation of the Assembly in 
 many instances is not really government. In Rome 
 it was almost exclusively the election of magistrates. 
 
308 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 The stormy activity of our Parliament in the seven- 
 teenth century had for its object to overawe the 
 government, and to assert a power in extreme cases 
 of destroying it. And in the nineteenth century this 
 Parliament appears not so much to govern as to 
 choose and support the Ministry that governs ; and 
 though at first sight our Ministry appears to be but a 
 part of the Parliament, on closer consideration it is 
 seen to be substantially distinct. 
 
 So far we have not found a clear case of govern- 
 ment by many. Are we then brought to the con- 
 clusion that there is no such thing ? Are we to say 
 that not only often, but always, where an assembly, of 
 the citizens at large or of their representatives, 
 appears to govern, the government is really in the 
 hands of officials whose quiet activity is overlooked 
 in the tumult of popular debate 1 No ; if we said 
 this, we should go too far. 
 
 I have referred several times to the experience we 
 all have of the management by societies and clubs of 
 their larger affairs. In these management, direction, 
 seems to fall naturally to the Assembly rather than 
 to the Official, to the Committee rather than to the 
 Secretary, who appears as an agent or servant rather 
 than as master of the Committee. Why should not 
 a similar system, which seems so natural in aU cor- 
 porate action, prevail also in the greatest of all 
 corporations, the State ? 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 309 
 
 It would be surprising, I think, if it had not in 
 some cases done so. Nevertheless there is a material 
 difference between the position of the State and of 
 any private society that exists under the protection 
 of the State. We laid it down that government is 
 strong and strict in proportion as the pressure upon 
 the community is great, and that the pressure most 
 commonly encountered is that from enemies and 
 neighbours. The government of an army in the field 
 is stronger and more monarchical than that of a quiet 
 township. Now the State is always, compared to the 
 private corporation, in some degree what an army is 
 to a town. The private corporation is within the 
 ■ State, and protected by its laws. The State is in the 
 presence of enemies and rivals against whom it must 
 protect itself. It is easy to discern in history the 
 working of this cause, which has led states to be dis- 
 contented with the lower form of government. I will 
 cite one or two examples from recent times. 
 
 In the first form which our American colonies gave 
 themselves after their secession from England, they 
 constituted themselves into a confederation without a 
 President. The system did not work. In 1789 they 
 substituted for this confederation the United States, 
 placing at the head of it a president, and choosing for 
 their first president the best general they had. And 
 it may be observed in the subsequent history of the 
 union that a great general is always thought to have 
 
310 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 a right to the presidency. America has had three 
 wars. Each war has brought out a distinguished 
 general. Each of these three generals, Washington, 
 Andrew Jackson, and Grant, was afterwards president 
 for two terms. 
 
 In France, after the fall of Louis XVI., republican 
 feeling was so strong that they could not tolerate the 
 thought even of a president. Their first Eepublic 
 therefore had for an executive a directory of five. 
 The number was found too large, and the express 
 object of the Revolution of Brumaire was to introduce 
 a more personal executive. For five directors three 
 consuls were substituted, and of these three one was 
 made infinitely more powerful than the others. In 
 the second French Republic, that of 1849, and in the 
 third, that of 1875, a president was created. 
 
 Only in Switzerland do we now see a Republic 
 which is practically without a president, and Switzer- 
 land is placed by the guarantee of the great powers 
 beyond the danger of war. 
 
 But, in the course of history, it has often happened 
 that a community, owing generally to an isolated 
 position, has found itself practically out of danger 
 from enemies. Its territory, mountainous and barren, 
 or surrounded by deserts, has ofi'ered no temptation 
 to invaders. It has remained for a long period 
 unassailed. Such a community is in the same condi- 
 tion as a private society; it needs very little that 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 311 
 
 can properly be called government. Here the 
 Assembly will undertake actually to govern, and it 
 may do so with success. 
 
 Such, perhaps, was the case with some of the 
 Germanic tribes before their migrations began. The 
 popular Assembly may have been almost all the 
 government. The old Saxons are said to have had 
 no kings. Such for the most part has been the case 
 with Switzerland. In the feebleness of feudalism a 
 country so difficult of invasion was exceptionally safe, 
 and it has never been driven by necessity to any 
 strong form of organisation. 
 
 Somewhat similar is the case of the United States. 
 Here I should not say, as I have said of England, that 
 the assemblies do not govern but create the govern- 
 ment. The government there is not created by the 
 assemblies. It is the people, not Congress, who choose 
 the president. On the other hand, legislation is 
 mainly in the hands of Congress, which is not, as in 
 England, controlled by Ministers ; the Senate, too, 
 seems to have a real share in the executive govern- 
 ment. We are to remember, however, that of all 
 great states the United States is that which is under 
 least pressure. Internal pressure is diminished by 
 being divided between the State governments and 
 the Federal government ; external pressure is averted 
 by the comparative isolation of the country. Probably 
 the system would have suffered much modification 
 
312 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 before this time had it been exposed to more search- 
 ing trials. 
 
 In some other cases the experiment of government 
 by assembly in the presence of enemies has been 
 tried, and has ended in failure. Poland is the most 
 conspicuous example of this. Here no real executive 
 or governing power was tolerated until it was too 
 late. At the last moment an attempt was made to 
 remove the elective monarchy and to substitute a 
 more stable institution, but it was frustrated by the 
 partitioning powers. 
 
 I have left to the last the case of Athens, the city- 
 state so glorious in the history of culture, — Athens, 
 which outshone for a time every other G-reek state, 
 and which, if its prosperous period was not long, 
 at any rate only fell with Greece itself. I certainly do 
 not venture to say that in Athens the Assembly did not 
 govern. We may indeed, perhaps, consider that it had 
 the rudiments of a system like our own. Those orators, 
 who in succession gained the ear of the Assembly until 
 they were supplanted by some rival, may perhaps be 
 regarded as rulers made and unmade by the Assembly. 
 But if so the system was very loose, and, on the other 
 hand, the Assembly itself performed functions which 
 in almost every other state have fallen to officials. It 
 conferred with foreign ambassadors, decided upon war 
 or peace, devised the measures by which war was to 
 be carried on. And all this it did in the midst of 
 
V POLITICAL SCIENCE 313 
 
 foreign enemies, under pressure such as almost every- 
 where else has led men to tighten the reins. Assuredly 
 nothing in all history is so strange as that enormous 
 Ecclesia, that permanent monster-meeting, actually 
 governing a state, actually steering it through diffi- 
 culties and dangers. 
 
 That such a system did not positively fail is 
 wonderful. But it cannot fairly be said to have 
 succeeded. We are to note that this system has no 
 share in the bright and dazzling period of Athenian 
 history. It did not win Marathon and Salamis, nor 
 write the plays of ^schylus, nor nurse Socrates, 
 nor build the Parthenon ; it was not the system of 
 the age of Pericles. So long as Pericles lived the 
 personal element prevailed. Athens, says Thucydides, 
 was a state ruled by its first citizen. Pericles was 
 king, not servant, of the Assembly. He even studied 
 the pose, cultivated the proud reserve, of a king. 
 When he went to the Pnyx, we are told, he was used 
 to pray to Zeus that he might not say too much. It 
 was not till after his death that the system of govern- 
 ment by many became fully developed, and at his 
 death most manifestly began the decline of Athens. 
 
 My conclusion is that, as a general rule, where a 
 state is subject to any considerable pressure, govern- 
 ment by assembly is not found practicable, the reason 
 being that such an assembly has not promptitude or 
 decision enough to deal with pressing dangers. If it 
 
314 INTKODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LEOT. V 
 
 were adequate, government by assembly might be 
 better, and perhaps even the attempt to govern by 
 assembly in difficult times might have a most stimu- 
 lating effect upon the community. So much the 
 exceptional case of Athens may be quoted to prove. 
 Under that system the Athenian intellect became 
 miraculously acute ; it may almost be said that every 
 Athenian was a statesman. But Athens cannot be 
 quoted to show that government by popular assembly 
 may be adequate. For wonderful as the experiment 
 was, it assuredly failed. The orations of Demosthenes 
 seem written to show that the government was not 
 adequate, and to explain why Athens lost her inde- 
 pendence within a century after the death of Pericles. 
 In the Philippics and Olynthiacs you have the best 
 commentary upon the fall of Athens ; you see that it 
 fell because in times of pressing difficulty and danger 
 a popular assembly cannot govern. 
 
LECTUEE VI 
 
 The One and the Many — in popular language 
 Monarchy and Republic — I have treated perhaps at 
 sufficient length. There is another pair of contrasted 
 words not less familiar to us, of which hitherto I 
 have said little, Aristocracy and Democracy. By this 
 time we have acquired a considerable store of cate- 
 gories. States organic, states inorganic; tribal 
 states, theocratic states, states proper; city-states, 
 country-states centralised or decentralised ; federa- 
 tions strong or weak ; states where government has a 
 large province, states where it has a small one ; states 
 which have a government-making organ, states which 
 have not ; states where the power of government is 
 in one hand, states where it is distributed. But are 
 not some states also aristocratic and others democratic ? 
 It is time to consider this question. 
 
 Hardly any question is more discussed in the 
 present age than this contrast of aristocracy and 
 democracy, and like all similar questions it is dis- 
 cussed without the least regard to precise definition. 
 The cry is, Who cares about names? Who wants 
 
316 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 pedantic verbal distinctions? We all know too 
 well in practice, the one side will say, the cold 
 inhuman arrogance of aristocracy, — the other will 
 say, the vulgarity and envy and coarseness of 
 democracy. The question is not of distinguishing 
 them nicely, but of sweeping away the one or the 
 other. These lectures must have been delivered quite 
 in vain, if at this stage it is still necessary for me to 
 argue that after all definition is urgently necessary, 
 and that without it political discussion must needs 
 degenerate into that interminable brawl which may 
 be profitable enough to aspiring politicians, but can 
 be of no profit to the commonwealth. 
 
 When I spoke of the power by which the govern- 
 ment in a state is supported, I pointed out that this 
 power may be the whole people, but may also be only 
 a part, and even an extremely small part, of the 
 people. It is now evident that states will differ 
 greatly in character and complexion, according as 
 they rest in this way on a broad or a narrow 
 basis. 
 
 But again, states that rest on a narrow basis may 
 difi"er very widely among themselves. For the group 
 of persons supporting the government may stand in 
 widely different relations to the mass of the community. 
 One of the commonest of these relations is absolute 
 undisguised hostility. A military horde surrounds 
 the ruler, and enables him to trample the people 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 317 
 
 under foot. This is in some cases the result of a 
 conquest, but perhaps more often, as is shown in the 
 history of the East, the result of the decay and dis- 
 ruption of military empires, where mercenary armies, 
 breaking loose from the central government, appro- 
 priate a portion of territory and make their chief 
 Sultan of it. 
 
 The kind of state which comes thus into existence 
 we have considered more than once, and have 
 described it as inorganic. It is so extreme a form 
 that we have held that it ought scarcely to be called 
 a state, but at most only a quasi-state. But we may 
 now observe that there are many other varieties of 
 state which, though much less extreme, have similar 
 characteristics. 
 
 In the inorganic state the ruling horde is foreign 
 to the nation over which it tyrannises. Round 
 Haider Ali or Tippu Sultan stood a Mussulman host 
 alien in religion and everything else to the native 
 population of Mysore, i But it is easy to imagine a 
 state in which there is no such gulf between the 
 ruling and the subject population, and yet the system 
 of government is closely similar. Without being 
 foreign, in blood or religion, the ruling class may still 
 be conscious of a separate interest, and may guide the 
 government not with a view to the welfare of the 
 whole but for its own exclusive objects. Of this 
 kind of partial government, which yet is not in the 
 
318 INTEODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 full sense of the word inorganic, there may be a great 
 many varieties. 
 
 In ancient Laconia we find a Dorian host settled 
 as conquerors in an Achaean population. But such a 
 state is much less inorganic than those Oriental states 
 to which I have just referred, since conquerors and 
 conquered were of the same nationality, language, 
 and religion. 
 
 The same may be said of the government of Rome 
 established by conquest in the Italian populations, 
 among the Latins and Samnites. It rested on con- 
 quest, but there was a tie of kindred and religion 
 between the conquerors and the conquered. 
 
 Another variety arises where there has been no 
 foreign intrusion at all, but internal movements have 
 given to some class or section of the community a 
 great superiority in power over all the rest, and the 
 class or section, taking advantage of this superiority, 
 has usurped or appropriated to itself the government. 
 
 The commonest case of such usurpation occurs when 
 the government which I call imperialism is set up. 
 A standing army in a state has almost always the 
 power, if it had the will, to usurp the government. 
 By its discipline and organisation it is superior in 
 force to the nation. Circumstances occur not very 
 unfrequently in which it resolves to employ this 
 superior force in taking possession of the government. 
 The result is a government not alien or inorganic, but 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 319 
 
 resembling inorganic governments to this extent, that 
 it is at the service of one part of the community, and 
 likely to consider the interest of that part either 
 exclusively or at least excessively. Such was the 
 government of Rome under the emperors, of England 
 under Cromwell, of France under Napoleon. 
 
 What the army is in these states the priesthood 
 is in another variety. I have insisted upon the 
 immense influence of religion in the formation and 
 growth of states. During the period when religion 
 is the leading influence the ministers of religion have 
 an opportunity of becoming the dominant class. In 
 these circumstances it will happen in some degree, 
 and may happen in a very great degree, that the 
 whole government of the state is warped to suit the 
 special interests of the priestly class. 
 
 In both these cases the predominating class is very 
 clearly defined ; it is a class that wears a uniform. 
 We come next to a variety of state in which there is 
 a similar class predominance, but it is less visible and 
 obvious to the eye. The government may have fallen 
 into the hands, not of a profession or class formed 
 into a corporation, but simply of an interest, that is, of 
 a number of people who, having a similar occupation 
 and similar objects, desire the same measures and 
 instinctively combine to promote them. It may be 
 the landed interest or the monied interest, or the 
 manufacturers. 
 
320 INTRODUCTION TO MOT. 
 
 It may happen, you will observe — though historic- 
 ally perhaps it does not often happen — that this 
 predominant class may obtain its predominance 
 by no kind of merit or public service, but only 
 by some accidental advantage. Mere wealth may 
 confer it upon some class of industrialists, the pos- 
 session of weapons and discipline may give it to 
 an army, superstition and deceit may in some cases 
 give it to a priesthood. This is possible. It is not 
 only possible, but history shows that it often happens 
 that a class which has risen to predominance by great 
 public services remains predominant long after it has 
 lost the qualities which entitled it to be so. Thus 
 the religious faith which enabled the Spaniards to 
 drive out the Moors had been nursed by the priest- 
 hood, and as a reward the priesthood obtained an 
 unbounded influence. But two centuries later, when 
 the Bourbon dynasty began to govern Spain, they 
 found the country sacrificed to the Church, and it 
 could no longer be perceived that the Church in any 
 way deserved its predominance. 
 
 We must recognise therefore that there exists a 
 large class of states in which the good of the whole is 
 sacrificed to the interest of some one part. 
 
 It is the modern practice to call this system 
 aristocracy, and the predominant class, which in this 
 manner preys upon the community, we also call 
 an aristocracy. Thus the monopolists of land in 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 321 
 
 Australia have' been called the squatter aristocracy, 
 and we hear in America of a shoddy aristocracy, a 
 petroleum aristocracy, and so on. The opposite, the 
 healthy system in vsrhich government is honestly 
 directed to the welfare of the whole community, we 
 call democracy. The perversion of words from their 
 original sense is here quite bewildering. In Aristotle 
 democracy is precisely the contrary of this. It is a 
 system under which government does not aim at the 
 welfare of the whole, but is warped to suit the interest 
 of a part, viz. the common people. And aristocracy 
 in Aristotle is a healthy system. It is the govern- 
 ment of good people. 
 
 We are not bound of course to adopt all the 
 deiinitions of Aristotle, but I do not see what we 
 gain by saying "aristocracy" where he would have 
 said "oligarchy." A squatter oligarchy, a shoddy 
 oligarchy, would have been quite satisfactory and 
 unobjectionable phrases. But when a bad sense is 
 given to "aristocracy" we lose the word which used 
 to convey the notion of government by good people 
 as good people, and in losing the word we are in some 
 danger of losing the notion itself. How the perversion 
 has come about it is easy enough to see. An oligarchy 
 always, as a matter of course, calls itself an aristocracy. 
 It tries to justify its monopoly of government by 
 saying that it alone deserves hj its virtue to govern, 
 and it tries to conceal its selfish objects under the 
 
 Y 
 
322 INTEODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 mask of the public good. And it demands, and 
 obtains, as a matter of courtesy, the right of choosing 
 the name by which it will be known. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to see why we have forgotten 
 Aristotle's definition of democracy. We readily 
 understand that the good of the whole is liable 
 to be sacrificed to the interest of a part, but in 
 our modern experience the usurping part is always 
 the few, never the many. That the poor should be 
 trampled on by the rich, and little people by great, 
 we recognise as only too possible. But when Aristotle 
 tells us that there is an opposite perversion, by which 
 the rich are sacrificed to the poor, and the few to the 
 many, we are perhaps inclined to smile at such a 
 conceit. It seems to us theoretical and pedantic; 
 and we are not disposed to allow such a good word 
 as democracy to retire altogether from active service 
 by being appointed to the sinecure of representing a 
 system which does not actually exist. The truth is 
 that little Greece had a richer political experience 
 than great modern Europe. The whole popular side 
 of politics was better known there than it is among 
 us, who after a thousand years of landed oligarchy are 
 but beginning to make the acquaintance of democracy. 
 The next generation may perhaps learn to understand 
 Aristotle's use of the word. 
 
 We have now, however, distinguished a new kind 
 of states. It is one which seems to stand between 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 323 
 
 the organic and the inorganic. Between the healthy 
 political organism and the quasi-state which only 
 imitates political vitality, we find a kind which seems 
 shaped by vital processes, but in an unhealthy way. 
 One limb here is overgrown and draws all nutriment 
 to itself. But we at the same time discover that this 
 kind does not properly deserve the name that we are 
 seeking to define. Aristocracy is not this, but some- 
 thing diiferent. Such states at present are without a 
 generic name. Oligarchy denotes that variety of 
 them which in the modern world have been com- 
 monest. But we see that the predominant class, 
 which is their characteristic feature, is not necessarily 
 small; it may be the majority. For the present, 
 therefore, we can only call them class-states. 
 
 But now what is aristocracy t The word ought to 
 mean the government of the good. Of course if 
 " good " is only a euphemistic name meaning simply 
 wealthy or well-born, then aristocracy is only a 
 euphemistic name for oligarchy. But can we dis- 
 tinguish a pure aristocracy by the side of the sham 
 aristocracy ? In other words, can we lay it down that 
 there are states in which government and the control 
 of government are in the hands only of the qualified, 
 and others in which no qualification is required ? 
 
 In the modern discussion this question is scarcely 
 ever considered. Aristocracy is loudly condemned, 
 but when you examine the argument you find it 
 
324 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 consists in showing that existing systems which call 
 themselves by the name of aristocracy have no right 
 to the name. But if so, their defects can prove 
 nothing against aristocracy. The question, Ought 
 there to be, and may there be, a test by which the 
 fitness of men to take a share in government can be 
 determined, is not answered by showing that wealth 
 is not such a test or that birth is not such a test, still 
 less by showing that in a government of wealth the 
 poor are oppressed and in a government of birth the 
 low-born. Granted that a number of so-called aristoc- 
 racies are mere oligarchies in disguise, granted that 
 the tests of goodness hitherto applied have been 
 exceedingly rude and almost useless, these may be 
 very good practical arguments against such and such 
 a system professing to be aristocratic, but they prove 
 nothing against the theory of aristocracy. In fact 
 almost the whole popular polemic of the day is not 
 really directed against aristocracy at all, but against 
 oligarchy. Aristocracy is not attacked, but drops out 
 of sight, while people say incredulously, As to a real 
 aristocracy, if such a thing there can be, we will tell 
 you what we think of it when we see it. Practically 
 the question is argued as if the choice lay between 
 democracy and some form of oligarchy. 
 
 I use democracy here, in its modern sense, to mean 
 "a government in which every one has a share.'' 
 That every one should have a share in government is 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 325 
 
 represented as following from the fact that every one 
 has an interest in good government ; and if it is argued 
 that some people are not wise enough to understand 
 even their own interest, much less that of the whole 
 state, the answer is. The other plan has been tried 
 long enough, and it has been found that each man 
 practically understands his own interest well enough, 
 and that those who profess to be better than others 
 and to be ready to undertake the tutelage of others 
 invariably in the long run betray the trust. An 
 aristocracy, like Bolingbroke's patriot king, is an 
 empty imagination ; in practice it is merely an 
 oligarchy. 
 
 " One man then," we are told, " is just as fit as 
 another to take part in government, and in arguing 
 for the admission of a class to the franchise it is only 
 necessary to show that so long as it is excluded its 
 interests are certain to be disregarded. The agri- 
 cultural labourer is treated only with a kind of 
 patronising benevolence so long as he is . excluded ; 
 give him a vote, and his interests will begin to be 
 considered with quite another kind of earnestness." 
 Well ! if we may abandon ourselves to this view, we 
 shall perhaps at last arrive at the principle that a 
 person's right to a share in government is strictly 
 proportionate to his interest in good government, or 
 to the risk he runs of being injured if government 
 neglects him, that is, to his weakness and insignificance. 
 
326 INTEODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 For instance, a grown man can always do something 
 to protect himself, but a child ! How much exposed 
 is a child to ill-treatment, to neglect, to injury from 
 bad education or no education ! The child therefore 
 ought certainly to have the franchise, even if the 
 grown man should go without it. And, having once 
 dismissed the notion of qualification, there is no reason 
 why we should stop at the child. If there is any 
 class which is liable to ill-treatment, whose interests 
 therefore require the solicitous attention of govern- 
 ment, it is the class of lunatics. But perhaps, 
 on the principle we are considering, the class which 
 would have the most undeniable right to the fran- 
 chise, which ought to have the largest share in 
 government, would be the criminal class. For how 
 much more intimate, how much more practical and 
 living, is their connection with law and government 
 than ours ! Compared to them, we are all mere 
 theorists, mere amateurs in politics ! To how many of 
 us after all, if we will confess the truth, it makes 
 little difference what laws are in force ! Personally, 
 we never come in contact with these laws. But to 
 the criminal class the question is evidently all- 
 important, in the strictest sense a matter of life and 
 death. 
 
 You cannot resist these absurd conclusions except 
 by admitting that after all there must be a standard 
 of qualification, that the lunatic has not judgment 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 327 
 
 enough, the child has not experience enough, the 
 criminal has not virtue enough, to take part in 
 government. And to admit this is to admit the 
 principle of aristocracy. We constantly speak as if 
 the democratic and aristocratic parties were at issue 
 on a principle. But here again, as so often in party 
 conflict, we find that the grand word " principle " is 
 taken in vain. No rational creature disputes either 
 the principle that all interests should be considered, 
 or the other principle that there must be a standard 
 of qualification. But some people think more of the 
 interests to be represented, that is, of the democratic 
 principle ; others more of the standard of qualifica- 
 tion, that is, of the aristocratic principle. 
 
 Again, if we consider aristocratic and democratic 
 states as they appear in history we do not find them 
 founded on principles sharply opposed. I do not 
 know in what part of history you could find a state 
 founded upon the principle that one man is as good 
 as another. Certainly those states which stand out 
 as eminently democratical have in practice applied 
 standards of fitness, though sometimes they have 
 applied them indirectly, and in a manner uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 Look at Athens. There to be sure it might seem 
 that you had much more even than universal suffrage. 
 Every Athenian was not only what we call a voter — 
 he was actually a member of Parliament. But we 
 
328 INTEODUCTION TO lbct. 
 
 see that this appearance of unbounded comprehen- 
 siveness is an illusion, when we remark that the 
 Athenians had slaves. What may be thought to 
 incapacitate men for taking a share in government is 
 that unceasing mechanical drudgery which precludes 
 much mental development, and that total want of 
 leisure which makes the study of public affairs im- 
 possible. At Athens the whole class which the 
 aristocratic party would disfranchise on the ground 
 of want of education, leisure, and intelligence, was 
 disfranchised without hope of a Eeform Bill by the 
 status of slavery. Those poor Athenians, who sat in 
 the Ecclesia by the side of the rich and well-born, 
 were of the class of which Socrates came. They are 
 described to us as having much leisure ; and at that 
 period of the world, when there were no universities 
 and no libraries, wealth conferred little intellectual 
 advantage. Such education as there was, was almost 
 absolutely common to all. If there was at Athens 
 no gulf between the rich and the poor, it was because 
 there was a gulf, wider than can now be conceived in 
 the most exclusive society, between the free man and 
 the slave. 
 
 And now let us look at the modern form of 
 democracy. Universal suffrage has been introduced 
 in several great modern states; and we ourselves 
 have travelled rapidly on the road that leads to it. 
 But is universal suffrage the negation of aristocracy 1 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 329 
 
 Does it rest on the principle that one man is as good 
 as another? 
 
 Not at all. First note that when we say universal 
 we do not mean universal, and that there are some 
 very large exclusions which we do not mention 
 because they are understood without being mentioned. 
 Such are those that I referred to before. Not only 
 children, but the most gifted youths up to a certain 
 age, and all women, are excluded. But secondly, 
 we must bear in mind here the distinction upon 
 which I have laid so much stress. Under the vague 
 word government I have insisted that we confuse 
 together two very different things. It is true that 
 at Athens almost every citizen was called on in 
 rotation to perform actual functions of government, 
 as we remember that Socrates himself, the poor 
 sculptor, found himself on a memorable occasion 
 presiding in the Ecclesia. But this does not 
 happen in modern democracy. Modern democracy 
 gives every man a vote, but it does not make 
 every man in turn Speaker of the House of 
 Commons or Lord Chancellor or Prime Minister. 
 The truth is, it is not a share in government that is 
 conferred with the franchise, but at the utmost a 
 share in the power of making government. And 
 when we grant merely this to all men, we by no 
 means lay it down that all men are equal. How far 
 we are from doing this even in the most democratic 
 
330 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 state appears from the astonisliment with which we 
 regard those elections by lot which took place at 
 Athens. Government, in fact, is understood in this 
 so-called democratic age, more than at former periods, 
 to require so much special skill that the whole 
 number of persons whom we can even conceive as 
 qualified for high office is exceedingly small. But 
 now, thirdly, observe that the franchise does not 
 usually confer even a share in the power of directly 
 making government. It is not the constituent body 
 that directly makes the Ministry ; it does but make the 
 Parliament, and the Parliament makes the Ministry. 
 It is commonly overlooked when we speak of the 
 steady progress of democracy in these latter times 
 that modern democracies have the representative 
 system, and that the representative system is essen- 
 tially aristocratic. As there may be an elective 
 monarchy, so there may be elective aristocracy, 
 and such is every representative Parliament. It 
 is an elective aristocracy. It is a body of men 
 who have been selected by the community as more 
 fit than the average to attend to public affairs, to 
 make and unmake the government. These men have 
 stood out in some way above the rest ; that is, they 
 are an aristocracy. And where, as in England and 
 as in Germany, the members do not receive payment, 
 they constitute not merely an aristocracy, but even an 
 aristocracy of wealth, or at least of leisure, since no 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 331 
 
 one can become a member of Parliament who is not 
 in a condition without a salary to devote a large 
 portion of his time to public affairs. 
 
 It appears then that the principle of aristocracy is 
 not and cannot be seriously questioned. Aristocracy 
 therefore stands on quite a different footing from oli- 
 garchy. History presents a great number of states 
 founded on the principle of oligarchy, but it does not 
 seem allowable to admit such states as healthy polit- 
 ical organisms. Oligarchy is a disease, and where 
 it absolutely prevails a mortal disease. We cannot 
 therefore, I think, put down the oligarchical state 
 in our classification simply as a species, but, as we 
 were disposed to deny to the inorganic state the very 
 name of a state, so we ought to regard the oligarchic 
 state as a state deranged and diseased. The case of 
 the aristocratic state is quite different. It is simply 
 a state in which a sound and necessary principle, 
 admitted in all states, has assumed an unusual prom- 
 inence. It has all the appearance therefore of being 
 a healthy and legitimate variety. Variation in states 
 is caused by variation in the pressure of their en- 
 vironment. Thus we remarked that when the 
 pressure is light there is liberty ; when the pressure 
 is heavy liberty is diminished. Now it is easily con- 
 ceivable that in certain cases the pressure may be of 
 such a kind as to make great demands upon the 
 capacity, whether intellectual or moral, of govern- 
 
332 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 ment. As in some states government, to do its 
 work, must have great authority, so in others it may 
 need to have great skill. Where this is the case, 
 the standard of qualification, which must always 
 exist, both in the government and the government- 
 making organ, will need to be raised. High quali- 
 fication will need to be insisted upon. The aristo- 
 cratic principle, which before was latent, must hence- 
 forward acquire more emphasis. It was always a 
 matter of course that only the good ought to govern, 
 but by the good was meant persons of ordinary intel- 
 ligence, ordinary respectability. Henceforward the 
 good must be taken to mean persons of more than 
 ordinary intelligence, of exceptional virtue. And so 
 arises the aristocratic state. 
 
 But this healthy state is pursued by the corrupt 
 oligarchical state as by its shadow. So much so that, 
 as I pointed out, the very word aristocracy is now 
 scarcely understood except as a synonym for oligarchy. 
 Such a persistent, inveterate confusion could not 
 arise accidentally. I have pointed out how natural it 
 is that oligarchy should try to screen its corruptions 
 under the fair pretext of aristocracy. I have hinted 
 also at another cause which has been at work. It is 
 a cause for which, in studying forms of government, 
 great allowance must constantly be made. A large 
 proportion of the forms of government which in party 
 controversy are necessarily denounced as if they 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 333 
 
 were intrinsically bad are only bad because they have 
 lasted too long ; they are the survivals of good things. 
 Thus, when I discussed despotism, and showed that 
 if it were the purely monstrous thing it is imagined 
 to be it could never have come into existence, I 
 admitted that many historical despotisms are mon- 
 strous enough, because they are survivals, and have 
 ceased to do the good they once did without ceasing 
 to do the harm. Now the same remark may be 
 made of the aristocratic state. Strictly it is quite 
 diflferent from the oligarchical state. But the survival 
 of an aristocracy is often an oligarchy; and many 
 of the states which history presents as aristocracies 
 are in reality survivals. Indeed it may be remarked 
 in general — and the remark shows how difficult it is 
 not to misunderstand the lessons of history — that the 
 best and most glorious states have the toughest 
 survivals, just as the healthiest man may be ex- 
 pected to have the longest old age, and therefore the 
 best states are most in danger of being discredited by 
 their survivals. The oligarchy that Sallust describes, 
 which displayed its venality in the war with Jugurtha, 
 and its daring wickedness in the conspiracy of Catiline, 
 was a survival of the heroic aristocracy that had 
 conquered Hannibal. The noblesse that the French 
 Revolution devoted to exile or the guillotine was a 
 survival of the aristocracy which had made the staff 
 of Cond6 and Turenne. Public opinion can scarcely 
 
334 INTEODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 distinguish in these cases the healthy period, on 
 which it looks back through such a vista of gradual 
 corruption, from the survival with which it is 
 familiar. 
 
 The confusion is the more inevitable, because aris- 
 tocracies, like other healthy political forms, spring 
 up, not by well-considered contrivance, but spontane- 
 ously, unconsciously. Nothing needs more thought 
 and contrivance than the devising of a test of political 
 capacity. And the tests which have been actually 
 resorted to, even in the most successful aristocracies, 
 have not commonly been the result of thought or 
 contrivance at all, but have been the rudest, most 
 accidental tests imaginable. And in applying these 
 rude tests only the immediate need has been con- 
 sidered; the question how they lent themselves to 
 corruption, what abuses they were likely to give rise 
 to, has been disregarded. 
 
 Now the most obvious tests for discovering 
 political capacity lend themselves just as readily to 
 oligarchical exclusiveness. 
 
 Birth is a real test of capacity, though a test of a 
 rough kind. The man who is the son of a states- 
 man, who has grown up in the house of a states- 
 man, may be presumed to have learnt something, if 
 only some familiarity with public questions, some 
 knowledge of forms of routine, which other men are 
 likely to want ; and there is a fair probability that he 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 335 
 
 may have acquired more, and a certain possibility 
 that, as the younger Pitt, he may have acquired very 
 much and also inherited very much. 
 
 But if birth works for true aristocracy, it is still 
 more certain that it vrorks for the false aristocracy, 
 that is, for oligarchy. Aptitudes and maxims may 
 descend in families ; but the family has quite another 
 character at the same time. The family is the most 
 intense of cliques ; it is nature's clique. And if the 
 government of a state becomes a monopoly in the 
 hands of a few families, we may easily understand 
 that at the outset a healthy aristocratical impulse was 
 at work — the pressure found out the best families, in 
 which the most virtue and the most capacity were 
 stored up; — we may understand, too, that for a 
 certain time the arrangement would really favour 
 true aristocracy — the monopoly would secure for two 
 or three generations a skilful and capable govern- 
 ment ; but we shall hold also that for true aristocracy 
 the arrangement will not be long adequate, that its 
 effectiveness will steadily diminish, — for a good family 
 tradition is corrupted by power and wealth, — and that 
 after a while it will change its tendency and begin to 
 work steadily and intensely for oligarchy. Insensibly 
 in the course of a few generations an oligarchy will 
 reign where an aristocracy was established. 
 
 Precisely the same remark may be applied to 
 wealth. Wealth too is a rough test of the goodness 
 
336 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 which is wanted in political life. For that is not an 
 abstract ethical goodness, but a goodness relative to 
 the object aimed at. In public life'two qualifications 
 are highly important, of which wealth is a guarantee. 
 The wealthy man will have, first, leisure and freedom 
 of action ; secondly, he will presumably not be open 
 to corruption. 
 
 But then wealth also is oligarchical. The rich are 
 in the main similar in their occupations and objects ; 
 they soon discover that they have common interests 
 which make it worth their while to combine and 
 co-operate. In a state which is under the manage- 
 ment of the rich, the interests of property will be too 
 much considered, and the government will be re- 
 garded as a grand machine for favouring and further- 
 ing the enterprises of capital. 
 
 Still more, where the two tests are applied together, 
 where birth counts for something and wealth for 
 something, the tendency will be oligarchical as well as 
 aristocratical, and perhaps in the long run oligarchical 
 I'ather than aristocratical. 
 
 You see, then, how many causes are at work lead- 
 ing us to identify aristocracy with oligarchy. First, 
 oligarchy always calls itself aristocracy ; secondly, 
 the survival of aristocracy is oligarchy, to which I 
 may add that in the age of the French Revolution 
 such a corrupt survival was found at the same time 
 in almost every country of Europe ; thirdly, the tests 
 
VI POLITICAL SCIENCE 337 
 
 employed to maintain aristocracy make equally or 
 even more for oligarchy. 
 
 I must be content to-day if I have succeeded in 
 clearly distinguishing the aristocratic and democratic 
 principles. I leave for the next lecture the inquiry 
 how institutions are practically modified by these 
 principles ; in other vi^ords, how the aristocratic state 
 practically differs from the democratic. 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
 My last lecture may have helped us to understand 
 how the name " aristocracy," originally one of the 
 most respectable of all political names, has come in 
 recent times to have disagreeable, almost disreputable 
 associations. Democracy, a word which now excites 
 enthusiasm, had in old times just • such disagreeable 
 associations, and even as late as the seventeenth 
 century Oorneille writes peremptorily, Le pire des 
 itats c'est I'dtat populaire. But the very name " aristoc- 
 racy " in the ear of Plato or Aristotle seems to have 
 carried' an impressive sound. Almost without wait- 
 ing to argue the question they assume that it must 
 be the best form of government, for indeed to a 
 Greek ear the word aristocracy conveys either 
 "government of the best" or "best government." 
 
 But superficially this form of government resembles 
 two other forms, of which the one is wholly illegiti- 
 mate and immoral, and the other cannot be called 
 either legitimate or moral. The good people who in 
 the aristocracy have a monopoly of the government 
 and of the government-making power seem to answer 
 
LEOT. VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 339 
 
 to that ruling horde which in the inorganic quasi- 
 state trample the people under foot, and also to that 
 ruling class which in the class-state have an unjust 
 and mischievous predominance. Both these tyrannous 
 minorities claim the title of an aristocracy. They pro- 
 claim a doctrine that their ascendency is in itself a 
 proof of their superiority, that in the main and in 
 the long-run might is identical with right. Accord- 
 ingly in practice there is always a strong probability 
 that what professes to be an aristocracy is really 
 only a tyrannising class or a tyrannising race, and 
 the result of a long and wide experience of this im- 
 posture has been that in our modern political philo- 
 sophy the sham aristocracy has superseded the true 
 one, that a true aristocracy is not now believed to 
 be possible. 
 
 But we must not allow this phase of practical 
 opinion, even though as a practical opinion it may be 
 reasonable, to enter into theory. We are not to 
 assume, because we see or fancy we see no real 
 aristocracy in the actual world, that in other ages 
 and other states of society there has been none. 
 Nor again, when we detect a tinge of oligarchy in 
 some ruling class, are we to assume too readily that 
 that ruling class is a mere oligarchy, for we are to 
 bear in mind that it may be an aristocracy in the act 
 of passing, as we have seen that aristocracies so 
 readily pass, into an oligarchy. Let us for the 
 
340 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 moment at least forget the sham aristocracy and fix 
 our thoughts exclusively upon the true one. 
 
 We have regarded the state as an organism, and 
 the development of its institutions as the result of 
 the effort which organisms make to adapt themselves 
 to their environment. But, as this organism is com- 
 posed of human beings, the struggles of it are in- 
 dicated not merely by spasms or modifications in the 
 tissue, but by speeches and actions from which we 
 can in the clearest manner infer thoughts, reason- 
 ings, wishes, emotions. When we say that in the 
 body politic modifications and developments take 
 place, we mean that thoughts and feelings pass 
 through the minds of certain individuals belonging to 
 the body politic. 
 
 Do we mean that they pass through the mind of 
 every individual and of every individual equally? 
 Surely not. In every community there is a part 
 which has ordinarily no share in those movements 
 which constitute political vitality. In many com- 
 munities this part is infinitely larger than the part 
 which is disturbed by them. Imagine the condition 
 of the Russian population for many centuries. Serfs 
 scattered through the villages of an enormous terri- 
 tory, they had not only no part in, but no conception 
 of, that which to foreign statesmen constituted Russia. 
 A few nobles, a few soldiers, a few ecclesiastics, and 
 the Czar, these together made up the politically 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 341 
 
 active part of Eussia ; all the rest had its place in the 
 organisation of the family and of the Church, but 
 politically it was, at ordinary times, altogether inert. 
 
 In such a state aristocracy is not only real, but is, 
 as it were, the chief reality. It arises not by con- 
 trivance, not out of a theory that some qualifications 
 are necessary, not out of any design on the part of 
 the rich to exclude the poor in order that they may 
 have more freedom to oppress them ; it arises in- 
 evitably and naturally. The population falls of itself 
 into two parts. On the one side are seen those who 
 have thoughts and feelings about the public welfare ; 
 on the other are those who have no such thoughts 
 and feelings. In one sense all are included in the 
 state, for the state protects all and imposes duties 
 upon all. But one of these two classes is normally 
 passive; nothing, therefore, can prevent the other 
 from monopolising public affairs. For purposes of 
 action, or in the eyes of foreign statesmen, these active 
 citizens are the state, and the passive class, often the 
 great mass of the population, do not count. 
 
 I have cited the extreme case of Eussia. Let me 
 cite another case in order to show that aristocracy of 
 this natural, necessary kind is by no means uncom- 
 mon. England at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century stood out as the most political country in 
 Europe — the country in which an interest in public 
 affairs was most widely diffused. Yet at that time 
 
342 INTKOD0CTION TO LECT. 
 
 not only the whole lower class, but a very large pro- 
 portion of the middle class, were excluded from the 
 franchise, and therefore had no share whatever in 
 the government of the country or in making the 
 government. Now, there was at that time nothing 
 artificial in this exclusion ; it caused no discontent ; 
 no cry was then raised for an extension of the fran- 
 chise. It would seem that the vast excluded class 
 acquiesced contentedly in its exclusion, and that it 
 was conscious of having no serious political opinions ; 
 and, indeed, on those rare occasions when it was 
 roused to express an opinion, as at Sacheverell's trial, 
 or when Walpole proposed his excise, it proved very 
 plainly that it was still minor, that it had not yet 
 come to political discretion. 
 
 The genesis of aristocracy then is this, that polit- 
 ical consciousness or the idea of the state comes to 
 some minds before it comes to others. Those mono- 
 polise all the powers of the state who alone enter 
 into its nature and understand it. These are the 
 good people. Such a development is perfectlj' 
 healthy in itself, and yet we can see that an aristoc- 
 racy must from the very moment of its birth be ex- 
 posed to the oligarchical corruption. These good 
 people are by no means saints. They have virtue 
 enough to sacrifice something for the commonwealth, 
 but they have acquired a monopoly, and they will 
 use it not quite solely for the public good, but also 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 343 
 
 for their own good and for that of their families. 
 Moreover, these more advanced spirits are likely to 
 be of one class. They will be of those to whom 
 wealth has given leisure, freedom of mind, and the 
 habit of dealing with large affairs. Thus aristocracy 
 and plutocracy come into existence together. They 
 are different aspects of the same thing, and if the 
 spirit of life passes away from an aristocracy, the 
 body which it animated does not dissolve ; it simply 
 becomes a plutocracy. 
 
 This view of the origin of aristocracy explains a 
 fact which strikes every one who studies history by 
 the comparative method. In general we find aristo- 
 cracy prevailing in the earlier period of a state.^ 
 Where democracy has prevailed in the end, as in 
 Athens and Florence, or the United States, aristo- 
 cracy has preceded it ; where in the end a moder- 
 ately liberal system has reigned, it has usually been 
 the result of a long straggle in which a more ex- 
 clusive system has been overthrown. So in ancient 
 Rome, where first the patricians and then the nobiles 
 monopolised power ; so in modern England. This is 
 the natural course of things if we suppose that the 
 state was created, as it were, by a minority in 
 whom political consciousness was first awakened, 
 but that the political life thus put in course of 
 
 ^ A pencil note suggests that the writer intended to qualify 
 this statement, so far as regards primitive tribal conditions. — Ed. 
 
344 INTEODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 development afterwards diffused itself through a 
 larger number. 
 
 When we compare one of these primitive states 
 with Athens under Cleon, or the United States under 
 Jefferson, we see that the difference between aristoc- 
 racy and democracy is real, and that some states 
 may be called aristocratic and others democratic. 
 At the same time the distinctions I have drawn, the 
 qualifications I have made, very much reduce the 
 importance of the contrast. To the popular view it 
 presents itself everywhere" in history, and the struggle 
 between the two systems seems to make a principal 
 part of the development of humanity. And true it 
 is that the oppression of tyrannous minorities has 
 been among the greatest plagues of humanity, but 
 these are not aristocracies, they are corrupt oligar- 
 chies or conquering hordes. A struggle which can 
 be strictly described as between aristocracy and 
 democracy is indeed very difiicult to find in history, 
 for it is the almost invariable characteristic of the 
 struggles which are commonly so described that the 
 democratic party declare their opponents to be no 
 true aristocracy but a mere oligarchy, to have no 
 real superiority, and if they ever had one to have 
 lost it. And in most cases they have been evidently 
 justified in saying that at least circumstances have 
 changed, that the rulers can no longer urge their 
 former claim of superior capacity, and that the 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 345 
 
 excluded class have outgrown their original incapacity. 
 To take the most obvious example from English 
 history. The aristocracy which in the seventeenth 
 century hardly encountered opposition consisted of 
 the landed gentry of the country. But about the 
 time of William III. there grew up a new class which 
 in wealth and intelligence, in everything which con- 
 stitutes political goodness, rivalled the landed gentry ; 
 this was the monied and merchant class of the city, 
 the magnates of the Bank, the India House, and the 
 South-Sea House. From this time the old aristoc- 
 racy is shaken, not because the principle of aristoc- 
 racy is called in question, but because the right of 
 the existing aristocracy to call itself an aristocracy is 
 denied. 
 
 And as it is not really aristocracy but oligarchy 
 that is attacked, so the attacking party does not seem 
 really democratical. Their argument is not that 
 there are no degrees of merit among men, that one 
 man is as good as another. Not only do they not 
 use this argument ; they use the opposite, they use 
 the aristocratical argument. They attack oligarchy 
 expressly because it is not aristocracy, not because it 
 is not democracy. They attack the false tests which 
 oligarchy applies to men, not because they think no 
 tests should be applied, but because they think that 
 the false tests prevent the application of the true 
 one. This will readily appear from an example. 
 
'346 INTRODUCTION TO LEor. 
 
 About thirty years ago the system of patronage was 
 abolished in our Civil Service and in our Indian 
 Service. This was spoken of as another step in the 
 destruction of aristocratic monopoly and in the 
 establishment of democratic freedom. Connection 
 then ceased to constitute a claim to office. In the 
 place of it was substituted the test of examination. 
 Now democracy — if it means the principle that one 
 man is as good as another — did not really gain' by this 
 change ; that would require that men should be chosen 
 by lot or in some sort of rotation. The change was 
 based on the principle that some men are better 
 than others, and that it is all-important to choose 
 the good and exclude the less good. It introduced 
 a new test on the ground that it was more searching 
 than the old. It rejected the old test on the ground 
 that it was ineffective, that it did not find out the 
 good nor sift out the bad, but introduced an artificial 
 invidious distinction. By this change then aristoc- 
 racy not democracy gained, oligarchy not aristocracy 
 suffered. 
 
 Objections have since been urged to the competi- 
 tive test which was then introduced, And every- 
 where in history we see that it has been found 
 infinitely difficult to contrive a test of political good- 
 ness which shall be at all satisfactory. But let us 
 make the supposition that this difficulty has been 
 surmounted. Let us suppose that some test better 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 347 
 
 than birth and wealth has been invented, by adopting 
 which the danger should be avoided of introducing 
 oligarchy under the name of aristocracy; and that 
 this test is also safe against the objections which are 
 urged against competitive examination. The result 
 would be that we should see for the first time pure 
 and true aristocracy ; and I think you will see that 
 every one would hail it with delight, and that it 
 would appear at once that all the invective against 
 aristocracy to which we have grown accustomed in 
 recent times is like a letter which has been mis- 
 directed; it ought to have been addressed to 
 oligarchy. 
 
 It results from all this that we can hardly expect 
 to find aristocratic and democratic states in history 
 sharply distinguished, or marked by palpable differ- 
 ences of organisation, such as those which may be 
 discovered in city- and country-states or in despotic 
 and constitutional states. Oligarchic states, such as 
 Venice, may have their golden book, their serrata del 
 gran consiglio. But aristocracy proper is a principle 
 which all states admit and in some degree practise, 
 and democracy is no negation of aristocracy, but only 
 of oligarchy. We can scarcely say then that there 
 are any characteristically aristocratic institutions. 
 At the utmost there is in some states a tinge or 
 complexion which is aristocratic, and in others a 
 tinge or complexion which is democratic. I will 
 
348 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 illustrate this by an example from ancient and 
 another from modern history. 
 
 In antiquity Athens represents democracy and 
 Eome aristocracy. The difference between them is 
 not to be mistaken, yet it is scarcely palpable 
 at any one point. In both states a great part 
 of the labouring class was relentlessly excluded from 
 political rights by the operation of slavery, in 
 both also citizenship was strictly guarded. In 
 both territories therefore the number of persons 
 absolutely excluded was great. So far both states 
 were aristocratic. On the other hand, in both states 
 the ultimate authority lay with vast popular 
 assemblies, in which every citizen had a place. In 
 both states the magistrates were frequently changed, 
 and no citizen was disqualified by station from hold- 
 ing a magistracy. So far both states were demo- 
 cratic. Where then lay the difference ? In Athens, 
 as G-rote has pointed out, the people inclined towards 
 high station, family, and wealth in filling the most 
 responsible posts. But in Eome they went much 
 further. After the primitive monopoly of the 
 patricians had been broken through by the plebeians 
 a new monopoly gradually grew up. The magistracies 
 were confined in practice to certain families, members 
 of which had already held magistracies. As a rule a 
 new man had no chance with the voters. Here no 
 doubt was aristocracy, corrupted with a strong taint 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE • 349 
 
 of oligarchy. But observe that it was a mere usage 
 and no law, that nothing could prevent the tiovus homo 
 from becoming a candidate, if he chose, nor the 
 people, if they chose, from electing him, and that 
 occasionally they exercised this right. 
 
 Again, the Senate was in the best sense an aristo- 
 cratic assembly. It consisted of those who had held 
 public office and therefore had experience of public 
 affairs. There was no assemblj' answering to this at 
 Athens, for the " Boull " had no aristocratic charac- 
 ter. Here, then, is something like a characteristic 
 aristocratic institution. The great authority, however, 
 which the Senate possessed was rather a matter of 
 usage than of positive law. The aristocratic feeling 
 of the community inclined them to leave to this 
 assembly much of the power which perhaps belonged 
 more strictly to the popular assemblies. 
 
 Lastly, we seem to see in the arrangement of 
 one of the great popular assemblies an expedient 
 adopted for the purpose of favouring birth and 
 wealth. In the comitia centuriata the people appear 
 as an army, and vote not individually but by cen- 
 turies, that is, military companies. As in the primi- 
 tive army the citizen provided his own armour, the 
 richer men, being alone in a condition to arm them- 
 selves completely, would occupy the front ranks. 
 The richer men therefore, the cavalry and the fully 
 armed infantry, were called up to vote before the 
 
350 INTRODUCTION TO LEor. 
 
 poorer men. And now observe what contrivance 
 was introduced. A. century properly consisted of a 
 hundred men, but it was arranged that the poor 
 centuries should be so much fewer and larger than 
 the rich, that the rich centuries should be a majority 
 of the whole number. The consequence was that in 
 this assembly the poor were powerless against the 
 rich. It is to be observed, however, that the poor 
 could take their revenge in the other assembly, the 
 comiiia tribufa, where there was no such restraint 
 upon the numerical majority ; and in the declining 
 period of the Roman aristocracy this more demo- 
 cratic assembly grows in power. 
 
 Now let us turn to modern times. Here we may 
 discover how an aristocratic state practically differs 
 from a democratic state by comparing the United 
 States with England as England was in the eighteenth 
 century, or by observing what changes have recently 
 been made in England itself, as England has become 
 more democratic. 
 
 Modern democracy differs from ancient mainly 
 in this, that it admits the labouring class. In the 
 United States you have not only universal suffrage, 
 not only inclusion of those who at Athens would 
 have been disqualified as slaves, but something still 
 more extreme^inclusion of the emancipated negroes, 
 that is, of an alien race which has not been prepared 
 for political life by the training and experience of 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 361 
 
 centuries, but has known only barbarism and slavery. 
 Compared to such comprehensiveness as this the 
 Athenian system hardly deserves to be called de- 
 mocracy. But the aristocratic principle has made 
 progress not less than the democratic. The in- 
 equality of men with respect to abilities is as much 
 clearer to us than it was to the ancients as their 
 equality in respect to certain primary rights. We 
 see with astonishment that both at Athens and 
 Rome one man was thought just as fit as another to 
 be a judge and even to command an army. To 
 become Praetor Urbanus, the Roman Lord Chancellor, 
 a man needed no special qualifications, and the 
 appointment went by popular election. Cleon, 
 apparently a mere civilian, noted only for his un- 
 sparing tongue and rancorous popular eloquence, is 
 put in command of an important expedition against 
 Brasidas. And if this strikes us as an example of 
 extreme democratic recklessness, look at what was 
 done in grave aristocratic Rome. In the last 
 extremity of the state, when Hannibal himself was 
 in the heart of Italy, and Rome was to send against 
 him what seemed her last army, she put it under the 
 command of a successful lawyer in rather a low kind 
 of practice, Terentius Varro, and forth it went to be 
 exterminated by the " dire African " on the field of 
 Cannee ! And to us it seems the height of ludicrous 
 satire to say of a civilian statesman that he would 
 
352 INTRODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 take the command of the Channel Fleet at a moment's 
 notice ! 
 
 You see, a new aristocratic principle has sprung 
 up which was unknown to those ancient states. 
 Special skill is now recognised. The superiority of 
 one man to another in this respect has become so 
 glaringly obvious, so utterly beyond dispute, that we 
 can scarcely now imagine a state in which it is 
 not acknowledged. Yet the principle is aristocratic. 
 And so as the United States is in one aspect far 
 more democratic than Athens, in another it is far 
 more aristocratic than Rome. For the country is 
 governed in the main by specialists. The President, 
 indeed, may be a man of no very special qualifications, 
 but he will select a Cabinet of specialists. The 
 Secretary of the Treasury will be a financier, the 
 Attorney-General will be a lawyer, and the army will 
 be under the command of a skilled military officer. 
 Elections by lot, armies commanded by lawyers, — 
 these are notions which have become inconceivable, 
 for however democratic we may be, we know at 
 least that men differ infinitely in special skill. 
 
 Thus in the executive government of the United 
 States the aristocratic principle prevails. It is recog- 
 nised that the government should be in the hands of 
 the best, and if in the list of Presidents some un- 
 worthy names are found, it is because universal 
 suffrage made a mistake, not because it was held that 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 353 
 
 for the office of President one man was as good as 
 another. 
 
 Again, in the United States the assemblies are 
 more aristocratic than at Athens or Kome, for they 
 are representative both in the Federation and in the 
 States. As I have said, a representative Parliament 
 is a kind of elective aristocracy. Where there is 
 payment of members, as in the United States, it is 
 true that the members need not be dravi^n from the 
 wealthy or cultivated class, but at the lowest repre- 
 sentatives are men who give up most of their time 
 to public affairs. Now at Athens and Eome the 
 assemblies consisted of men who hurried from their 
 business to the Assembly, and went back immediately 
 to their business again. That system assumed that 
 for deliberative purposes one man was as good as 
 another; but modern democracy, you will observe, 
 lays it down that the man who devotes himself to 
 public affairs is better for these purposes than the 
 man who does not; and this is an aristocratical 
 principle. 
 
 Lastly, the United States has borrowed from Rome 
 and England an institution which is avowedly aristo- 
 cratic, the Senate. The members of it have a longer 
 term, six years instead of two; they must reach a 
 certain standard of age, thirty years; and they are 
 chosen not by the people but by the State Legisla- 
 tures. All these restrictions are founded on thg 
 34 
 
354 INTKODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 aristocratical principle, that men are not equal, but 
 that some men are superior to others. 
 
 Our own system, as it has now become, is stiU in 
 several points more aristocratic than this. We have 
 not universal suffrage, but only household suffrage. 
 That is, a large number, in fact a great majority, of 
 English people have not yet any share in the govern- 
 ment of the country. Secondly, our members are 
 not paid. As the expense of elections has been 
 much reduced, this no longer means that only men 
 positively rich can, as a rule, have seats, but it does 
 mean that only men can sit who can command a 
 great deal of leisure for unprofitable work. It creates 
 an aristocracy of leisure. And thirdly, the persons 
 best qualified to fill the highest post, that of Prime 
 Minister, are found out by a most powerful and 
 singular process of natural selection extending over 
 a long time. 
 
 But in the last century we had a system which 
 might fairly be selected as the typical aristocracy of 
 the modern world, that is, as the type of that form 
 of government in which the aristocratic principle 
 overpowers the democratic. In the United States 
 we have seen the democratic principle asserted in a 
 manner so daring and impressive by the admission of 
 the negroes that in spite of all aristocratic checks 
 and exclusions which I was able to point out, we 
 cannot help calling the system on the whole a democ- 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 355 
 
 racy. The old English system was just as decidedly 
 an aristocracy. Like Eome, England has always had 
 one institution specially aristocratic, the House of 
 Lords. But it is less purely aristocratic and more 
 oligarchic than the Roman Senate. In the Senate all 
 the great magistrates sat as a matter of course ; in 
 the House of Lords this is as may happen, and 
 several of the most important Ministers are usually 
 not members of it. In the House of Lords, birth is 
 for the most part the absolute and only title to 
 membership, and this is rather oligarchy than aristoc- 
 racy : in the Senate there was no such rigid rule, 
 and birth did not by itself constitute a title, though 
 the Assembly as a whole consisted of noblemen. 
 
 But if England was an aristocracy in the eighteenth 
 century this was not chiefly on account of the House 
 of Lords. In the main it was the House of Commons, 
 not the House of Lords, that was the bulwark of 
 aristocracy. Here, again, aristocracy rather tinges 
 institutions than creates institutions peculiar to 
 itself. By the expense of elections, by the vast 
 influence of great land-owning families, by the 
 dependence of the smaller boroughs upon these 
 families, and by the exclusion of many of the largest 
 and richest towns, the House of Commons became a 
 House in no degree representing the lower classes, 
 but controlled mainly by the landed interest, which, 
 however, had to struggle against a certain infusion of 
 
356 INTKODUCTION TO LBOT. 
 
 the higher commerce. This was in the beginning a 
 moderately pure aristocracy, that is, the landed class 
 and higher commerce really contained at the outset 
 most of the political life of the community, but 
 throughout the eighteenth century it was always 
 growing less aristocratic and more oligarchic. It 
 preserved, however, to the last one highly honour- 
 able feature of a true aristocracy, viz. that the 
 owners of rotten boroughs often made an honest 
 search for rising ability, and introduced of set pur- 
 pose into the House most of those men who in the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century made it re- 
 nowned for oratory. From this circumstance comes 
 almost all the lustre which surrounds that period in 
 history. 
 
 Thus it is that now aristocracy, and now again 
 democracy, tinges the institutions of a state. But 
 though the rival watchwords " equality " and " quali- 
 fication " prevail more than almost any other watch- 
 words in party conflict, it can hardly be said that 
 they are of much use to us in classification. For 
 there is no real opposition of principle ; the question 
 is only " how much " ? If by some happy invention 
 that unlucky connection between aristocracy and 
 oligarchy could be broken once for all, if some test 
 of merit could be devised which should be acknow- 
 ledged as satisfactory and should not be so terribly 
 liable to perversion as the tests of birth and wealth, 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 357 
 
 the opposition would almost come to an end, and 
 democracy and aristocracy would meet together. 
 
 In classifying states we can only say that some 
 are aristocratic and others democratic, but that the 
 difference shows itself on the whole rather in colour 
 than in form. If there were any institution charac- 
 teristic of aristocracy, we should say it was the 
 Second Chamber. A senate, that is, an assembly of 
 old men; a witenagemot, that is, a meeting of the 
 wise — both are in principle strictly aristocratic, 
 equally opposed to democracy on the one side and to 
 oligarchy on the other. But so little does this 
 institution practically mark aristocratic states that at 
 the present day the most powerful and efficient 
 Second Chamber is to be found in the great typical 
 democracy ; it is the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Perhaps the most accurate statement would be 
 that there are three kinds of state, one in which the 
 democratic and aristocratic principles are reconciled 
 and balanced, and two in which one or other of them 
 preponderates. For, as I have insisted, there is no 
 opposition between the principles : there is only a 
 practical opposition of tendencies. And the dis- 
 tinction we have drawn between government and 
 government -making power points out how this 
 practical opposition may be prevented by assigning 
 to either principle its proper province. All the 
 democratical arguments, those powerful pleas for 
 
358 INTEODUOTION TO leot. 
 
 comprehensiveness, for the equal representation of all 
 rights and of all interests, do not really refer to govern- 
 ment but to the government-making power. Every 
 one would be glad that the poor and the weak should, 
 if possible, have some share in making the govern- 
 ment; nobody wishes that the poor or the weak 
 should themselves govern. On the other hand, the 
 aristocratical arguments refer mainly to government. 
 That government is a difficult art, that it requires 
 experience, special knowledge, high education, firm 
 character, and active intelligence, — all this is indis- 
 putable; it is less open to dispute now, though 
 democracy prevails, than it was in the aristocratic 
 ages — but it does not refer to the government-making 
 power. Without great skill, without high education 
 or enlightenment, men may either directly or through 
 representatives more skilled than themselves, take 
 part in making and unmaking the government. 
 
 But such a reconciliation of the two principles is of 
 course only feasible in states where the government- 
 making power has been developed, and has acquired 
 an organ, and in history such states are rarely met 
 with. In history, therefore, the principles commonly 
 shock against each other, and one excludes the other. 
 In primitive states, as we have seen, aristocracy com- 
 monly prevails because the people have not yet 
 acquired political consciousness. But political life is 
 itself an education, and in certain circumstances, if 
 
VII POLITICAL SCIENCE 359 
 
 the people are not brought into misery by chronic 
 war, a time comes when intelligence is widely diffused 
 and a certain degree of political consciousness be- 
 comes general. The same lapse of time which brings 
 this about usually suflBces to corrupt the ruling 
 aristocracy, and to turn it into a selfish and indolent 
 oligarchy. Then begins a democratic period. In the 
 former age the very notion of democracy seemed 
 absurd ; the very conception of government in the 
 hands of the people seemed ludicrous, as it does to 
 Homer when he poui's contempt on Thersites, to 
 Shakespeare when he paints for us Jack Cade, to 
 Corneille when he writes Le pire des Mats c'est I'dtat 
 populaire. Now, in this period, aristocracy becomes 
 just as inconceivable. Men's minds refuse to admit 
 the notion. "When you mention aristocracy they 
 think you mean oligarchy. When you talk of fitness, 
 of high qualification, of high character, they think 
 they recognise the world-old sophistries by which in 
 all ages poor people have been sacrificed to the rich, 
 and simple people have been hoodwinked by the 
 clever ; to them it is only the old story of Vexploitation 
 de I'homme par I'homme. 
 
 Nevertheless, in these very advanced periods, when 
 society has grown complex, the absolute necessity of 
 special skill in rulers forces itself more than ever upon 
 all eyes. The principle of aristocracy shows itself not 
 less great and momentous than the principle of 
 
360 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE LECT. VII 
 
 democracy. We know already that Ministers must be 
 specialists. The question is whether they ought not 
 to be much more. 
 
 But where a popular distinction is drawn between 
 the government and the government-making power, 
 these blind oscillations are no longer unavoidable. 
 "We may allow to democracy an almost unbounded 
 province in the government-making power, and yet 
 need not be precluded from maintaining that govern- 
 ment itself ought to be not less, but far more 
 aristocratical than in other ages ; that the vastness 
 of modern states and the complexity of modern life 
 calls for more intelligence, severer method, exacter 
 knowledge, and firmer character in government 
 itself than was required in any former period. 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 
 A COURSE of lectures can hardly have the complete- 
 ness of a treatise. I have undertaken to expound to 
 you political science, but I am compelled to stop 
 when more than half of it is still untouched, and 
 when all I can hope is that I may have sketched the 
 outline sufficiently, and given you suflBcient exempli- 
 fications of the method to enable you to carry further 
 the exposition for yourselves. 
 
 We have been occupied throughout with a single 
 task, that of classifying states. We have examined, 
 as it were, a number of specimens, marked the most 
 important differences, arranged them in classes accord- 
 ing to these differences, and given to each class a 
 name. We have done nothing more. Now this 
 seems to me a most important and necessary part 
 of any science of politics, but assuredly it is only 
 a part. At the opening of the course I laid it 
 down that such a science must necessarily have 
 two large divisions, of which the second would deal 
 with the mutual relations of states. This second 
 division we have left wholly untouched, and the 
 
362 INTRODUCTION TO lect. 
 
 first we are far enough from having treated com- 
 pletely. 
 
 I took pains at the outset to explain that in thus 
 treating political science I did not consider myself to 
 quit the subject of history. According to me the 
 historian when he investigates the great occurrences 
 of the past, verifying every particular, and arranging 
 them in the due relation of cause and effect, is only 
 preparing the materials from which a political science 
 may be formed ; and I also hold that the historian 
 ought not to confine himself to preparing materials 
 and leave it to the political philosopher to form the 
 science out of them, but that it is important that 
 he should undertake both functions equally, and that 
 there should be no division of labour between the 
 historian and the political philosopher. 
 
 I promised in these lectures to keep close to history, 
 and I think I have kept my word. I have built up 
 no imaginary state, I have used no h priori method. 
 I have not made the theory first and afterwards 
 applied it to the facts. My method has been to look 
 abroad among the states which history puts before us, 
 to compare one vsdth another, and take a note of the 
 largest resemblances and the most striking differences. 
 We have not indeed confined ourselves to the regis- 
 tration of obvious facts. We have found on the 
 contrary much occasion for thought and reasoning. 
 But the reasoning has not been speculative. It has 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 363 
 
 been employed mainly in removing the misunder- 
 standings and illusions which in this subject more 
 than in any other are caused by laxity and popular 
 recklessness in the use of words. 
 
 I have, in short, regarded states as science regards 
 plants and animals, but I have treated them, not 
 exactly as plants and animals are treated by the 
 physiologist, but rather as plants are treated by the 
 botanist and animals by the zoologist. If I have 
 been successful, I have enabled you when, as it 
 were, a new state is put before you, at once to name 
 it by a precise name, just as the botanist can name a 
 flower at sight, and can give it not merely its popular 
 name, but the descriptive name which it has in the 
 botanical system. 
 
 All names are of the nature of an abridged notation. 
 The words " dog" or " horse,'' every time that we use 
 them, save us the trouble of a long description. In 
 dealing scientifically with states the first important 
 step is taken when we furnish ourselves with a stock 
 of such general names for the varieties of states. As 
 yet only a few such names have come into general 
 use, such as monarchy, republic, federation, etc. I 
 have made it my business both to subject these to 
 criticism in order to remove any vagueness that may 
 hang about them, and also to add new names. The 
 result ought to be that we should find ourselves able 
 to describe the states and to narrate the developments 
 
364 INTKODUOTION TO LECT. 
 
 and revolution of states in history at once with far 
 greater brevity and vrith far greater precision. 
 
 Perhaps, then, I cannot close this series of lectures 
 more usefully than by showing in such a rapid sketch 
 as I have time for how these names may be used in 
 narrating history. I will take the large outline of 
 history as it is known to us all, not attempting here 
 to criticise or alter or supplement it — not dealing 
 with the new matter introduced by Egyptologists or 
 Assyriologists or Vedists — but simply telling the old 
 tale in the new language which we have now provided 
 ourselves with. You will understand that I must 
 not waste a word. 
 
 We find then, first, several small communities on 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, some speaking 
 Greek, others Latin or kindred languages, and one 
 farther east speaking a Semitic language. By com- 
 paring the half-effaced primitive history of some of 
 these with the Hebrew history, which in outline is 
 considerably clearer for the early period, we find all 
 alike in the condition of tribes and all alike power- 
 fully shaped by religious beliefs. The religious or 
 theocratic influence emanating from temples modifies 
 the tribes, frequently uniting them into leagues. A 
 number of societies spring up, in which as yet there 
 are few political institutions, but strong clans and 
 highly organised ecclesiastical institutions. The tribe 
 passes, everywhere in a certain degree, and in some 
 
vm POLITICAL SCIENCE 365 
 
 cases decidedly, into the theocracy. These small 
 societies press upon each other by continual war, 
 and the pressure calls into existence kingship and 
 organised government, but this organisation long 
 continues rudimentary. 
 
 Thus the theocracy develops into the state. But 
 these states are here for the most part city-states, 
 which are found in cognate groups, the sense of 
 kindred and the common religion holding a number 
 of them together in a union at once moral and lin- 
 guistic but not political. Meanwhile outside the area, 
 for the most part mountainous, of these communities, 
 there have grown up to the eastward of Iran in the 
 table-land and in the Mesopotamian river-valley states 
 of a different type and on a larger scale. The pres- 
 sure of these begins at last to be felt : the Hebrew 
 states are dissolved, and the Hebrew communities 
 conquered, but after their ruin as states they remain 
 as a theocracy. The Greek city-states succeed with 
 great difficulty in repelling the first attack from a 
 country-state. The Persian is repelled, but somewhat 
 later they succumb to another attack of the same 
 kind made from the north by the country-state of 
 Macedonia. 
 
 Westward, however, the city-state has a different 
 fortune. ' Italy is not tried by such formidable 
 invasions as Greece or Syria. North of the Alps the 
 populations remain chiefly in the tribal stage, capable 
 
366 INTEODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 only of barbaric inroads, not of organised attack. 
 Accordingly the Italian cities are not subjugated by 
 the foreigner. But their mutual pressure continues. 
 As in Greece we see sometimes one city, sometimes 
 another, Athens or Sparta or Thebes, taking pre- 
 cedence of the rest, so in Italy. But here the power- 
 ful city-state of Eome advances steadily in power and 
 overcomes all rivalry. All the other Italian cities 
 and tribes are either conquered or forced into de- 
 pendent allowance by her. The result is a kind of 
 federation which, though widely different in organisa- 
 tion, is equal in military power to the great country- 
 states. This quasi-federal union when tried by in- 
 vasion, invaded first by Pyrrhus, then by the mighty 
 military power of Hannibal, practically king of Spain 
 and almost king of Carthage, issued triumphant from 
 the probation. 
 
 The one word city-state explains the catastrophe 
 which overtook the whole eastern side of the antique 
 world. The city-state is necessarily no match in war 
 for the organised country -state. That the western 
 side escaped this fate is due to the union of Italy 
 under the strong leadership of Rome. 
 
 The strong and victorious West now stands side 
 by side with the subjugated East. 
 
 Our principle was that conquest calls into exist- 
 ence the inorganic state. This being generally large 
 in size and at the same time extremely low in vitality, 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 367 
 
 is almost always weak. AH military empires, after a • 
 little time has passed, begin to wear a corpse-like 
 appearance. This weakness showed itself first in 
 the great Persian Empire. When the Macedonian 
 country-state was consolidated by Philip, it saw 
 feeble city-states southward, and this decrepit in- 
 organic Empire to the east. It struck down one 
 after the other; Philip subdued Greece, Alexander 
 subdued Persia. But the Macedonian empires which 
 thus arose were inorganic too, and they too in a few 
 generations became decrepit. 
 
 Eome had united Italy in like manner by war, 
 but the result here was not in like manner inorganic. 
 The Italian states were cognate, and the word 
 conquest does not fairly describe the process by 
 which Eome united them : Eoman Italy was in- 
 comparably stronger than the inorganic East. In a 
 series of campaigns of which the issue could not be 
 doubtful, Scipio, Flamininus, PauUus, Mummius, 
 LucuUus, Pompey, acquire for Eome most of the 
 Empire of Alexander. 
 
 The explanation of all these changes lies in the 
 single word "inorganic." 
 
 But the great Italian federation was just as much 
 superior in force to its western as to its eastern 
 neighbours. Hitherto the countries now called Spain, 
 France, England, and Germany had produced no 
 political fabric of any solidity. They had neither 
 
368 INTRODUCTION TO LECT. 
 
 city-states nor strong country-states. We are to 
 imagine them, I conceive, as in the tribal stage, though 
 in Gaul and Britain a theocratic system, Druidism, 
 was considerably developed. In parts of this region 
 the population was not yet firmly attached to any 
 definite territory. Migration is the great feature of 
 German history in particular from the earliest times 
 for a thousand years. German tribes frequently pass 
 out of Germany westward, as at an earlier time 
 Gallic tribes had left Gaul for the south — and foreign 
 races at intervals penetrate into Germany from the 
 east. In this fluid condition of society the western 
 nations are strong only in short spasmodic efforts. 
 Rome in its early days was once submerged in a 
 Gallic inundation, and in its greatness was more than 
 once endangered by movements in the tribes beyond 
 the Alps ; but in their ordinary condition those tribes 
 were no more capable of resisting Roman power than 
 the inorganic states of the East. Spain, Gaul, and 
 ultimately the chief part of Britain, shared the fate 
 of Alexander's empire. Here the word "tribal" 
 furnishes the explanation, as there the word "in- 
 organic." 
 
 Within Italy Rome could conquer without pro- 
 ducing an inorganic state. She could not quite do 
 this when her conquests extended over the whole 
 coast of the Mediterranean sea. The government of 
 the provinces was for a long time terribly inorganic. 
 
VHI POLITICAL SCIENCE 369 
 
 In the last century and a half of the republic pro- 
 consuls and propraetors resembled the satraps of 
 Persia or the pashas of Turkey. The Roman Empire 
 showed at once the two characteristic features of the 
 inorganic state, large extent and low vitality. The 
 task of defending so vast a frontier was felt to be 
 overwhelming. It became necessary to differentiate 
 a special organ for the purpose, and a vast standing 
 army began to form itself. But this standing army 
 reflected the low vitality of the Empire ; it was poly- 
 glot, half barbarous. Moreover, to direct institu- 
 tions that were on so vast a scale the old constitution 
 of Eome, the minature system of a city-state, became 
 wholly insufficient. Hence a great change ripened in 
 the Roman Empire. A new officer commanding the 
 vast army and responsible for the frontier had to be 
 introduced. His power necessarily effaced the old 
 magistrates of the city-state, nor was it found possible 
 to subject it to the government-making organ which 
 had been developed for those magistracies. The 
 government-making power became latent. Despotism 
 set in, and along with it a peculiar form of oligarchy. 
 The army had now gained an ascendency in the state ; 
 the despotism was at the same time imperialism ; and 
 though the best emperors studied to balance the 
 military influence by the influence of the Senate, yet 
 in the end, from the beginning of the third century 
 after Christ, militarism tinged everything. In the 
 2b 
 
370 INTEODUCTION TO LBCT. 
 
 inorganic state military despotism is the favourite 
 form of government : the vast Roman Empire was, as 
 it were, half organic, and therefore found this form 
 suitable. 
 
 For the first time Eome had introduced a firm 
 political organisation into the regions beyond the 
 Alps. In Gaul and Britain the germ of native 
 civilisation was crushed ; Druidism disappeared, the 
 Celtic language died out in the greater part of 
 Gaul. Gaul was Latinised in language, religion, 
 everything. But in Germany Rome received a 
 serious check, and was compelled to make the Rhine 
 the limit of her conquests. The German tribes, 
 though unconquered, found themselves thus on this 
 side subjected henceforth at once to a firm pressure 
 and to a stimulating influence. In the second 
 century after Christ they begin to show signs of 
 political development caused by this pressure. The 
 old German tribes disappear, larger and more 
 solid political unions, Alemanns, Saxons, Franks, 
 Goths, take their place. But there is not only no 
 city-state, but not even any considerable city, in 
 Germany. Hence the Germans are peculiarly liable 
 to invasion, having no fortified posts, and though the 
 Romans no longer try to subdue them, they continue 
 to be attacked from the East. For they are still in 
 the main tribal, and the tribe is weak. 
 
 This want of fortified posts in Germany led now to 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 371 
 
 the great revolutions virhich we call the migration of 
 nations. Pressed from the East by the ^invasion of 
 the Asiatic Huns, and also by the advance of the 
 Slavonic tribes, Germany threw itself upon the Roman 
 Empire. First, the more Eastern Germanic tribes, 
 the Gpths and Vandals, spread like a wave over the 
 West, and set up kingdoms in Spain, Southern Gaul, 
 Africa, and Italy. The Empire was much transformed 
 by this immigration, which, however, produced no 
 durable states. The Germanic kingdoms of Italy and 
 Africa were destroyed again after a century by the 
 imperial armies under Belisarius and Narses, nor did 
 the Gothic kingdom of Spain last much longer. But 
 a second wave of migration took place in the second 
 half of the fifth century, which had more durable 
 results. The Alemanns occupied Switzerland, Alsace, 
 and Baden, the Franks entered Gaul from the North, 
 and the Saxons occupied the greater part of Britain. 
 
 The Empire submitted to so much invasion because 
 it laboured under the feebleness of a half-organic 
 state. But it partly roused itself by two successive 
 efforts. Large empires fall naturally under the head 
 of weak federations, that is, the central power in 
 them is so weak compared to the local power that 
 they are almost paralysed. Such was the Eoman 
 Empire in the middle of the third century — the time 
 of the so-called Thirty Tyrants. Two reformers, 
 Diocletian and Constantine, by a great achievement 
 
372 INTEODTJCTION TO lbot. 
 
 of centralisation, changed it from a weak federation 
 into a strong one ; — thougli it did not become vigor- 
 ous enough to resist finally the Germanic invaders. 
 
 This was, as it were, a mechanical remedy, but the 
 disease was moral. The Empire being founded on 
 force was essentially inorganic — it was morally dead. 
 Nevertheless, it contained within it a vast fund of 
 spiritual life, the whole treasure of ancient civilisation. 
 We have analysed the vitality of a state, and found 
 that the principal element in it is religion. Living 
 states must first be theocracies. Now at this moment 
 the Roman Empire found a religion. It became 
 Christian and Catholic. Henceforward it can no 
 longer be called inorganic. The theocratic or 
 hierarchic period of Europe begins. In this great 
 regeneration the Empire begins to fall into two halves, 
 the Western becomes distinct from the Eastern Empire, 
 and gradually this distinctness extends to the religion 
 of the Empire ; the Latin Church separates itself from 
 the Greek. 
 
 The new vitality which the Empire derived from 
 religion made it aggressive in the moral order 
 at the very time that it suffered military invasion. 
 The conquering Franks and Saxons became Christians 
 and in the religious sense Roman, and the Saxons of 
 England in their first zeal carried the moral triumphs 
 of Rome into Germany itself. 
 
 But the appearance of a world-religion and its 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 373 
 
 prodigious political effect provoked imitation. A 
 new world-religion, composed partly out of the same 
 materials, appeared in Arabia, and founded a vast 
 number of states hanging together in a loose federa- 
 tion. Soon the world was divided between two rival 
 communities, half political, half religious, Christendom 
 and Islam, the wars of which, — first aggressive on the 
 Mohammedan side, when Syria, Egypt, Africa, and 
 Spain were lost to Christianity, then on the Christian 
 side in the Crusades, then again on the Mohammedan 
 side in the conquest of Greece, Bulgaria, and Con- 
 stantinople by the Turks, then again on the Christian 
 side in the victorious campaigns of Prince Eugene and 
 the Russians,' — fill a thousand years. 
 
 The key to all this is in the view we have taken 
 of religion as a principal element in political life, of 
 the theocracy as an early phase of the state. 
 
 The great Christian theocracy might, according to 
 this rule, 'have been expected to develop into a great 
 Christian state, or rather, since schism had taken 
 place between the Latin and Greek Churches, into 
 two Christian states. And this seemed for a long time 
 not unlikely. The Western Empire was revived in 
 the name of the Christian Church. First, Charles 
 the Great at the head of the Franks, and later Otto 
 at the head of the Saxons, give form and shape 
 to the theocratic Empire, the Holy Eoman Empire. 
 The Frankish House repels the Saracen in France, the 
 
374 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 Saxon House saves Europe from the Magyar. But 
 beyond these rudiments the Christian state will not 
 advance. This was owing to the great size of the 
 territory and the barbaric feebleness of the age in 
 political construction. This feebleness is expressed 
 in the system of feudalism, which gives to all govern- 
 ment the form of an extremely loose federation. The 
 Emperor himself, and the kings who reigned in 
 particular parts of Europe, have at this time little 
 practical power; the only real government existing 
 is the rude despotism of the fief. At the moment 
 when development was thus arrested, when the 
 universal Christian state was still feeble, there broke 
 out a fatal discord between the representative of this 
 state, the Emperor, and the representative of the 
 theocracy underlying it, viz. the Pope. This discord, 
 begun by Hildebrand in the eleventh century, raged 
 for more than two centuries, and was fatal to the 
 unity of Christendom. 
 
 Political development thus arrested turns aside 
 into another channel. Since Christendom as a whole 
 cannot develop, the separate parts begin to do so. 
 The tribal feeling or sense of kindred, which lies at 
 the root of all politics, but had been repressed in the 
 Roman Empire, begins to revive. But it takes now a 
 peculiar shape. The modern nation, of which the 
 peculiar badge is language, springs up. Europe, 
 which has hitherto regarded itself as a single theocratic 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 375 
 
 Empire, begins in the Crusades to appear as a brother- 
 hood of nations, and among the Christian princes the 
 Emperor has now at the utmost the precedence of an 
 Agamemnon. 
 
 The growth of the nation-state within the frame- 
 work of the theocratic Empire was an affair of 
 centuries. Nation-states had been perhaps known to 
 antiquity, but when they were prosperous they 
 commonly soon lost their character by undertaking 
 conquest, and were merged in inorganic empires. 
 Now, nation-states grew side by side, checking each 
 other, as city-states had done in ancient Greece. 
 France and Germany had begun to fall asunder as early 
 as the ninth century. The growth of France was now 
 favoured by the Popes, who leaned on her in their 
 contest with the Emperor, and who destroyed by the 
 crusade against the Albigenses the germ of an 
 independent state in the south of her territory. Eng- 
 land, first united in her struggle with the Danes, now 
 owed much to her insular, and Spain much to her 
 peninsular, position. In the thirteenth century 
 national legislators appear, Frederick II., Alphonso, 
 St. Louis, and Edward I. Soon after national litera- 
 tures begin to show vigour. But when the nucleus 
 of each nationality is formed two great problems 
 remain to be solved. One is to fix the frontier of 
 each nation ; this cannot be done without an infinity 
 of wars ; the other is to develop out of the machinery 
 
376 INTRODUCTION TO IBOT. 
 
 of thfi theocratic Empire in its feudal period an 
 organisation whicli shall be suitable to the nation-state. 
 
 The Crusades in the twelfth century show us the 
 European Commonwealth of nations in its Homeric 
 phase, still chaotic ; at the end of the fifteenth century, 
 in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VH., 
 Louis Xn., and Maximilian, the outlines and forms 
 of the leading European nation-states have become 
 distinct. England and France have settled their long 
 quarrel, Spain is united and has expelled the Moor, 
 the Burgundian middle-state has fallen, the independ- 
 ence of the Swiss cantons is secure. 
 
 In the sixteenth century follows the final dissolu- 
 tion of the old imperial and theocratic framework. 
 Charles V. makes a last attempt to revive the universal 
 Christian Empire. In doing so he revives the irre- 
 concilable enmity of the Popes. The old G-uelf and 
 Ghibelline discord, which two centuries earlier had 
 arrested the development of united Europe, now 
 breaks in two the Universal Church. Pope and 
 Emperor are so suspicious of each other that they 
 cannot unite to put down heresy, which accordingly 
 establishes itself in several states. Nation-churches 
 spring up. Eome, the centre of theocratic unity, is 
 treated with complete disregard by England^with 
 respect, but still with independence, by France. 
 Spain and the Empire remain in close connection with 
 her, but the Guelf-Ghibelline discord still secretly 
 
vill POLITICAL SCIENCE 377 
 
 smoulders, and Spain, professing to obey Rome, in 
 reality rather dictates to her. 
 
 The nation-states are now fairly founded, their 
 distinctness and independence established, but their 
 form of government is still a survival from the 
 theocratic time. It is borrowed from the fief. 
 Eulers have the character of landowners ; they con- 
 sider the state they govern as a landed estate which 
 they possess. Kingdoms accordingly descend to 
 heirs like so much property, and as in many countries 
 female succession is admitted, states find themselves 
 united together in the most arbitrary way as the 
 effect of a marriage. Early in the sixteenth century 
 this strange cause threatened once more to destroy 
 the brotherhood of nation-states, and to revive the 
 universal empire under Charles V. It had also, how- 
 ever, accidentally good effects ; as it had created Spain 
 by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, so now 
 by uniting England and Scotland it gradually created 
 Great Britain. After the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century the problem for the nation-state is to develop 
 a national out of a feudal organisation. The old 
 system necessarily tended to become despotic, as soon 
 as it ceased to be feeble. There could not be a govern- 
 ment-making organ where government was regarded 
 as landownership, subject to a fixed rule of succession. 
 In the religious wars of the sixteenth century this 
 system was first broken through. A state came into 
 
378 INTRODUCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 existence which had a government-making organ. In 
 the United Provinces the government was sometimes 
 in the hand of a Stadtholder, who resembled a king 
 in this, that he was always taken from one family ; 
 sometimes it was in several hands, but in either case 
 there was a government-making organ — rude, but 
 effective. In the first half of the seventeenth century 
 the attempt was made to introduce a similar system in 
 England and France. In England there was apparent 
 success. The Parliament destroyed the government 
 of Charles I., but did not succeed in establishing a 
 satisfactory system. In the heat of the struggle the 
 power passed to the army; a class-state, an imperialism, 
 was set up ; and the nation in the end became pro- 
 foundly dissatisfied. About the same time the 
 Stadtholderate, or more monarchical form, was 
 abolished in Holland. But here, and still more in 
 France, the experiment failed. The attempt made in 
 the Fronde to set up the Parliament of Paris against 
 the King proved the absolute impossibility of adapting 
 the old institutions of France to the purpose now con- 
 templated, and in Holland it was found that nothing 
 short of the Stadtholderate was adequate in time of 
 war. Accordingly the second half of the seventeenth 
 century is a time of Restoration, not in England only, 
 but in Holland also, and in France where Louis XIV. 
 appears as the impersonation of hereditary despotism. 
 So much for reaction ; but development, too, has a 
 
VIH POLITICAL SCIENCE 379 
 
 memorable triumph at this time in the English 
 Eevolution of 1688, by which the government-making 
 organ is solidly established, and which serves as a 
 model soon after for the less successful constitutional 
 experiments of Sweden and Poland. 
 
 Hereditary monarchy is demoralised by its great 
 successes in the age of Louis XIV. It degenerates 
 into Sultanism, and leads to chronic wars of ambition 
 and prodigious financial waste. A fund of revolu- 
 tionary discontent is gradually stored up, and now for 
 the first time Europe looks on at the spectacle of the 
 creation of a new state from the beginning. In 
 America the government-making organ is seen openly 
 at work, and a successful government is called into 
 existence. This ripens at once the development, so 
 long delayed, of Europe. The process is begun in 
 France, which leads indeed to unparalleled confusions 
 and calamities, but does at least develop in France 
 the government -making organ. Meanwhile by a 
 circuitous process, England, without disturbance, has 
 completed the work she began at the Eevolution, 
 reconciling by the contrivance of a responsible Minister 
 the effective working of the government-making organ 
 with hereditary monarchy. The two models, the 
 American and the English, have since been imitated 
 in most other states of Europe. 
 
 Finally, the last trace of the ancient theocratic 
 system has been removed. The nation-state, estab- 
 
380 INTKODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 lished everywhere else, had not yet entered Germany 
 or Italy, that is, the countries of the Emperor and the 
 Pope. By the revolutions of 1860 and 1866 Italy 
 and Germany have been set up by the side of the 
 other nation-states of Europe. 
 
 I hope you see why I have made this long re- 
 capitulation. I have tried to tell almost the whole 
 history of the world in half an hour, simply that you 
 may see what is the practical use of those general 
 names which I have collected and distinguished with 
 so much care in these lectures. History is commonly 
 regarded as a sort of ocean, an immense magazine of 
 miscellaneous facts which no memory can retain, a 
 labyrinth in which the mind loses itself. It is my 
 iixed belief that the study of it can never be profitable 
 so long as it keeps this unlimited, miscellaneous, 
 labyrinthine character. My object has been to fur- 
 nish you with something which may serve as a clue 
 to the labyrinth. 
 
 I began by laying it down that though the number 
 and variety of occurrences which in some sense may 
 be called historical is well-nigh infinite, yet history 
 proper is only concerned with one class of phenomena, 
 viz. those political groups which human beings seem 
 almost everywhere to form. Within these groups, 
 and under the shelter of their organisation or in the 
 conflict between them, no doubt almost everything 
 memorable that human beings have done has been 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 381 
 
 done. But tisfcory proper is concerned not primarily 
 with the individuals composing the groups or their 
 memorable achievements, but with the groups them- 
 selves, their development and organisation, their 
 unions and collisions, and with individuals only so far 
 as they have affected that development, that organisa- 
 tion, those unions, and those collisions. 
 
 This principle, if it were admitted, would at once 
 alter the appearance of history. It would remove 
 from the mass of facts all its unmanageable infinite- 
 ness and miscellaneousness. 
 
 But I advance another step. These political 
 groups themselves seem at first sight bewildering by 
 their variety and by the variety of their combinations. 
 I say then, this is an illusion. No doubt there are 
 infinite individual differences, as they say a shepherd 
 can distinguish every sheep in his flock from the 
 others. But these differences are insignificant com- 
 pared to the resemblances. The number of kinds of 
 state, the number of phases in the development of a 
 state is limited, more limited perhaps than we might 
 suppose. We have tried to distinguish these kinds, 
 using the method of observation and comparison, and 
 avoiding all h priori construction. I have not had 
 time for a classification by any means complete. 
 Doubtless you can add to the list we have made 
 other, perhaps many other, kinds. My object has 
 been rather to suggest to you how classification 
 
382 INTRODUCTION TO lbot. 
 
 ought to be done, and to give you samples of the 
 process, than to do the necessary work of classification 
 completely for you. Still we have made out a list 
 sufficiently long, attending, moreover, principally to 
 those kinds which occur most frequently in history. 
 If my method is really useful, I ought to be able to 
 show, even with the general names we have collected, 
 that history begins to look really less confused, that 
 we have acquired some sort of clue to the labyrinth. 
 This is why I have taken you to-day with such 
 breathless speed through almost the whole length 
 and through the most crowded part of the history of 
 the world, from the primitive tribal period of antiquity 
 to the revolutions which have happened in our own 
 time. 
 
 If I had had more time at my disposal I should 
 have devoted two or three lectures at least to this 
 review of history. But I hope that my hasty recapit- 
 ulation may serve the purpose I had in view. It 
 strikes me that the current, the generally accepted 
 classification, throws light only upon one or two 
 detached pieces of history. Monarchy and republic, 
 aristocracy and democracy, are words which no doubt 
 are very useful in the history of Greece and Eome, 
 and again in the last century or two of modern 
 history. In the long intervening period they are 
 useful perhaps when we are dealing with the Italian 
 Eepublics. But in the rest of history, and it is much 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 383 
 
 the larger part, they are of little use. For, first, 
 primitive or barbarous politics cannot be described 
 by these vi^ords; the traveller in Asia or Africa or 
 Polynesia gets little help from them ; English obser- 
 vers of Hindoo society and Hindoo history seldom 
 want them. Secondly, the student who brings to 
 history no categories but these is disconcerted by 
 finding himself constantly confronted with religion. 
 Religion itself, the promulgation of new religions, the 
 struggle of rival religions, fills a large part of history, 
 and in another very large part what we call politics 
 have a strongly religious tinge. We are driven to 
 evade this difficulty by distinguishing two kinds of 
 history, secular and ecclesiastical. But nothing can 
 be more nugatory than this distinction. Nothing 
 can be more false than the notion that you can give 
 a complete account of the state without mentioning 
 religion, that the state is a secular institution, and 
 only the Church a religious one. Once more, this 
 accepted classification leaves out of account all em- 
 pires in which a number of nations are brought 
 together by conquest. Yet the Roman Empire in old 
 time, and the Turkish Empire more recently, are 
 examples sufficient to show how important in history 
 these phenomena of conquest are. 
 
 We should see more clearly the miserable in- 
 adequacy of this classification if we did not confuse 
 ourselves by mixing up what is or has been with 
 
384 INTEODXJCTION TO LEOT. 
 
 what we think ought to be. Primitive states are 
 neglected ; true ; but then they are barbarous. The 
 phenomena of conquest are neglected; true; but 
 let us hope that the progress of humanity will more 
 and more make war and conquest obsolete. Religious 
 phenomena are neglected ; true ; it is sadly true that 
 in past ages the beauty of tolerance was little under- 
 stood, that it was not then recognised that " religion 
 is an affair between man and his Maker " ; but why 
 revive now the memory of these wretched disputes ? 
 
 So long as we reason in this way it is evident that 
 we can have no political science that will serve as a 
 clue to history. The principal object of my rapid 
 review of history has been to show you that by 
 taking pains to supply these defects instead of 
 apologising for them We can obtain such a clue. For 
 this purpose, of all the categories we have collected 
 the most important are these three — tribal, theocratic, 
 and inorganic. Mainly by the help of these we can 
 fill up the gaps which the popular classification leaves, 
 and bring the whole of history, and not merely a few 
 detached parts of it, under the light of method. 
 
 I hope that some of those who have listened to me 
 will weigh these suggestions of mine, and so far as 
 they deserve it, develop them. Upon this generation 
 of students evidently is laid the task of finding for 
 history its proper place both in science and in educa- 
 tion. The study has reached a critical point. Never 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 385 
 
 was it regarded with so mucli interest and curiosity. 
 Never was it prosecuted with so mucli zeal, or by so 
 large an army of investigators. But there is a 
 hindrance, a hitch, which is caused mainly just by 
 the interesting and popular character of the study. 
 Abstract and abstruse studies, as they want the 
 stimulus of popularity, so are exempt from this 
 hindrance. They are left in the hands of the few 
 people who have a taste for them, and who, being left 
 to themselves, have no temptation to leave the right 
 path. But of the vast number of those who take a 
 strong interest in history more than half have no 
 scientific object at all. Some are antiquarians and 
 collectors of curiosities, some are romancers, some are 
 professional men, lawyers or ecclesiastics ; the vast 
 majority have a literary rather than a scientific habit 
 of mind. All these are tempted, and tempt others 
 away from the straight path of science. They have 
 other objects. This one looks in history for food for 
 the poetic sense, that one for patriotism, another for 
 art, another wants useful information. Even of those 
 who have a scientific object some find in history the 
 materials for one science, others for another. And 
 the best intellects that devote themselves to history 
 end in becoming rather great scholars than great 
 scientists. 
 
 Just at this moment it seems to me all-important 
 that the student of history should bethink himself, 
 2c 
 
386 INTRODUCTION TO leot. 
 
 should make up Ms mind what he wants and what 
 he means to do. The questions to be answered are 
 such as these : Is there a science at the bottom of 
 history ? Are there several sciences ? If several, 
 does one stand out as more properly historical than 
 the rest t 
 
 Next, in what relation does history stand to these 
 sciences'! If history purveys the facts which the 
 science is to generalise, is it right that one class of 
 students should be devoted exclusively to collecting 
 the facts and another to generalising them? Or 
 should the historical student be, as a rule, at the 
 same time an investigator of facts and a theoretic 
 reasoner. 
 
 You see how we answer these questions. We find 
 at the bottom of history a Political Science, and we 
 would place all historical investigation, as it were, 
 under the guidance and government of this science. 
 
 But the science is still in the making ; we cannot 
 yet refer to satisfactory text-books. In these circum- 
 stances some will doubt whether such a science exists 
 or can be formed, and many will prefer the old path 
 of mere erudition, of investigation for investigation's 
 sake, of collecting facts by endless research and 
 housing them in scholarly books without asking for 
 any principle which might bring the confused heap 
 into order. 
 
 The moment, therefore, I say, is critical, and in 
 
VIII POLITICAL SCIENCE 387 
 
 these lectures on political science which I now bring 
 to a close I have cast my seed upon the waters, 
 hoping that in the work which will be done in the 
 next few years by the rising teachers of history in 
 this University I shall find it after many days. 
 
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