m 
 
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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
 HN389 .B82 
 
 The coining polit 
 
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 3 1924 032 577 458 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032577458 
 
THE MAKING OF THE 
 W FUTURE 
 
 THE COMING POLITY 
 
THE MAKING OF THE . 
 FUTURE 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford 
 
 THE COMING POLITY: A Study in Recon- 
 struction. By the Editors. 
 
 IDEAS AT WAR. By Prof. Geddes and 
 Dr. Gilbert Slater. ' 
 
 HUMAN GEOGRAPHY IN WESTERN 
 EUROPE. % Prof. H. J. Fleurb. 
 
 SOCIAL FINANCE. By Charles Ferguson. 
 
 UNIVERSITY AND CITY : A Study in 
 
 Personality and Citizenship. By the Editors-. . 
 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE : A Study, 
 
 in Rural Developmeiit. By Harold Peakb 
 
 and others. 
 
 WESTMINSTER, TEMPORAL AND 
 SPIRITUAL: An Interpretative Siirvey. 
 Illustrated. 
 
 SCIENCE AND SANCTITY: A Study in 
 Spiritual Renewal. By the Editors., Withr 
 an Introduction by Margaret Macmillan. - 
 
The Making of the Future 
 
 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 A STUDY IN RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 VICTOR BRANFORD, M.A. 
 
 MBMBBR OF THB BOARD OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES, UNIVBSSSTV OF LONDON 
 
 AND 
 
 PATRICK GEDDES : 
 
 PROFESSOR OP BOTANY, UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS 
 
 4, -.-~r 't ''■<!.• 
 
 LONDON 
 WII^LIAMS AND NORGATE \^\ ff ^ 
 
 1+ HENRIETTA STREET^ COVENT (MtPlBVtl'Vf.fi. ^ j \ 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE . 
 SERIES 
 
 Since the Industrial Revolution, there has 
 gone on an organized sacrifice of men to 
 things, a large-scale subordination of hfe to 
 machinery. During . a still longer ' period, 
 there lias been a growing tendency to value 
 personal worth in terms of wealth. To 
 the- millionaire has, in effect, passed the 
 royal inheritance of " right divine." 
 
 Things have beeri in the saddle and ridden 
 mankind. The cult of force in statecraft has 
 been brought to logical perfection in Prussian 
 " f rightfulness." The Cult of "profiteer- 
 ing ^' in business has had a similar goal in 
 the striving for monopoly by ruthless elimina- 
 tion of rivals. Prussianism and profiteering 
 are thus twin evils. Historically they have 
 risen together. Is it not possible they are 
 destined to fall together before the rising 
 tide of a new vitalism ? 
 
 The reversal of all these tendencies, mechan- 
 istic and venal; would be the preoccupation 
 of a more vital era than that from which we 
 are escaping. Its ediacatiohal aim would be 
 \o think out and prepare. the needed tran- 
 sition from a machine, and a money economy, 
 
vi INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 
 
 towards one of Life, Personality and Citizen- 
 ship. , The war has been a giganticDance of 
 'Death, for which modern business, with its 
 associated politics, has been the prolonged 
 rehearsal. Is it not now the turn of Life to 
 take the floor -and call the tune; and if so, 
 on a scale of corresponding magnificence? 
 For the war is not merely the poisoriotis fruit 
 of pitiless competition and machiavellian 
 diplomacy. It is also a spiritual protest 
 and rebound against the mammon of material- 
 ism. In its nobler aspects and finer issues, 
 its heroisms and self-sacrifices, does not, the 
 war hold proof and promise of renewing Life 
 liberated from, a long repression ? And may 
 not the pursuit of personal wealth grow less 
 exigent, as we gain a sense of social well-being 
 expressed in betterment of environment and 
 enrichment, of life ? May not the struggle 
 for existence within the nations, and even 
 across their frontiers, be increasingly replaced;' 
 by the orderly culture of life, in its full 'Cyqle- 
 from infancy to age, and at all its expand- 
 ing levels from home and, neighbourhood 
 outwards? ' 
 
 Those who foresee, in sequel to the war, a 
 social rebirth, with accompanying moral pur- 
 gation, will furnish to all these questions, 
 answers coloured by their hopes. The fears 
 of the pessinaists will dictate a contrary set 
 of replies. To substantiate those hopes, to 
 arrest these fears is needed a doctrine that 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES vii 
 
 not only goes beyond the Gennanic Philo-. 
 Sophies, which before the war dominated our 
 universities, but also is corrective . of their 
 defects. The " idealisms "of these recently 
 fashionable philosophies were bastard off- 
 spring of archaic thought detached from the 
 Uving world. Such abstract idealisms must 
 be replaced by definite ideals, concrete and 
 huinan, if all men of goodwill are to be brought 
 together* for the making of a new and better 
 civilization. So may men inherit the ancient 
 promise of "peace on earth to men of goodwill." 
 It is the aim of this Series to gather to- 
 gether existing elemenTis of reconstructive 
 doctrine, and present them as a body of truth 
 growing towards unity and already fruitful in 
 outlook and application. There are three 
 schools of thought from which the Series will 
 mainly draw. One of them lays stress upon 
 family life, contacts with nature, the signifi- 
 cance of labour, the Jnterests of locality ^ 
 ~ Elaborated into a doctrine this becomes the 
 ' " regionalism ' ' of France. Its scientific founda- 
 tions were laid two generations ago by Le- 
 Play. The influence of its many and diverse 
 groups is steadily growing in France, and 
 unobtrusively spreading to other countries;, 
 as, for , example," in England, through the 
 economic and social surveys of Charles Booth 
 and Seebohm Rowntree ; through the activi- 
 ties of the Regional Association and of the 
 Oxford School of Geography. • 
 
yiii INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 
 
 Another guiding outlook, whicH is- rather a 
 tradition than a school, sees the' progress of 
 mankind as an unfolding of ideas. and ideals. 
 Two thinkets of post-Revolutionary France 
 
 ■ discerned this vision with compelling clear- 
 ness. . , Auguste Comte saw it as a procession 
 of great personalities, linked in apostolic 
 succession.' Joseph de Maistre saw it as a 
 movement and manifestation of religious life.; 
 There have resulted two re-interpretations of 
 life, mind, -mdrals and society. Tljey are 
 divergent in appearance, but alike in essence. 
 Both present a view of life and the world, 
 inimical to the Prussian cult of force. The 
 twofold influence of this humanist, tradition 
 is world-wide. Witness the writings of William 
 James, Madame Montessori, Prince Kropotkin 
 
 . and F. W. Foerster of Munich— to name but 
 four among the many recent and contemporary 
 humanists whose roots penetrate this fertile 
 soil. The vitalistic philosophy of Bergson is 
 manifestly racy of the same soil. 
 
 In the third place, there is the incipient 
 Civism of independent origin and rapid recent 
 growth in Britain, in America and in Germany. ) 
 This incipient Civism has been the parent 
 of constructive Bettermerit and to no small 
 extent of Child Welfare also. It has inspired 
 the repair and renewal of historic cities, the 
 tidying up of confused industrial towns, the 
 guidance and gardening of their suburban 
 growths, ' ' 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ix 
 
 The Hebraic ideal of adjusting city life to 
 the care and culture of child life was thus in 
 active renewal before the war. So also was 
 the Hellenic ideal of seeking the Good, the 
 True, ^ the Beautiful through a citizenship, 
 "active and contem,plative. With the downfall 
 of Tsardoni achieved and the reduction of 
 Kaiserism in process, this civid renascence will 
 continue; and not least splendidly in the 
 ancient cities of Burgher Germany, released 
 from their Ptussic enchaiitment. From this 
 ^ource maybe will come in the after-war 
 generation, a formative contribution towards 
 the sphinx-riddle of politics : How to federate 
 Free Cities and their Regions? Reflecting in 
 the tranquillity of peace, on the penalties of 
 imperial attachment to Berlin, will not these 
 once free cities seek determinately for some 
 form of union without metropolitan subjec- 
 tion ? But that is the federal problem, whose 
 solution has so long evaded the grasp of the 
 western world. -^ - . 
 
 Behind the rise and fall of states, nations 
 and empires, m'ay be discerned the struggle 
 of cities for freedom to develop their own 
 regional life. And again, around and within 
 the civic drama is the play of the rustic 
 elements from which the city's life is peren- 
 nially renewed.; Civic life is thus the crown 
 and fulfilment of regional life. Their joint 
 development makes a partnership of Man 
 and Nature in a ceaseless game of skill with 
 
X INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 
 
 Interfering Circumstance. Thestakes are cities 
 with their accumulated heritage of art, learn- 
 ing and wealth. When the twin partnership 
 is winning, civic life flourishes, as in Athens 
 and Jerusalem of old, in Florence of the middle 
 time, or in Louvain but yesterday. When 
 Interfering Circumstance is dominant, then 
 is the occasion for predatory empires to expand 
 like Assyria, Macedonia, or Prussia. 
 
 As correctives of predatory imperialism, 
 regional and humanist ideas naturally arise. 
 But: regionalism and humanism are not 
 mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they 
 are, for the awakened a,nd educated citizen, 
 the two necessary and complementary poles 
 of his civilization. Theneedle of the mariner's 
 compass gains stability by oscillating between 
 the two poles of the world of nature. So, 
 regionalism and humanism indicate the two 
 poles of man's world; and the, art of civics is 
 his mariner's compass. Through the making - 
 and the maintenance of cities, man is ever 
 ^seeking a bi-polar stability. On the one hand 
 he obeys the call of family, of neighbourhood 
 and of region. On the other, he reaches out 
 to the widening appeal of nation and federa- 
 tion, of civilization and humanity. In the 
 measure that cities work efficiently on each 
 and all of these levels, the progress of the world 
 continues harmoniously. 
 
 The supreme triumphs of Art have been won 
 in these manifold services^of the city. -Pyramid 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES xi 
 
 and Temple, Acropolis and Forum, Cathedral 
 and Town Hall, are peaks in the chequered 
 
 evolution of civic liie. What of this evolution 
 to-day and to-morrow ?: It is significant that 
 in the development and decline of cities. 
 Beauty and Efficiency have come and gone 
 together. The cogent lesson for our own 
 times is that Art and Industry, Edupatipn 
 and Health, Morals and Business, so generally 
 severed in the passing age, must henceforth 
 advance in unison. But how in practice effect 
 the mutuality of understanding and the unity 
 of purpose, requisite for concerted activity? 
 
 ^Surely by experimental but deliberate and 
 continuous working together of all' for the 
 efficiency of. city and ennoblement of citizen 
 on each plane, domestic and regional, national 
 and federal, international and humanist. 
 
 Behind the war of armies is a war' of ideas. 
 In the latter warfare the fortresses are Univer- 
 
 : sities. They have in all countries in the pass- 
 ing generation been strongholds of Gernia.nic 
 Thought. Hence the boast of professors, that 
 Teutoi^ic Kultur was destined to rule the 
 world, seemed not unreasonable. But the 
 countering ideas, regional, civic and humanist, - 
 
 -_ have also been fermenting in the universities. 
 Therefrom is emerging a doctrine deeper, 
 truer, and more creative than the mechanical 
 and venal philosophy which has had its fulfil- 
 ment in Prussian Militarism and Competitive 
 
 /Business. 
 
xii INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 
 
 r The re-awakening movement of the univer-- 
 sities has been slow, timid, bHndfold, because 
 lacking in civic vision. Now, therefore, is 
 urgent an arousal of the universities to their 
 spiritual responsibilities f br the fullness of Hfe; 
 in all its phases, individual and social. In every 
 region is needed a comprehensive working to- 
 gether of city and_ university on each plane of 
 the ascending spifcd from home to humanity. 
 
 In spite of a political systerh democratic 
 in form, the People have played but a passive 
 r6le in the departing age of rhoney and machine 
 economy. In 'the coming age of life economyj 
 the activity of the People will be Creative in 
 proportion as two conditions are satisfied. 
 The inner life must be purified and enriched, 
 and opportunities without distinction of class, 
 rank, or sex, must be accorded for the develop- 
 nient of personality through citizenship. In 
 the needed intellectual and moral transforma- 
 tion, the university is called upon to play a 
 part, simultaneously redemptive for itself, 
 for the people, and for its city and region. It 
 must not only aid ^he 'birth of the new 
 doctrine, , but also boldly suggest- and even 
 plan the practical applications thereof. Thus 
 may unity of thought, and concert of purpose 
 develop together in a common citizenship. 
 
 A sound psychology, for instance, teaches 
 that the aggressive spirit which characterizes 
 Militarism may be transmuted, not eliminated. 
 Attempts at repression do but drive its mani-' 
 
INTRaDUCTION TO THE SERIES xiii 
 
 festations into underground channels. Con- 
 structive outlets have, therefore, to be found 
 for the adventurous dispositions of Youth, 
 the affirmative energies of Maturity, the 
 Apolitical ambitions of Age.j.T'owards this 
 ennoblement of masculine passion, William 
 James bequeathed to mankind the idea of 
 iiiventing " naoral equivalents of war." For 
 exairiple, consider "how the Boy Scouts are 
 helping to tiackle that growth of juvenile 
 brime which is one of the evil results of the 
 war already visible. They transform the 
 young delinquent into a Temporary Scout, 
 and harness him to some simple constructive 
 endeavour. Here, then, is a mode of Re- 
 construction, which also, and at the same time, 
 exemplifies what the French call Re-education, 
 and what moral teachers call Renewal! Out 
 of the general principles here seen at work, 
 may be built up a social policy. Thus start- 
 ing from regionalism, with its complement of 
 htim^ist teaching, and proceeding through 
 civic applications of both, we reach a policy 
 of " the three R's," new style. 
 
 Through the redemptive quality of war, the 
 nation has shed not a little of its competitive 
 individualism, and achieved a closer working 
 _ together of all for the common good. liow 
 now to maintain and advance the sense of 
 community, the energy of collective effort, 
 the self-abnegation of individuals andfamihe^? 
 Clfearly, in the after-war poUty, there riiust* 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 
 
 ; be arousal among all classes of a personal sense 
 of definite responsibilities, , including and 
 transcending one's own life and work. There 
 must be some vision, clear yet moving, of a 
 better future. And knowledge and gpodwill 
 towards its gradual realization must not- be 
 lacking. All these aims, the Series will en- 
 deavour to elucidate and advance, and not 
 only through application of regionalist, civic 
 and humanist teaching, but also by cuUing 
 
 _what is vital and essential from other schools 
 of practical sociology. 
 
 The design on the cover of J;he books is 
 adapted from a stained glass window in the 
 Outlool? Tower, Edinburgh. The window is 
 a student's commemoration of teaching and 
 research J^oted to an interpretation of the 
 'Past and the Present for the foresight and 
 guidance of the 'Future. The symbolism of 
 this Arbor S<Bculorum is explained in one of the 
 two introductory volumes : " Ideas at War," 
 by Professor Geddes and Dr. Gilbert Slater. : 
 
 It naight be mentioned, for the sake of 
 inquiring students, that each of the two 
 Editors of the Series has elsewhere made an 
 endeavour towards the popular presentment 
 of Ci%dsm as a doctrine combining the regional 
 and humanist approaches. The two resulting 
 volumes are Cities in Evolution, by 'Professor 
 Geddes, and Interpretations and Forecasts, by 
 Mr. Branford. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The typescript of the present volume has 
 been read in whole or part by several friends, 
 and notably by Professors J. Arthur Thom- 
 son and H. J. Fleure, also by Mr. H. S. 
 Swinny. Thanks to their criticisms and sug- 
 gestions not a few defects have been made; 
 good and others mitigated. But this is not 
 to say that these friendly , counsellors inCur 
 any resppnsibility for what appears, or even 
 that they accept the main positions of the 
 
 j^int-authors. 
 
 The many references in the text to LePlay 
 will probably send some readers to the bio- 
 graphicar dictionaries. But their harvest will 
 be scanty. Hence the main facts of his 
 career are indicated in a brief biographical 
 note printed at the end of this volume. The 
 fullest notice in English works of reference 
 is to be found in Palgra.ye's Dictionary of 
 
 ^Political. Economy. But not even there does 
 
 - ' XV 
 
xvi PREFACE , , = 
 
 the feader gain a. picture of the real LePlay, 
 the man who, was " one of the founders 
 of gedgraphy and sociology, the master 
 craftsman of his age, the supreme miner, 
 the organizer of the first Paris Exhibition, , 
 the master interpreter of the industries of th6 
 world." ^ . 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 PREFACE ...... 
 
 INTRODUCTION — THE REGIONAL SURVEY 
 
 HISTORY AND POLITICS 
 
 INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 
 
 ON THE HIGHWAYS . 
 
 THE RURAL PROBLEM 
 
 THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 THE REGIONAL DRAMA 
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY. 
 
 STATE AND CITY 
 
 LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 
 
 TOWARDS "the GREAT RENEWAL" 
 
 THE COMING UNIVERSITY MILITANT 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION — REGIONAL 
 
 EUTOPIAS , " . 
 
 NOTE ON LEPLAY 
 
 PAGB 
 XV 
 
 I 
 
 20 
 
 46 
 
 63 
 
 92 
 
 109 
 
 118 
 
 128 
 
 148 
 
 190 
 210 
 
 243 
 263 
 
 XVll .- 
 
THE COMING POLITY 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ^ THE REGIONAL SURVEY 
 
 A GENERATION ago, there was one figure 
 amongst living savants, who with incom- 
 parable fidelity reflected the, spirit of science, 
 alike, in respect of its qualities and defects^, 
 as these were manifested in the nineteenth 
 century. -That figure was unquestionably 
 Hi^xley. From his long list of b'boks and 
 memoirs threei iiiight be selected to stand 
 to future ages as a Trilogy of Science in that 
 era ' of exuberant growth. Each of them, 
 dealt authoritatively with one of the three, 
 '^great orders of phenomena : the physical, the 
 vital, the social. The first of the trilogy, in 
 logic if not in time, was the Physiography : 
 an Introduction to the Study of Nature, a 
 work that ran through about a score of 
 editions in as many years, and penetrated 
 to /every school and college of scientific 
 
2 THiE COMING POLITY - 
 
 curriculum. In~this book' we were told all 
 ,that the physical sciences have to tell about a 
 representative region of the visible universe — 
 in the given instance, the Thames. Basin. 
 The secohd of the trilogy was the Elements 
 of Biology, and it achieved a similar triumph 
 of popularity and authority. In this book 
 were described the types of plant and animal 
 life to be found in a region similar to that of 
 the Thames Basin. The third was his famous 
 essay, Evolution and £'^Mcs, which set, forth 
 the relation, or rather absence of relation, - 
 between mbrals and science. - 
 
 Here in these three books was presented 
 a view of 'nature, clear, definite, systematic 
 and comprehensive; genuinely scientific 
 accordingly. , Representative facts were 
 selected and jdescribed. The mode of their 
 working was analysed with lucidity and 
 precision. The facts can scarcely be further 
 summarized. But as to the mode of working, 
 that can be condensed into a couple of sen- 
 tences. The system of nature was presented ; 
 as a mechanism . and this as culminating in 
 a struggle for survival among all living 
 creatures, man included. It was a struggle 
 
/ _ INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 predetenrrined by the very constitution bf 
 the universe, and arddined to give the hind- 
 most to the devil ; while to ' the foremost 
 was permitted a certain latitude in post- 
 ponement of the evil day. - 
 
 A convenient designation for this gladiar 
 torial and mechanistic conception of nature 
 is lacking. Many epithets have been offered 
 but none chosen. If it were to be christened 
 after its original parents, something might 
 be said for calling it British. But there 
 can be no question it has been to wide and 
 deep acceptance by German science, that the 
 hypothesis has owed its academic prestige 
 and much of its vogue in the popular mind. 
 Still the test of belief is action. And it is, 
 the Prussian State which has fashioned it 
 into a con:q)rehensive article of faith and ,a 
 complete rule of life. Not to confuse the 
 German nation with the Prussian State, let 
 the epithet Prussic, in justice and merciful- 
 ness, be chosen as the fitting designatiomo 
 carry down to posterity the gla^atorial and 
 mechanistic interpretation of nature. . The 
 University of Berlin, special .creation and 
 spiritual organ of the Prussian Monarchy, 
 
4 THE COMING POLITY - 
 
 has been to the world the Mecca of this faith. 
 Thither have flocked students from all 
 quarters 'of the globe to be grounded in the 
 characteristic culture. It is a culture of 
 unending analyses, isolated specialisms and 
 unconscious reading of nature in terms of 
 the prevaiUng social milieu and the dominant 
 political habit of mind. This social miUeu 
 thus read into the order of nature was 
 characterized by a mingling of militaristic, 
 mechanical and venal elements. The corre- 
 sponding political habit of mind was that of 
 unquestioning faith in the State, and this 
 not only hypostatized, but practically deified. 
 .Concurrently with this main trend of science 
 and obscured by it, there was growing up a 
 different readiii^ of man -and nature. This 
 unfashionable interpretation had its roots, 
 in a historic regime of less warhke politics . 
 and less competitive industry. Its home 
 was of course- outside Germany. Yet some 
 of the severest criticisms of Darwinism have, 
 it is true, been German, as, for example those 
 of Driesch! And it must be not6d that there 
 are -many vitalists in Germany. But for 
 practical effect in their own country have 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 they not all as yet been but voices crying 
 in the wilderness ? 
 
 Resurve5dng the same region as Huxley 
 in his Physiography, but now from the stand- 
 point of this other tradition (mainly a French 
 one) the student would construct a picture 
 of man a,nd nature, which it as. true would 
 be congruent, even identical, with Huxley's 
 up to a point; yet widely different in con- 
 clusion and resultant. He would take over 
 and use whatever is in Huxley, except the 
 all-suf&ciency of the two master concepts 
 of mebhanism and struggie-for-life. Given 
 Huxleyls observed data of natural conditions, 
 the student, in the French tradition, would 
 begin his own special survey of the Thames 
 Valley, or other region, just where Huxley 
 left off. He would begin, from the platform 
 already provided, a new set of observations, 
 and interpifet them by other principles of 
 life and nature. With Huxley he would, 
 in preparation for his own regional survey, 
 work out the conditions of climate and soil, 
 of contours and streams, of vegetation and 
 animal life. So, too, he would'accept Huxley's 
 frog, pigeon and rabbit as types of the more 
 
6 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 evolved forms of life inhabiting the region. 
 But he would not at that point abandon, 
 as did Huxley (in the essay above cited), 
 the naturalist method of survey, and fall 
 back on the logic of abstract' argument. 
 When confronted by the- hunian problem, 
 he would bring within the scope of his survey 
 the Shepherd of the Downs, the Peasant of 
 the Cotswolds, the OysterTfisher and the 
 Seaman of the Thames estuary. Forniulae 
 and models are available for the study of 
 these human types by a method hardly 
 inferior in scientific rigour to that of the 
 biologists,- thanks to the researches of Le- 
 Play and his schooj. Again, beyond these 
 sirnple human types are forms of associated 
 life vastly more complex. And, thanks to the 
 labours of those who haye continued and 
 developed the work not only of LePlay but 
 also of Comte, we can push on our regional 
 survey to include also these highest forms. 
 Formulae and models are available for the 
 scientific study of such products of regional 
 life and world tradition as the culture cities 
 of Oxford and Westminster, of,Edinburgh or 
 Dublin. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 - Without making the smallest pretension 
 to inplude a regional survey of the Thames 
 Valley, the present voiiHne deliberately draws 
 its illustrations as far as may be from that 
 region. The aim is to select certain exemplary 
 facts, interpret them as natural elements of 
 regional life arid labour, and thereby disclose 
 them as necessary factors in that recon- 
 struction of politital thought which is long 
 overdue. In a forthcoming volume of this 
 series, a systematic endeavour will be made 
 towards a civic survey of Westminster, That, 
 .together with the present volume (which 
 deals more with rural than civic life), may be 
 regarded as a preliminary sketch towards a 
 work which some future Huxley will under- 
 take. Meantime, we propose to picture by 
 illustration and outlook the sort of survey 
 which we believe must precede and accompany 
 any political reconstruction, if that, like 50 
 many of its predecessors, is not to end in 
 disillusionment. 
 
 The merit of the Huxley type bf survey 
 was that it fearlessly applied the verified 
 truths and the tested methods of physical 
 
8 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 science to the realm of life; and it thereby, 
 disclosed many hidden secrets -of nature's 
 mode of working-. The defect of that type 
 of survey was its failure to see that, in so 
 proceeding, it was moving not upwards and 
 forwards 9,3 it thought, but— so to speak- 
 downwards and backwards. The regional 
 survey; of French type, completes the circuit. 
 It proceeds from physical facts, through vital 
 processes, and to human and social pheno- 
 mena ; but it also works round the other way, 
 and so illuminates the lower orders of life 
 and nature by the higher. We are thus in a . 
 
 ^position to revise the estimates of the English ' 
 and Prussic traditions. Our regional surveys 
 may show us nature red in tooth and claw, 
 and with no less clearness and precision than 
 did the Huxleyan survey. But the former 
 also reveal, as no less part of the order of 
 
 -iiature, the golden treasury ,of fellowship 
 iand purpose, of co-opei^atipn and self-sacrifice. 
 And when we look back down the organic 
 series with the help of these finer clues, we see 
 some of the great uplifts of nature (supremely 
 that of reptiles to birds and mammals) as, 
 crucial instances pf evolution by factors which 
 
INTROIiUCTION 9 
 
 are based in other-regarding as Well as self- 
 regarding activities. Nature we discover to 
 exhibit more moods and manifestations than 
 the Prussic type of naturalist suppbsed. 
 These rnoods of, nature range, iji human 
 definition, from the gladiatorial arena to the 
 mother's arms. And it would seem in deepest 
 analysis; that the latter holds more, it may 
 be far more, of the secrets of evolution than 
 the former. Thus lalongside Darwin's Origin 
 of Species, we cannot but allocate ranl^ also to 
 Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, asJ.ikew.ise a classic 
 rendering of, nature's . order, method and 
 purpose. In each book we recognize a true 
 interpretation, yet as sociologists we note 
 that our author, in each case, applies to the 
 reading of nature the clues he has observed, 
 in his own social milieu, his dominant historic 
 tradition, ' 
 
 It must pot, however, be overlooked, that 
 to the identification of Darwinisrn with the 
 gladiatorial and mechanistic view of nature 
 there are signal reservations. Darwin as 
 observer and experimentalist, as breeder and 
 gardener, was a thorough-going vitalist. 
 But Darwin as interpreter of nature was 
 
10 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 deeply affected by the Competitive and 
 mechanistic bias of his times. Hence the 
 Origin of Species became a very mint of 
 Prussic coinage in the hands of" the Huxleys, 
 who, especially in Britain and in Germany, 
 expounded, applied and popularized it. The 
 more humanistic interpretation of nature in 
 Kropotkin ' was far less likely to find its 
 Huxley. And even if it had, would his books 
 have become popular? Hardly in Victorian 
 England. But^if the Russian village com- 
 munity developed a taste for biological 
 philosophy they would doubtless prefer Kro- 
 potkin to Darwin. And not because the 
 former is a Russian r but because his conception 
 
 ' of life in evolution would be verifiable in 
 the common run of the village community's 
 own life, with' its tradition of communistic 
 impulse, and its practice of co-operation. 
 
 An economic policy congruent with his 
 natural philosophy has been worked out, 
 and 'presented by Kropotkin in his book, 
 Fields, Factories and Workshops. This h§is 
 
 I been before the statesmen of the western 
 nations for more than half a generation. But 
 there are no signs that it has exercised aiiy 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 influence on practical politics. How, indeed, 
 could it, while the presuppositions of the~ 
 men in power are so largely derived— all 
 the more pregnantly if unconsciously — ^from 
 a widely different philosophy of man and 
 nature ? ' ' 
 
 The long concentration of ihe naturalistic 
 sciences of the official world on descriptive 
 analysis of somewhat arbitrarily chosen 
 phenomena has had its counterpart in social 
 science in a cotresponding ban of synthetic 
 ideas. By this sacrifice, the newcomer. 
 Sociology, has vainly endeavoured to af&hate 
 itself with the older and more, established 
 branches. The neglect of its French tradi- 
 tions, which were at once niaturalist and 
 humanist, analytic and synthetic, is thus 
 in part at least explained. But though 
 forsworn by officialdom, this French tradition 
 has not ceased to grow, and even to spread 
 to other countries and there assume new 
 ■ developments. In Great Britain there has 
 arisen from it the aspiration towards a 
 Regional Survey of the whole country, paral- 
 lel and comparable in scientific value and 
 
12 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 practic?Ll use to' the Ordnance Survey and the 
 Geological Survey. Towards this consumma- 
 tion substantial beginnings' have been made. 
 One of the earliest and best known is Charles 
 Booth's classic work, which established the 
 model for such other notable economic surveys 
 as those of Mr. Seebohrn -Rowntree. It is 
 something of a misfortune that, in these 
 standard works, but one half of the original 
 tradition was followed. The geographic and 
 economic impulse of . llePlay's monographs 
 was pursued, but the historic impulse of 
 Comte was passed by. Both traditions were 
 combined and developed in the Civic Sur- 
 vey of EJdinburgh, initiated some quarter of 
 ,a century since and- still in progress. The 
 Edinburgh example has happily been followed 
 in not a few Civic and Regionali Surveys, 
 now in progress, in various parts of Great 
 Britain. Saffron Walden, in Essex, affords 
 an exemplary instance. The making of a 
 ^ survey of their region has brought together 
 into a working co-partnership of observation, 
 research and interpretation the local Museum, 
 the Schools and the Training College' there. 
 Again at' Bingley, in Yorkshire, the Workers* 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 Educational Association and the local Train- 
 ing CpUege are co-operating in a regional 
 sxirvey. 
 
 But of all this series, from Charles 
 Booth's onwards, the most notable and 
 impressive is the Civic Survey of Greater 
 London, undertaken as a War Relief measi^re, 
 ~by the Royal Institute of British Architects. 
 The truly magistral set of drawings and 
 diagrams thus produced constitutes a land- 
 mark in the history of the Regional Movement. 
 Unfortunately the financing of the under- 
 taking brought upon it a taboo of historical 
 investigation, as of interpretation of any 
 kind. Hence, the achievement of the archi- 
 tects, "great as it is, nevertheless is shorn of 
 half its inheritance. Yet this half may now 
 be taken up by whoever will — let us hope 
 by the Regional Association, which is begin- 
 ning to spread over thp United Kingdom 
 and beyond. 
 
 The corresponding' movement in the United 
 States, already well established, is steadily 
 growing. It emphasizes the practical side,- ^ 
 so that civic and rural surveys are in America 
 becoming the indispensable pre-requisites to 
 
14 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 schemes of improvement and policies of 
 progress. It is a sign of the times that ihe 
 great and wealthy Russell Sage Foundation 
 has, for many years, had, in operation a 
 Survey Department. 
 
 As such surveys grOw towards a compre- 
 hensive knowledge of social Mfe, and its 
 setting of environment and tradition; region 
 by region, city hy city, we approach- the time 
 of application.' And then, political treatment 
 , being based on adequate diagnosis, policy 
 i will become less empirical and more in the 
 ' nature of applied science. And that change 
 from old politics to new polity involves a 
 double revolution, in theory and in intellectual 
 alUance. For it means an increasing substi- 
 tution of man in the r61e of creator for man 
 as creature of 'circumstance and habit. It 
 also means a turning away from the Prussic 
 towards the more Gallic outlook in science. 
 The French tradition to which we have 
 alluiied as fount and inspiration of the regional 
 and civic' survey movement is not a single 
 and united inheritance. It is divided and 
 twofold. There is a scientific doctrine of 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 regionalism and another ^and separate one 
 of humanism. These, though manifestly com-^ 
 plernentary, have never in the country of 
 their origin been brought into theoretical 
 unity and practical partnership. But they 
 have been united elsewhere in the concept 
 of the city as at once a natura;! object and the 
 . supreme expression of the evolutionary pro- 
 cess. The scientific doctrine of civism thus 
 brings together into working unison the 
 separate doctrines of regionalism and human- 
 ism. That the joint product has a political 
 application, and that this is doubly significant 
 in -the present occidental crisis, we believe, 
 and hope to make clear in the course of this 
 volume. But' a , preliminary word may be 
 said here as to the practical bearing of this 
 doctrine. 
 
 The conspicuous feature of the political 
 situation to-day is the deep and widespread 
 interest in public life generated by the war. 
 The revival of political activity shows itself 
 in two ways. There are those who preoccupy 
 themselves with variations of precedent and 
 the remodelling of constitutional machinery, 
 with the uprooting of old party landmarks 
 
i6 . THE COMING POLITY 
 
 and maybe the, planting of new ones. But 
 with these externalities of the body politic 
 we are not ^ hpre concerned. "We mention 
 them merely to warn the reader nof to look 
 for their discussion in our pages. ' 
 
 The central and vital fact is that on all 
 sides there is a renewal of political life in 
 the direct, intimate' and persona:! sense. 
 Public duties are no longer" discussed as 
 abstract obligations. They are seen and 
 accepted as personal responsibilities. In 
 short, the traditional demarcations of public 
 and private life are in process of obliteration. 
 Ideas, such as co-ordination of effort, maxim- - 
 izing of the national energies, the restriction 
 of wasteful and parasitic occupations, con- 
 servation of resources and the like, which 
 were formerly tabcro in the sterile strife of 
 parties are becoming the . stock-in-trade of 
 political discussion. 
 
 This growing tendency to identify pers'onal 
 effort with public welfare has its spiritual 
 counterpart in the political re-education of 
 the individual. To forward this incipient 
 process of re-educatipn we need a mobilization 
 of resources in the intellectual and moral 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 world, no less than for corresponding tasks 
 in the material world, x The scientific pfe- 
 supppsitions of political reconstruction have 
 not only to be thought out, but also presented 
 in a form conducive to popular discussion 
 and general criticism. To . that . double task 
 of research and of populairizatiort the present 
 volume addresses itself. The renewal of 
 public life, with its acc'ompanying possibilities 
 of re-education, is the preparation for, rather 
 than the sequel to, political, economic and 
 social reconstruction. Has it not been the 
 perennial mistake of democracies to reverse 
 this natural order of procedure? To' avoid 
 this chronic error, in the after-war re-adjust- 
 ments of the 5vestern democracies, is surely 
 of the first importance. In contribution to 
 the problem we submit {a) that political 
 reconstruction should be preceded by a recon- 
 struction of politics : (b) the needed recon- 
 struction of politics implies a fundamental 
 • change (a " new orientation ") in the out- 
 look and mental habit of, the classes directly; 
 engaged in legislation and administration f 
 (c) a corresponding re-education is required 
 for the classes who have hitherto participated 
 
iS THE COMING POLITY 
 
 in public life only indirectly and occasionally 
 as by discussion, criticism and voting, but 
 who are now learning to ^ee an element of 
 public responsibility in every private action ; 
 {d) the requisite revaluations for the ''new 
 orientation " should be worked out concur- 
 rently with the actual doing of the practical 
 tasks; (e) the Regional Survey (alike rural - 
 and civic) is well adapted to aid all the above 
 processes of reconstruction and re-education. 
 
 The present volume is introductory to a 
 series of studies scientific in method and 
 prospective in outlook. It will serve its 
 purpose in the measure that It captures and 
 shows forth the spirit of science in that 
 sequence of .moods which accompany the 
 gesture of alternately facing the present, 
 the past and the future. We of the present • 
 generation are -at the parting of the "ways. 
 \ The future we can see but dimly. The more 
 sharply we can outline the pastin the present, 
 the more clearly may we discern the image 
 of the future. For the future is not discon- 
 nected from the past, but is continuous with 
 it. By selection. >and recombination of past -^ 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 tendencies surviving into the present, we 
 shape the future. Hence the first requisite 
 of foresight is true and clear ideas about the 
 past. Our opening chapti^rs, accordingly, 
 are mainly historical.- 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 HISTORY AND POLITICS 
 
 One of the many reasons which, have kept 
 the social coinage "^of Comte from passing 
 into currency is that his critics have mostly 
 fixed on the . more philosophical aspects of 
 his system. Critics without number purport 
 to have deniolish.edh.is Law of the Three States', 
 ahd thereupon have assumed there was 
 nothing left of his sociology but negligible 
 fragments. • It was as though one explained 
 the working of a locomotive without reference 
 to boiler or driving wheel. The central and 
 motive idea of Comte' s sociology was his 
 generalization of Temporal and Spiritual 
 Powers; and the driving wheels were his 
 four Social Types. The" latter classification 
 has been verified time and again by indepen- 
 dent' rediscovery, always, strange to say, out- 
 side the ranks of professed sociologists. The 
 latest verification is from the keen obsetvation 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 21 
 
 of Mr. Arnold Bennett, who, in a recent visit 
 to the Clyde, found men in that complex 
 and intense situation, sorting themselves 
 out int-o "Organizers, Workers, Energizers 
 and Initiators. These, manifestly, ' are the 
 four orders of Comte-— Chiefs; People, Enjo- 
 tionals. Intellectuals. 
 
 Every one is familiar >vith the Barons and 
 Serfs of the Middle Ages, and <how, at that 
 period of history, great power was in the hands 
 of the Secular Clergy, i.e. the priests, and of 
 the Regular Clergy, i.e. the monks. Recall the 
 life of mediaeval society after the Dark Age 
 had gone, and before the age of universities 
 and free cities, of guilds and friaries, had come 
 in its fullness. To think of that intermediate 
 period is to think of a drama in which the 
 leading parts were those of Barons, Serfs, 
 Seculars and Regulars. It was these whom 
 Comte generalized as perennial social types — 
 for whom, it must be confessed, he might haVe 
 invented names more happily chosen than ^^ 
 Chiefs, People, Emotionals and Intellectuals. 
 Mr. Arnold Bennett's terms go more to the 
 root of the matter, and we shall use them 
 freely. 
 
22 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 Modern societies are 'vastly more complex 
 than that ofihe early Middle Ages. But the 
 war has brought great simplifications; and 
 ' do not these tend to show how older forms' 
 survive not far below the surface, ready ever 
 to emerge wlien stress comes? A neutral 
 observer, if asked to enumerate the leading 
 national/types in time of war, would have 
 no great difficulty in answering. He would 
 point first to the people making munitions 
 at home and to the people firing them off 
 at the Front. He would point to the capital- 
 ists whose subscriptions to war-loans pay the 
 bills, and the military and political leaders 
 who direct the corresponding energies. He 
 would indicate the journalists, whose daily 
 histories miStke us thrill with hope or shudder 
 with fear, leaving us now optimists, now 
 pessimists. And finally, after a little investi- 
 gation, he Would discover .the thinking few 
 , whose science and-, ingenuity devise the mar- 
 It vellous mechanical contrivances, the higher 
 and higher explosives, the increasingly deadly 
 fumigations, the mysterious monsters called 
 "tanks^" and other wonders of modern 
 wdrfare. >. - 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 23 
 
 Thus the observations of our intelligent 
 -foreigner restore the People, Chiefs, Emo- 
 tionals. Intellectuals of an earlier society. 
 _ It is easy to see these types in the Middle Ages, 
 because they were then relatively fixed; less 
 ea,sy now when they are more interchangeable, 
 and complicated by subdivisions and cross- 
 divisions. Comte was thus a kind of natural- 
 ist who went a,b6ut, peering into societies 
 past and present, discovering beneath all 
 disguises and mutations these four perennial 
 types. 
 
 . Another f orniative contribution to social 
 science was his generalization of '"State" 
 and " Church " as correlative .Temporal and 
 Spiritual Powers. In this he reached what is 
 perhaps his master thought. The conception 
 of all history as an interplay of temporal and 
 spirituaF powers is certainly not one that the 
 passing generation has found useful, still less 
 'illuminating. But that, perhaps, may be 
 explained by future generations as owing to 
 the loss of the very notion of an independent 
 spiritual power, during the doininance.o^ an 
 all-controlling State. As we pass out of the 
 regime of States Gerroanic and sub-Gerinanic, 
 
24 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 students of social science . will doubtless re- 
 cover the idea of Spiritual Powers and their 
 nomenclature as well. 
 
 It was a tragic misfortune for social science 
 when Hprbert Spencer, in so many ways the 
 immediate successor of Comte, threw out 
 this conception of spiritual powers from the 
 sociological exploring ship, as if it had been a 
 worn-out or ,uselesV articles Let us examine " 
 this derelict article, this idea of a spiritual 
 power as' one of the two essentials of a com- 
 munity. It is rather a , double than a single 
 article — an idea and an ideal. There ought 
 to, be a spiritual power independent of the: 
 temporal power, educating and counselling ~ 
 it. In point of fact most societies have been i 
 and are more or less remote' from that ideal. 
 The temporal power has ever tried,- through- 
 out history, to make the spiritual power its; 
 obedient tool. . Vic^ versa no" doubt some- 
 times also. . But to see such extremes is but a 
 partial reading of history. Below the strug- 
 g'les of temporal and spiritual groups for 
 masteyy, there may be discerned a tendency 
 also to a certain adj ustment and co-operation, 
 a true balance of powers. The ideal society 
 
.HISTORY AND POLITICS 25 
 
 . towatds which this -tendency points is one 
 wherein the temporal and the spiritual power 
 each enjoys, complete . independence within 
 its own proper sphere. The Emotionals and: 
 Intellectuals— the Energizers and the Initia- 
 tors of Mr. Arnold Bennett — organized as a 
 Spiritual Power woul4, in the ideal instance, 
 intervene in politics, business and industry 
 only indirectly. Their influence would bp 
 brought to bear through education and the 
 giving of counsel. The Chiefs and People — 
 the Organizers and the Workers of Mr. Arnold 
 Bennett-;r-con$tituted as Temporal Power 
 would leave the hands of the Emotionals and 
 Intellectuals free and untrammelled in the 
 maintenance of religion, the conduct of edu- 
 cation and the prosecution of researqh. Such 
 isComte's forecast of the trend of history. 
 Human evolution is for him a drama of tem- 
 poral and spiritual powers moving' through 
 crisis of effort and trial towards a certain 
 goal. That goal he discerned, throtigh all 
 failures and reversions as a balance, say, 
 rather a Complement, of Powers. Powers not 
 measured in weight of armament abroad or of 
 poUce at home, but on their scales of values 
 
26 THE tOMING POLITY 
 
 material and moral, freely accepted every- 
 where by all men of goodwill, all classes, both 
 sexes. A similar goal is foreseen, frona a 
 different-angle, in the PauUne vision of spiri- 
 tual achievement ■" The iruit of the spirit 
 is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, meekness,. temperance." . - 
 
 The above conception s>i history as an 
 interplay -of temporal and spiritual powers^ 
 must be distinguished from Comte's concep- 
 tions of science and philosophy. It is true 
 he crowded all three into his sociological 
 portmanteau. And he has paid the penalty of 
 the; overburdened traveller. His system- has 
 been undervalued -and his reputation obscuxed 
 for two generations by. the criticism of 
 philosophers with little history and less 
 science; of scientists ignorant of history and 
 indifferent to philosophy, and of historians 
 innocent of science and philosophy alike. 
 We may grant to these formidable , hosts of 
 assailants both limitations and defects in the 
 work of their victim; yet few in principle 
 as compared with their own. 
 
 Comte inherited, from the Revolution, the 
 notion that society, could be remade within 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 27 
 
 a generation, if men really set their mind to 
 the task and with adequate knowledge. This 
 too simple view of society was further empha- 
 sized by-the^bias of his prof essional occupation. 
 For the teacher of mathematics can hardly 
 resist treating all things as if they were fixed 
 quantities with sharp edges knd clear outline. 
 And the teacher moreover is apt to be didactic, 
 and even pontifical, out of the class-room as in 
 it. But let us allow for such defects of tiftie 
 and place and personality, and ask: What 
 service can be rendered us to-day by Comte's 
 theory of history? Let us ufilize it at least 
 for the moment, and test its value in in- 
 terpreting the current European situation. 
 Maybe we shall find that the two generations 
 which have neglected it have done so at their 
 cost. 
 
 Is it not for want of a theory of spiritual 
 powers that politicians and historians have 
 half unconsciously come to believe in a 
 supreme and unmoral State And, alas ! they 
 have been successful in securing for this 
 broken-backed view of history and its practical 
 application in politics, popular acceptance 
 throughout western Europe and America, 
 
28 . THE COMING POLITY 
 
 and complete triumph in Germany. Note the 
 stEtges of this Rake's Progress. First, the 
 State assumes control of elementary educa- 
 tion. , There the process happily so far halted 
 in Great Britain. But in Germany it went 
 on uninterruptedly towards its natural climax: 
 The State Tiontrol of the secondary schools 
 and its intervention in the universities gave, 
 into the hands of the temporal power half 
 the kingdom of the spiritual powers Next, 
 by subsidizing a newspaper here, ^ coercing 
 one there and cajoling the third, the German 
 Statelong ago organized its systematic inter- 
 ference with the freedom oi the Press. Thus 
 did the temporal power already -controUing, 
 through school and university, the main 
 instruments of the " Intellectuals,*' extend 
 its domain over thosq of the " Eniotionals." 
 The spiritual power in Germany increasingly, 
 therefore, fell into the orbit of the temporal. u: 
 There necessarily resulted the corresponding 
 practice, that esseutially of an orgapized 
 Cult of the State. Coarser devotees adopted 
 this with abandon \mder the title 6t Real- 
 politik. Finer- spirits still retaining some 
 sense of higher values, called it Kultur- 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 29 
 
 - polish. The resulting division of the com- 
 munity into two camps, the respective ^ 
 adherents of RealpoUtik and KuUwpoUtik — 
 the Tirpitzites and HoUwegites of the moment 
 —may be taken as proof that the State cult 
 has received such general acceptance as to 
 leave rodm only for sectarian variations. 
 
 So far up to 1914. One thing was still _ 
 wanting to complete the cycle of Temporal 
 Dominion, and confirm the theory that spiri- 
 tual powers do not count in this world. That 
 one culminating triumph was a War which 
 would impose this regime upon the world, and 
 this so overpowering ^hd dramatic as to be 
 accepted for a manifestation of Destiny. This 
 
 ~ notion of the War, with its dissemination of 
 Kultur, has, indeed, for a whole generation or 
 more, been fermenting in the mind of the 
 German people. Given sjiQh pseudo^spiritual 
 preparation, such corresponding material 
 organization, it follows that the German " 
 communities were remorselessly driven, th6y 
 and their rulers, People and Chiefs together, 
 as a Temporal Power no longer restrained, 
 towards the present issue of Ordeal by Battle, 
 with the impulsion of a torrent in flood. , 
 
30 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 The normar practice of waiy-as the right 
 hand of pohties, had, to be sure, been per- 
 petuated by civilized States in Europe as 
 by barbarian tribes elsewhere. The relevant 
 ideas had been discussed and even preached, 
 by isolated thinkers from Machiavelli on- 
 wards. But it is not till we come to the 
 modern Germaji university, that we find the 
 doctrine of exclusive temporality developed 
 into a theory of. history, an interpretation 
 of human evolution. The scholarly labours 
 and the speculative ingenuity of three genera- 
 tions of German professors gave to their 
 theory of the absolute state, the neces- 
 sary coherende, learning and prestige to 
 afford apparently firm intellectual support 
 to a temporal power, steadily rising to domi- 
 .nation of" the spiritual. 
 
 In the development of Machiavellianism 
 into an accredited theory of history, the Ger- 
 man universities did not, of -course, stand 
 alone. They were followed loyally— if at a 
 respectful distance— by the other universities 
 of Europe and America. Clearly it was not 
 any original sin of the Germans, but their 
 very qualities of thoroughness and persistence, 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 31 
 
 along wkh the conditions of political geo- 
 graphy and history, that gave to th^ir uni- 
 versities the primacy in this amiable quest. 
 So ardent an'adyenture, pursued so success- 
 fully by successive generations of philoso- 
 phers and jurists, economists and historians, 
 philologists and savants, can be explained 
 only by the mohiehtum of de^p underlying 
 tendencies, - 
 
 Since the decay of mediaeval philosophy, 
 there has been in western schools a continu- 
 ■ ous tendency towards temporal interpreta- 
 tions of history, supported by philosophies 
 which,- because of an excessive subjectivity, 
 had their inevitable rebound in materialism.'^ 
 Suppose, fiowever, that this long-protracted 
 subordination of the spiritual view be but the 
 subjective equivalent of that externalism and 
 individualism which, since the Renaissance, 
 have been characteristic of art and industry. 
 Make this assumption, and, in the light of 
 Comte's great generalization, we see how the 
 facts of recent history express but a passing 
 
 1 Santayana, in his recent book, Egotism in German 
 Philosophy, develops this theme with his customary 
 clearness and charm. 
 
32 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 phase in "the abi'ding drama of temporal ^and 
 spiritual powers. And this phase of temporal 
 dominance having now reached its logical 
 climax in_ a general war, its- subsidence is 
 now presumably due, with corresponding rise 
 of a ^renewing spiritual power. It becomes^ 
 therefore, of the first importance to ine[uire 
 into the possible develcfpment of this incipient 
 spiritual power. - 
 
 The Absolute State with its "will to 
 power" has worked its W£iy through every 
 institution, agency and instrument, of the 
 Spiritual Power. We live in an age of State- 
 established or State-rpaid Churches, State 
 licensed and censored 'Theatres, State-regu- 
 lated Schools, State-inspected Public Halls ; 
 and the war gave us, what had been custom- 
 ary in State-ridden Germany at peace — a 
 State-censored Press and Platform. But 
 what of the universities which, like those 
 of Great Britain, have, in contrast to French 
 and German ones, been claimed to be free 
 of the State incubus ? The universities are 
 the natural trustees and custodians of the 
 whole culture heritage. ' It is, therefore, to" 
 them, if to any institution, that we should 
 
HISTORY. AND POLITICS 33 
 
 look for the germs of the renascent spiritual 
 power and its due nurture towards maturity. 
 
 Suppose an undergraduate returns from 
 the war, deepened in thought by his experi- 
 ences,- and aflame with these large issues. 
 What course would he now .pursue if un- 
 trammeiledin thej/csumption of his studies? 
 Would not his first concern be to look over 
 and sample that medley of spiritual remnants 
 which stand for the bulture heritage ? It is , 
 from these survivals or from renewals and 
 recombinations of them that the new spiritual 
 power must come. There are no other studies, 
 since the university includes, or professes to 
 include, the whole encyclopsedia of knowledge. 
 The university, as it becomes catholic in 
 outlook and constructive in^ policy, must 
 canalize these deep old springs of culture for 
 social irrigation : it lets them become choked 
 while it is somnolfent;; it even poisons tllem 
 when it is partisan. 
 
 Our warrior student, with independence 
 becoming his veteran's facing of stern realities, 
 has, let us as'sume, resolved to explore for 
 himself the historic resources of the universi- 
 ties and to make his own selectiori of his 
 
34 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 culture, seeds, instead of accepting the previous 
 academic rationing of ihem. He will first 
 turn to the courses of history proper. There 
 he will soon find himself following two lines 
 of -study . First, he may read and visualize 
 historic annals, and follow the rise and fall, 
 the maintenance and subversion of dynasties, 
 along with the record of the statesmen and 
 ecclesiastics, warriors and adventurers, who- 
 have been the servants or, the masters, the 
 supporters or the supplanters, of the dynasties. 
 But ,the development of government has its 
 general and customary aspects, as well as its. 
 personal and family details. For these, there 
 are correlative courses, as in the teaching of 
 Public Law arid Constitutional Government,. 
 Thus far our hypothetical student, in^Comte's 
 nomenclature will have been pursuing the ' 
 history of the ' ' Chiefs. ' ' If a Scottish student 
 he will liave divided his time between the 
 Faculties of Arts' and Law. , 
 . From these histories of the Chiefs, in the, 
 concrete and the abstract, our student may- 
 rebound to that of the People. What of the 
 lives of the woflce^rs and their families, amid 
 all this interplay of kings and ministers. 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 35 
 
 statesmen 'and politicians, ecclesiastics and 
 warriors, with' their war and peace games, 
 their policies and programmes? Our in- 
 quirer will find some of his questions about the 
 lives and doings of the people answered in 
 the courses on Economics and Econornic 
 History, some others iii the courses on 
 Anthropology. But for the most part he 
 will have to seek outside the walls of the 
 universities his history of the people as 
 "workers. For until lately, with the success 
 of the London School of Economics, historical 
 investigations of such " socialist writers " 
 seldom penetrated academic circles (at least 
 in Great Britain), save as objects of rebuttal 
 or contemptuous criticistn. 
 
 Having gQne so far in his- historical explora- 
 tions,' our student might next ask : What 
 have the thinkers and observers, the investi- 
 gators .and discoverers, the travellers and 
 historians, the philosophers and men of 
 science, been seeing and saying, doing and 
 thinking, through the ages, while the chiefs 
 have been plapng their war and peace gamesT 
 with the people footing the bill? For this 
 problem— that of the historic Tole of the 
 
36 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 " Intellectuals "—the student may . be at- 
 tracted, in the first instance, to the courses 
 (if any) on the History of Philosophy in the 
 Faculty of Arts. For a course in the History 
 of Science, he might, some years ago, have 
 crossed the Channel and gone to the CoUfege 
 de France. But that course, Instituted 
 through Positivist influence after Comte's 
 death, has somehow disappeared; and no 
 other univetsity, in the world (so far as we 
 know) has yet thought fit to institute a regular 
 course in this subject. The History of 
 Geography he might, somewhat solitarily, 
 pursue at Oxford, but not probably elsewhere 
 in Great Britain. While, as for the History 
 of Invention, it is doubtful if a subiect so 
 remote from academic interests is system- 
 atically pursued in any university outside 
 Gerniany. 
 
 If the eager determination of our student 
 has surmounted all the foregoing obstacles> 
 he is fortunate, for the reward of his quest 
 is in sight. He comes now, by easy transi- 
 tion, from the routine to the reality of historic 
 culture— the history of art and literature, 
 poetry and religion. While the Chiefs have 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 37 
 
 been governing and directing, playing and 
 fighting, while the People have been working 
 for them, the Intellectuals unveiling the 
 secrets of man and nature, what of jthe 
 Emotionals? Have they, too, throughqut 
 the,_ages, been singing and writing, praying 
 and preaching, making niusic and beauty, 
 creating homes and building cities mainly 
 for the Chiefs ? Or have ihey also served 
 and guided, enlivened and ennobled the 
 People, and if so with what results ? These 
 are the questions which the student who has 
 travelled this road wiU have in his mind, as 
 he enters upon the history of art and literature, 
 poetry and religion, . Tn this phase of his 
 quest he will, if he means to make a thorough 
 exploration, find himself mapping a devious 
 course through the Faculties of Arts and 
 Theology in many different universities which, 
 added to his previous wanderings in the 
 Faculties of Law, Science and Arts, would 
 make his record as varied as the Odyssey. 
 It is clear that the universities are not planned ^ 
 to: facilitate access to the culture heritage. 
 On the contrary they have barred its full 
 inheritance, by their disarray of^ studies;. 
 
38 THE COMING POLITY '\: 
 
 and- so they help to enforce the Temporal 
 Power against ' the Spiritual Order whose 
 organ they, are supposed to be. It is a 
 practical impossibility under existing curricula , 
 for a. student, within a measurable tiihe, to 
 achieve any adequate reading of the human 
 record in its vital and essential aspects. 
 How remote, then, seems that unification of 
 the culture-heritage, that harmonious pre- 
 sentation of it, essential to its incorporation-' 
 by our student ! ' - . 
 
 For the universities, history is still too 
 much the history of the Chiefs. If Aiicient, 
 it belongs to the. humanities, and includes 
 iSdme modicum of the history of religion and 
 art. If Modern, it is not very sure of itself, 
 but joften leans towards the rival camp of 
 science. If ^ Mediaeval, it is anybody's; and 
 so has been mainly taken possession of by 
 the constitutional lawyers who share it with 
 the theologians. Yet the vast labours of 
 a century of specialist investigations into the 
 various fields of history have not been ignored 
 in the academic world, The detailed pro- 
 ducts of these specialist researches have been 
 ingested by the universities, but not digested. 
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS 39 
 
 Hence one _ of the main causes of their dis- 
 tended curricula and their dyspeptic alumni. 
 The accumulation of historic facts has grown 
 to inameasurable dimensions, but the requisite 
 synthetic conceptions for interpreting these 
 facts have been absent, or of spurious coinage. 
 The traditional philosophies of history 
 which were of genuine synthetic lineage, 
 culminated in that of Comte. His immediate 
 'forerunners, also made first-rate contribu- 
 tions ; yet what acadeftiic student of history 
 "ever hears of Vico, except as a philosophical 
 jurist? Of Montesquieu, except as a, con- 
 stitutional theorist? Of Condorcet, except 
 as a jrevolutionary leader ? Or- even of Comte, 
 except as a misguided philosopher standing 
 ^part from the transcendental German tradi- 
 tion? But these four^ with Herder, are the 
 founders of a synthetic science of history. 
 Their work, without exception, has been done 
 outside the walls of the universities j and 
 there, "beyond undergraduate" reach, the 
 guardians of ac"ademic learning have success- 
 fully kept that work and its influence. The 
 statue of Comte stand^ well outside the 
 $orbonne. His spirit h^s scarcely entered; 
 
40 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 even the university of his own city/whose 
 most historic voice^ he was. JIow much less 
 can we expect to' find the tradition he repre- 
 sents ahve within the walls of other uni- 
 versities? In the space thus swept, if not 
 garnished, there have entered the seven 
 devils of that pseudo-philosophy of history, 
 KuUurgeschichte. 
 
 What is this " history of civilization," 
 masquerading as a philosophy of human 
 evolution? Can we discern its place on the 
 tree of knowledge, which it is the business of 
 the -Tiniversities to teiid? 'In recent times, 
 this tree has put forth a luxuriahce of rank 
 and : disorderly growths. The buds, which 
 the universities should select, and graft 
 upon the tree of life that shoots afresh- in 
 each youthful mind, have been for the most 
 partleft to wither upon the tree of knowledge. 
 The overgrown tangle of branches upon 
 which Professors' and Lecturers lavish their 
 fondest care are called^specialisms. A custom, 
 imported from* Germany, ordains that every 
 academic gardener shall select some one 
 branch and, on pain of ostracism, give his 
 exclusive attention to increase of its growth. 
 
, HISTORY AND POLITICS 41 
 
 Any one who ventures to place his interests 
 on the tree, in its entirety is soon 'made to 
 reahze that a rnpdern university is no place 
 for such an antique survival as himself . 
 
 How expMn this academic perversion ? 
 How account for the tat)oo of thosd who are 
 not specialists in the limited Teutonic sense ? 
 We submit the following explanation. If 
 the State seeks to upset in its own favour the 
 balance of temporal and spiritual powers, 
 what more subtle procedure than to create 
 and multiply divisions among the workers 
 in the latter field?. Divide ei^ impera holds 
 here as elsewhere. By an exclusive absorp- 
 tion in specialisms, the universities have 
 ^ unwittingly become the tools of an all- 
 -dominating State. 
 
 But the weakening of the university's 
 spiritual influence by sub-division goes even 
 further.^ The craving of the human mind for 
 unity is not to be altogether baulked. In 
 spite, therefore, of the specializing custom and 
 the analytic vogue, there is a return movement 
 of synthesis. But even this is emasculated 
 by division into two water-tight compart- 
 ments. The professed philosophers pursue 
 
42 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 their dialectical quest, of an abstract unity. 
 In isolation from the philosophers, stand the 
 representatives of concrete historical unity — 
 the composers of KulturgescMchte. A me- 
 chanical putting together of oddmeats from 
 innumerahle unrelated specialisms, such His- 
 tory of Civilization reflects at once the spirit 
 of its parent ("which is the German university, 
 and its grandparent, which is the centralized 
 State. The futilities of abstract philosophy 
 are thus matched by the confusions of this 
 concrete Kultur; and the ''Servile State" 
 has its spiritual counterpart in the Abject 
 University. Such is the natural progress 
 of decay in the tissue of the body politic, 
 once the balance of temporal and spiritual 
 power is upset, by the former's predominant 
 influence. 
 
 To resume : The wbrld has before it to-day 
 piany rival theories of history and politics. 
 But of all these theories there are two so 
 opposed in spirit and outlook as to niake a 
 clear-cut antithetical pair. One is the Tem- 
 poral theory, predominantly Prussic, though: 
 abundfintly manifested nearer hpme, |t 
 
HISTORY ANH POLITICS 43 
 
 affirms the domination of spiritual by tem- 
 poral powers in the eentralized State to be 
 a normal equilibrium and one moreover of 
 
 ' ; p-fogressive evolution. The deduction foUowSj 
 that the Absolute State ought to be advanced 
 by all the resources of^, art, science and 
 industry; and stronger methods too, if need 
 be. This theory, up to 1914, was held to be 
 the normal expression of historic scholarship. 
 It was taken for granted probably in every 
 
 •~ academic school throughout Christendom not 
 organized on specifically religious lines. Im- 
 plicitly or explicitly it has directed the main 
 current of such thought as academic his- 
 torians have put into the writing of their 
 books, since the German school came into 
 vogue with Mommsen and his compeers. 
 
 It is but fair to record that at the very time 
 Freeman -was - infecting Oxford with the 
 Prussic virus, the recoil in German Jiistoric 
 scholarship had begun. Otto Gierke was^ 
 already working out a more spiritual intet-. 
 
 ' pretatidn oi juristic history. The seeds he 
 sowed will doubtless find congenial soil in 
 the German universities in the inevitable 
 repercussion aftfer the war ; for the greater the 
 
44 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 lapse from rectitude, the more scope for 
 repentance, with its sequel of a fresh start 
 in life. , 
 
 The rival conception to the dominant 
 German one we have called Gallic. It is 
 really Galilean. Its politicalr application can 
 never be better put than in that aphoristic 
 summary of ancient wisdom, which directs the 
 distribution of the things tha:t are Csesar^s 
 and the things that are God's. Cointe's 
 theory of history was but a vastly learned 
 secular development of this principle. His 
 odium - anti - theoldgicum notwithstanding, 
 Comte was at heart a Catholic, though not 
 Roman and orthodox, but Parisian and 
 mystical. His devotion to the memory of an 
 idealized woman kept Mm in sympathy with^ 
 the cult of the Ideial Mother. His spiritual 
 Utopia was an idealization of the Catholic 
 Church at its moments of highest inspiration. 
 Even his much-abused Law of the Three States 
 was but an extreme modernist restatement' 
 of that noble heresy of Abbot Joachim, which' 
 came within sight of beihg incorporated into 
 the doctrine of the mediaeval church, But 
 above and beyond all other evidence, is the 
 
' HISTORY AND POLLTIGS 45 
 
 fact that the Positivist system of social 
 Philosophy has for its corner-stone the. anti- 
 thesis yet correlation of the claims of God 
 and of Gsesar. The conception of citizenship 
 corfespohding to this Christian principle was 
 developed in the Middle Ages and ^ejected 
 from the universities at the Renaissajice. 
 The moral void was filled in the nineteenth 
 century by an interpretation of history, which 
 suggested as at once the more profitable and 
 the more submissive course, the offering of 
 both portions to Caesar. 
 
 The re-interpretation of history by -the 
 universities in a way more appropriate to 
 their intellectual life, and if they are again to 
 become an organ of the spiritual power, is 
 thus long overdue. The generous mind of 
 youth at its formative moments must no 
 longer be shut off by academic blinkers from 
 the spiritual -outlook. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 
 
 In France every man' tends to be a peasant 
 or a Parisian, albeit something of both. 
 These are the dominant types of a people 
 rich in range of local char-acter and variety 
 of national tradition. ^ What gives to Le- 
 Play and Comte a special interest for the 
 student of social science is that he discerns 
 the French peasant -superlatively incarnated 
 in the one, and the spirit of Parisln the other. 
 As in the pages of Huxley we see the world 
 rigorously interpreted in terms of Anglo- 
 Germanic natural science; so, the writings 
 of LePlay and of Comte taken together offer 
 a reading of human life and civilization in 
 terms of a social science rooted at once in 
 the, soil and in the culture-tradition of France. 
 
 LePlay was the TS'ormandy peasant who 
 carried into foreign travel the intuition and 
 experience of his native region. He observed, 
 
 4© 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 47 
 
 compared and explained the life and effort 
 of rustic labourers, diverse in kind and in 
 many different lands. He thus acquired an 
 acquaintance with the elemental phenomena 
 of the human world comparable in its variety 
 and grasp, to that view of the natural world 
 which Darwin's wide-roaming Naturalist's 
 Voyage- gained for its author. Like Darwin, 
 too, he reached in later life large and bold 
 generalizations, based on observational evi- 
 dence, collected with the same, unwearying . 
 persistence, arranged and re-arranged, sifted 
 and re-sifted, with the same patience of re- 
 search, for illuminating clues. Finally, he 
 came to, his interpretation of civilization, and 
 this, in a sense, carried its own verification ; for 
 it was in terms of its author's personal experi- 
 ence, and the regional life into which he was 
 born and bred. Land, Labour and Family 
 Tradition— these are the vital triad of the 
 French peasantry. They are the underlying 
 elements which LePlay discovered beneath 
 all mutations af regional life everywhere; 
 and at length traced into the great city itself. 
 As LePlay is the French peasant abroad, 
 so Comte is the Parisian at home. His early 
 
48 THE COMING tOLITY 
 
 years were spent in Montpellier, the southern 
 Paris. From there he went to^the northern 
 metropolis as a student ; and the rest of his 
 days he passed in the Latin Quarter. He 
 caught and showed forth the spirit of Paris as 
 no one had done before and none since, unless 
 perhaps Victor Hugo. But Hugo's presenta- 
 tion is 'to Comte's as is that of its vividly' 
 imaginative pafnters and playwrights to 
 that of the civic architects who have im- 
 pressed order, indeed order sometimes too 
 severe, upon the city's monumental, plan. 
 The Legende des Sihcles is built out of impres- 
 sions selected by intuition, wrought with 
 the instruments of art and, re-expressed by 
 his torrential poetic genius. Comte, on the 
 other hand, used the systematic laboiir of 
 the scientific mind to sort out with magistral 
 eifort, and then to put together (for most of 
 us a little too formally), into one structure, 
 those elements of its being which have" made 
 Paris the naost representative city- of the 
 modern world. For where else can one see 
 so vividly the .procession of history as in a 
 pageant of daily recurrence? 
 
 In Paris it is not only through monumental 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 49 
 
 reminder, and the incidental archaism of 
 custom, that, the past survives. . For there 
 whole /groups of people continue in daily 
 routine the essentials of historic phases. 
 The Parisian is peculiarly provided with the 
 opportunity of re-birth in the classical spirit, 
 the mediaeval- spirit, the renaissance spirit. 
 So indeed are the inhabitants of other cities ; 
 as, for example, Florence, or to a less extent 
 Oxford. But in Paris there persist rever- 
 sionary trends which continually recreate 
 the earlier phases, from fetichisni onwards. 
 While as for the modern and contemporary 
 phase, its triple manifestations, as industrial, 
 imperial and financial, have each at one time 
 or another flourished in Paris, the two, latter 
 with r&,re intensity, though in Othei: cities 
 these aspects of modernity have settled them- 
 selves" in more conspicuous dominance, as 
 in the financiahsm of London, the militarism 
 of. Berlin. 
 
 By the insti^nct of sympathetic genius, 
 Comte incorporated into his personality some- 
 thing of its essence~from each and all of these 
 manifold phases of civilization. He re- wrote 
 history neither with the distortion of the 
 
50 . THE .COMING POLIXy 
 
 partisan nor the detachment of the archivist; 
 
 but in the spirit and as, the philosop^yoithe 
 
 (iity whose richness of hfe and variety oi 
 
 character are so-'pecuharly' derived from the 
 
 survival of the past, and yetvyhere the daily 
 
 re-combining of those elements has oftenest 
 
 made the new growths of the future. Thus, 
 
 for the first time in .the literature of histOTy, 
 
 and of its philosophy— indeed, in the history 
 
 of civilization — there were achieved, in the 
 
 writings of Comte, these two things. One, 
 
 was a presentation of human evolution that 
 
 looked ■ backw;aj:ds with intimate^ sympathy 
 
 and informed understanding towards each 
 
 main stage of the record.^ , The other was a 
 
 confident looking ahead, in ardent faith and 
 
 eager preparation for the time when this 
 
 whole heritage of culture should become the' 
 
 common birthright of humanity. 
 
 ^ In claiming for Comte primacy in a presentation 
 of human history at once scientific and sympathetic, 
 we do not forget earlier works. Herder's masterpiece, 
 the Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, 
 iot instance, was certainly a worthy precursor of Comte 's 
 work. But it was impossible for a court preacher, even 
 at Weimar in the eighteenth century, to enter, with the 
 requisite intimacy, into other phases of culture than"" 
 that of his own tradition. 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 51 
 
 In exchanging the r6le of interpreter for 
 that of prophet, Comte unfortunately did 
 not content himself with conditional pre- 
 diction : that is a legitimate,' even necessary, 
 instfument of scientific method. He did not 
 say : " Here is my analysis of tendencies that 
 are shaping the future; here are my plans 
 for ensuring -that such and such tendencies 
 come to maturity and be realized, and others 
 discouraged, frustrated or reversed." Nor 
 did he, with the reckless audacity of the 
 prophet, ^^xclaim in combined exhortation , 
 and threat : "Obey my counsels, or your 
 society will come to destruction." But his 
 mathematical bias was apt to -bring his 
 historic standard to its too absolute level,- 
 and thus committed him to fatalist predic- 
 tions, dated and unqualified. Yet it is only 
 fair to recall that he was wont to explain these 
 as intentioflally diagrammatic. , ' 
 
 As humanist interpreter Comte reflected 
 the spirit of his " Ville Lunii^re," and he 
 raised that spirit to a pinnacle of clearer 
 vision. As prophet he reflected the defect 
 of civic life everywhere and at all times. 
 In the shelter of their richly stored " winter 
 
52 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 caves," and in enjoynaent of a culture heritage 
 that seems to defy time and dominate cir- 
 cumstance, the inhabitants of cities too easily 
 forget the rustic origins -from which civic 
 life and power are drawn. Thus the un^ 
 fulfilled predictions of Comte testify to the 
 vanity of cities, as well as to the errancy of 
 genius. ' ,. 
 
 As regards hi's plans for the,re-eoijstruc- 
 tion of society, their crucial defect is manifest 
 to all students of LePlay. They were not 
 regional. In drafting his practical pro- 
 jects, Comte, like other political thinkers of 
 the Revolution, leapt at a bound from the 
 thinker's closet on to the, platform of the 
 worl^. Of the innumerable varieties of local 
 arid national life and tradition, he took little 
 more . adequate account than Napoleon, 
 Alexander of Russia; or Metternich had done. 
 Hence his great' schemes have correspondingly 
 lacked actuality. But though they suffer this 
 disability for immediate application to prac- 
 tice, they remain a matchless monument of 
 social ideaiis'm. - The numerous "volumes tDf 
 the practical treatise; the Politique Positive, 
 are an immense cairn of stones, sometimes 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 53 
 
 rough-hewn, from which future generations 
 will continue to quarry building materials for 
 upbuilding the " Occidental Republic." 
 
 "LePlay did not, liTce Comte, formally 
 assume the prophet's mantle. He discreetly 
 retained the Catholic peasant's blouse. But 
 that did not prevent him looking around, 
 with the keen scrutiny of the scientist, and 
 ahead, too, with the sower's and planter's 
 foresight, and making ' plans accordingly.. 
 These were based on his interpretations ; yet 
 sound as theSe were, they still retained the 
 defects jof th^r origin. The rustic mind, in 
 looking ahead, towards the spectfic crops it 
 desires from its definite sowings, will gairf 
 but a limited view of the future unless in- 
 formed and supplemented. Informed more 
 generally, by wider interest in living nature 
 with her more varied sowings and giro wings ; 
 supplemented also by the civic sense of 
 historic manifoldness. Thus it is easy in 
 the light of Comte's vast historic researches 
 to puncture by specific criticism the practical 
 proposals of LePlay and his- disciples of " La 
 Reforme Sociale." Their remedies, alike for 
 labour troubles and for war, .although far 
 
54 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 from valueless, can only be described as 
 simplicist, when one recognizes the complex- 
 ity of every problem of the modern world, 
 the momentum of histqric survivals also. 
 
 Putting aside, then, the detailed projects 
 of both Comte and LePlay as being of 
 historic interest and suggestive value, though 
 not workable in details, let us ask what is 
 left of immediate service ? There remain the 
 
 • results of their labours in the interpretation 
 of human evolution and its continuance. 
 It is our contention that the two systems of 
 research are complementary ; and that taken 
 together they constitute an armoury of 
 principles and niethods, a treasury of resource 
 insufficiently recognized and still less ade- 
 quately used. To find lin6s and methods of 
 inquiry, symbols and formulae for the repre- 
 sentation, of matters of both observation 
 and reason, is the aim of scientific method. 
 And to this aim few have contributed more 
 than have both Comte and LePlay. 
 
 It is the' misfortune of subsequent sociology, 
 that the two schools which continued the 
 work of each of their respective masters have 
 
 . never come together, to combiiiie the historic 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 55 
 
 retrospect of Comte, the economic scrutiny of ; 
 LePlay, and the forelooking habits of both. 
 The two schools, as they grew up, followed 
 the modern specialistic tendency of Jthought 
 and action, to diverge. Each suffered the 
 ultimate fate of cleavage, into a more scientific 
 group ever drifting further apart from that 
 of more practical appKcation, and conversely. 
 In each school there has thus arisen, on the 
 one hand a band of disciples holding fast 
 by the Master's practical maxirhs, and dedi- 
 cating themselves to the exposition and, 
 propagandism of the original doctrine; and 
 on the other a group of continuators inter- 
 ested mainly to extend and develop^ his 
 thought. ' ^ , 
 
 It was not till the 'eighties of the nineteenth 
 century, that anything, in the nature of a 
 collective and systematic effort was made to 
 bring together and develop, the interpretative . 
 formulae of both LePlay and Comte. In 
 mingled continuity and revival of the old 
 Franco-Scottish tradition, there was started 
 about that time in Edinbufgh, an extra- 
 academic School of Sociology which set before 
 itself that synthetic endeavour amongst other 
 
56" THE COMING POLITY 
 
 - purposes. Its record ol publication is in- 
 considerable, because it has been in its working 
 even more a school of practical thaTi of pure 
 sociology. But nevertheless a certain n^umber 
 of theoretical memoirs h^ve from t-ime to 
 time resulted from its speculative labours. ^ 
 Its aim has beeii to maintain in due. logical 
 separation, the speculative from practical 
 issues, and yet to work deliberately and 
 experimentally tojvards their interaction, by 
 what might be called the Laboratory method 
 of social and civic activity. 2 ' 
 
 From recent publications of this Edinburgh 
 •school we select one for reference, and that 
 for a double reason. In the first place, it was, 
 ' like th^ present volume, an endeavour to 
 popularize the joint regionalist-humanist 
 doctrine, and to demonstrate its practical 
 value for contemporary life and thought. 
 In the second place, it afforded an~ example of 
 what we believe to be. the proper method of 
 
 ^ For a comprehensive synthetic endeavour see 
 " Civics as AppUed Sociology," by P. Geddes, in Socio- 
 logical Pafers, Vols. I and II (Macmillan & Co., London, 
 1906 and 1907). ' - 
 
 ^ See ZuebUn, " The World's First Sociological Labora- 
 tory," 2>Mmc^"/oMma/ 0/ SGCipZo^y, /<?pp. , 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 57 
 
 prediction to which social and pphtical science 
 lends itself. Plamied in 1911, written in 
 1912-13 (in the intervals of much travelling), 
 the book was published in the spring of 1914.^ 
 In this book the -characteristic formulae were 
 put to the service of a critical and constructive 
 survey of the European situation. The writer 
 was led to predict a widespread war as 
 impending, but by no means inevitable. And 
 in that distinction between the contingent 
 and the fatalistic resides the essential quality 
 of scientific prediction. A painstaking dis- 
 crimination between the partietilar and th^ 
 general is, of course, also a necessary element 
 in scientific foresight. Thus, it was not mere 
 war — war in general — that was foretold^ but 
 a particular kind of war. By its definition 
 as a "War of Transition" (between phases 
 of social evolution discussed in detail) the 
 threatened confiagr«tion was classed in a 
 known category ; and related to contemporary 
 movements of known character. ; 
 A scientific predictiort is thus a definite 
 
 1 Interprgtations and Forecasts: a Sdidy.of Survivals 
 and j'mdfi.ncies in Contemporary Society, by Victor 
 Branford (Duckworth & Co., London, 1914). 
 
58 _ THE COMING POLITY 
 
 contingency disclosed by analysis of observed 
 and verified tendencies. The prediction is 
 necessarily accompanied by a similar analysis 
 of modifying tendencies, and also of contrary 
 ones. In point of fact, the bullc of the book 
 was devoted to an examination of tendencies 
 running cOufiter to the threatened cpnflagra- 
 tion. That effort, to divert attention from 
 destructive to constructive issues was indeed 
 the writer's personal contribution, however 
 insignificant and belated, to point the way 
 from wardom to peacedom— towards arrest- 
 ment of the^ dominant war-ward processes, 
 and towards advancement pf the correspond- 
 ing peace- ward ones ; in fact to advance 
 beyond the Kriegspiel in which our adver- 
 saries have been so strong, towards the 
 F^nedenspiel they have had -so much less 
 thought for. , • 
 
 Between these two antagonistic currents, 
 one making for war, and this necessarily of 
 transition, and the other for a peaceful way 
 out pf the threatened deadlock, there were 
 intermediate elements refractory to scientific 
 analysis. One of these was Time, and an- 
 other the complex happening we call Accident. 
 
INTERPRETERS A^V> PROPHETS 59 
 
 Time might have been on the side of the peace- 
 ful tendencies, but for the series of poUtical 
 "^arccidents " which in the summer of 1914 
 gave the reins of power into the hands of 
 professional war parties in Berlin, Vienna 
 and Buda-Pesth. 
 
 It is important to notice that time and 
 accident themselves incline to favour those 
 particular tendencies Which are most in the 
 focus of -attention. The mere prediction of 
 an issue, therefore, creates a current in its 
 favour, proportional in streugth to the faith 
 it inspires in the public mind. The pre- 
 diction of evil or ofxgood may thus become, a 
 decisive factor in the determination of the 
 issue. Hence some justification for the un- 
 popularity of Cassandras of every vkriety 
 and at' all times and places. Hence also an 
 additional reason for accentuating the ' im- 
 portance of social theory; since social pre- 
 dictioiis, however .dogmatic, no iSss than 
 social policy, however conventional, alike 
 rest on, and appeal to some sort of reasoning^ 
 And *such reasoning is of the nature of socio- 
 logical "Theory," little though most hke 
 that name ; unless we are to be indifferent to 
 
6o THE COMING POLITY 
 
 consistency, hostile to exactitude, and re- 
 pugnant to the hard test of verification." 
 
 The gist of what we have endeavoured to 
 say is expressed in Comte's own forcible 
 . phra-§e : Voir ; Prevoir ; . Pourvdir {" See - to 
 foresee; foresee in order to provide "). . 
 
 In social seeing there> are three stages. 
 There is observant seeingj with the eye of 
 the geographer and the economist — their 
 outlook upon the region and its resources, 
 material and human. There is the -discerning 
 seeing, with the eye of the historian, or say 
 rather of the humanist, which is no mere 
 retrospect, but a loolcing around for that 
 vitally persistent past which is the very spirit 
 of the present. Then there is the foreseeing 
 vision ; and this alike of danger and of hope, " 
 In this the prophets of old excelled. - May 
 not the science of to-morrow recover some- 
 thing of their power ? . It predicts evils likfely 
 to Qome, if we continue as we are • but also 
 what better future is possible if we mend our 
 ways. ■ ' _ 
 
 Each of these elements of social, vision is 
 
INTERPRETERS AND PROPHETS 6i 
 
 twofold, having its receptive and its creative 
 phase=— its scientific and its practical side. 
 For the regional outlook there is the receptive 
 mood of enumeration, claissification, assess- 
 ment of resources, in a word the Systematic 
 Survey,* but there also arises the corre- 
 sponding Policy of conserving^ organizing, 
 developing the resources of the region. In 
 this the United States have, led; but as we 
 write, the British Empire, under stress of 
 war is forming its Resources-Commission also. 
 "The humanist outlook invites, on the one 
 hand, to receptive contemplation and aesthetic 
 enjoyment of the culture heritage; yet on 
 the other it prompts to, a creative policy of 
 selection from this and of education into its 
 real acquirement.. 
 
 In the prophetic forelook there is the 
 receptive mood jDf dream and wonder ; there 
 is also the creative mood of struggle with 
 evil and arousal of good. 
 
 Similarly : three corresponding sets of plans 
 emerge. The Regionalist has his Rural and 
 Gity Rep'brts with their plans of improve- 
 ment and development. The Humanist ela- 
 borates his plan towards progress and order. 
 
62 . THE COMING POLITY 
 
 The Prophet announces his ideal ; in fact, his ' 
 plan of salvation. What, then, is the task, 
 of the Statesman? Is it not to harmonize 
 these triple resources-^these correspondent 
 policies of possibility — riiaterial Reconstruc- 
 tion, individual and general Re-educatio«i, 
 and moral and social Renewal— into their vital 
 harmony, their working unison ? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ON THE HIGHWAYS 
 
 As students and interpreters of cities we 
 watcla, with Comte, the rise and fall of Tem- 
 poral and Spiritual Powers. We follow the 
 drama of their action and interaction. We 
 observe that cities are the citadels of tem- 
 poral strength, and yet also the centres of 
 spiritual influence. But of cities themselves 
 is 'not their permanent vital support the 
 peasant's corn-sack ? There is a cynical point 
 of view from which Temporal and Spiritual 
 Powers are rival efforts to dip into the corn- 
 sack brought to market by the peasant with 
 such pathetic regularity. We do not say this 
 is a sufficient point of view, but it is a real 
 one." tt is fundamental, not supreme."^ 
 
 On this 'rustic foundation LePlay builds 
 his system. He is the philosopher of the 
 corn-sack, as Diogenes was of the tub. His 
 guidance we seek on quitting the civic spec- 
 tacle, the historic phantasmagoria, for a 
 
64 ' THE COMING POLITY ^ 
 
 journey in the country-side. With, his aid- 
 the rustic; drama may be observed in its unity 
 and interpreted in terms of regional hfe and 
 labour. But it is a necessary preparation 
 for profitable travel with LePlay to get a 
 clear grasp of these terms — -Region and 
 Regional. 
 
 Consider, for instance, that ever-growing 
 -" Literature of Locality" whiqh is at once 
 realistic in description of scenery and environ- 
 ment, yet romantic in disposition and outlook. 
 The Lowland novels of Walter Scott make the 
 best-known example. They would in French 
 be called: Utterature regional. And the adjec- 
 tive would be a matter-of-fact characteriza- 
 tion, carrying none of that taint of provincial- 
 ism, with which a'^metropolitan critic thought 
 to annihilate the Barrie school of fiction by 
 the epithet "kailyard/' The first, considera- 
 tion^ then, is to clear the words " region " and 
 "regional" of all deprecatory meaning, and : 
 sharply to distingtiish theim from " provin- 
 cial " and " parochial " in so far as these _ 
 words convey narrowing limitations. Yet 
 let us agree that the word "regional" shall 
 also cover, and concentrate in itself, all those 
 
/ ON THE HIGHWAYS 65 
 
 qualities of local colour and tradition, with 
 raciness of the soil, which are implied, in the 
 old phTa.se oi genius loci. < ' 
 
 When we say that a Bishop has diocesan 
 functions, we mean that his work lies in a 
 district encompassing both town sind country. 
 But we mean more than that ; for the word 
 diocese carries a spiritual flavour; as well as 
 covers a geqgraphicaL area. The Region is, 
 with certain qualifications, the sociological 
 equivalent of the ecclesiastical Diocese. True 
 the regional sociologist, in the first place, 
 accentuates the geographical aspect ; and 
 the Bishop the spiritual. The former ob- 
 serves men as he finds tSem;. the latter is 
 occupied in raising their moral potential. 
 
 A further reservation is needed to prevent 
 misunderstanding. In claiming, " regional " 
 as a scientific equivalent to ^' diocesan,'- we 
 are somewhat looking ahead to anticipated, 
 or at most .incipient, effort rather than actual 
 custom. To go by mere geographical usage, 
 we should have lo confess that the science 
 af the schools has not yet given the term an 
 intensity corresponding to the higher reach 
 and implication of " didcese " in its full 
 
66 THE COMING POLITY - 
 
 ecclesiasfical sense. This deficiency may be 
 a symptom not unconnected with the differ- 
 ence in prestige between a Bishop and a- mere 
 sociologist. 
 
 There is a" Committee for the Promotion 
 of Regional Survey," which with the cur- 
 rent year is becoming the Regional Associa- . 
 tion. As their labours and those of fellow 
 workers extend, the observational- basis of 
 social science will broaden and thereon rnust 
 grow up a more concrete science of society, 
 one which will earn for its exponents a fuller 
 hearing, a growing measure of influence. 
 And the work of this Association' — ^by promot- 
 ing the finer and inore definite usage of this 
 word " regional " — ^will contribute something, 
 to the incipient renewal of pride and tradi- 
 tion of locality. The immediate object is to 
 cultivate the regional outlook. The first step 
 is tp look at one's own region;, to look into 
 it as into an ancient mirror reflecting the 
 epitome of human effort. The next is to look 
 at and into other regions.. Anel there is no 
 better procedure for this comparative survey 
 than to arrange a country holiday accordingly. 
 
 Suppose a French student of the regionalist 
 
ON THE HIGHWAt'S 6f 
 
 school arrives at Dover irom. the continent, 
 with the intention of spending a few weeks" 
 holiday in seeing some representative regions 
 of southern England. What will be his 
 itinerary? The ordinary traveller on landing 
 at Dover begins his railway journey to London 
 by burrowing under the chalk hills called 
 "Downs."- But our regionalist having re^ 
 solved to maintain and enjoy the use "of his 
 eyes, and of his legs also, has renounced the 
 mole-like habit of the tourist. He ascends 
 the Downs, and starts on a route which for 
 most of its course will be a pilgrimage of 
 watersheds. This will accordingly correct 
 and supplement the limitations of the cus- 
 tornary low-level travel by road, railway, or 
 waterway^ But thQ rewards of the regional 
 pilgrimage are by no means confined to sci- 
 entific observation, or even to the scenic 
 splendours which open in successive vistas 
 from height to height. ' There is also the 
 fnagic of the Downs. That is an enchantment 
 which roused to a moment of comparative 
 rhapsody even the sedate author of that mild 
 geological manual called The Scenery of Eng^- 
 land. Listen to Lord Avebiiry's encomium 
 
68 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 on the Downs : " The air is cool and pure, 
 crisp and- sweet! Being generally in grass 
 they are silent and peaceful, giving a delight- 
 ful sensation of solitude and repose, height- 
 ened rather than interfered with by the 
 occasional tinjcle of a sheep bell, or the cry 
 of a plover. The Downs present a series of 
 beautifully smooth swelling cu^rves, perhaps 
 the most perfect specimens of graceful contour, 
 and are covered with short, sweet, close turfv' 
 Turf is peculiarly English and no turf is more 
 delightful than that of our Downs — delightful 
 to ride on, to sit on, to walk on. It indeed - 
 feels so springy under our feet that walking 
 on it seems scarcely an exertion." 
 ,. London is the focu^ of roadway and railway 
 travel in central and southern England; but 
 it is the elevated chalk table-land called Salis- 
 bury " plain " which has longest been centre 
 and focus of the highways of the' same great 
 region. It is , along these highways^ that we 
 propose to take our continental regionalist. 
 They radiate from the district of Salisbury 
 Plain like spokes of a wheel. Disregarding 
 geographical and gfeological niceties, and 
 speaking in a broad and general way, we 
 
Sfo1 
 
 g|up to settte the date of its origin, Pri»^ata 
 indmdiiaU taw ilon-e their best, but ep,<ib 
 Bterbed with a ■pre-conceived theory, vrift 
 the result that tbeir estimates rajige ttfis 
 ^the Stone &^ to as recent a time as i 
 century before ttie Norman invasion,. 
 
 The Bwet generally aoosptad date is pro- 
 ba.bly ijba,t jfduoed from astronomical oon- 
 eiderations by Sir Norman Lockyer, who 
 cai©ftilly orieiitalied the avenxies at Aveburr, • 
 Eom« 15 miles north of StoiiAenge, fickl 
 oonoladedtbat they were constraotexl abont 
 B.e, 1760. At that period ttiey would 
 / have serve'd to fis the Pa^an, festivals iji 
 May and November by their poeition witlt 
 
 J.i5«ard to tlie rising sun. 
 
 C^ '- ^ w ■ 
 
 IWAYS 69 
 
 hese spokes. The 
 : i), presents this 
 ?ays; which may 
 >y looking up the 
 oad of Mr. Belloc, 
 
 Fig. I. 
 
 one of the very best of our regional geogra- 
 phers, and this, long befote, he made his 
 reputation as a military pritic. - 
 
 The monumental remains at Stonehenge 
 mark the point of convergence of ridgeways 
 that carried the ancient traveller over the 
 
70 tHE COMING POLITY 
 
 radiating moorlands. A few years ago, the 
 then proprietor of Stonehenge caged it in a 
 ring fence of barbed wire. The charge of 
 a shilling for admission naturally roused 
 strong opposition,' The Society,for the Preser- 
 vation of Commons and Footpaths took the 
 case into the law courts. For seven days 
 the learned Judge listened to the arguments. 
 
 On one side was the contention thatStone^ 
 henge was " the early Cathedral pf the 
 British race," and that deeply scored road- 
 ways converging on it across the Wiltshire 
 Downs preserved the evidence of public 
 approach. , On the , other side was "absence 
 of the evidence iapparently required Fy law 
 that a read-only becomes public when it has 
 been " dedicated " to that purpose by some 
 landed proprietor. The Judge's decision was, 
 that no pjiblic, way led up to Stonehenge !' 
 The Society thus lost its case , (at a cost of 
 £4000, hard-earned funds), and the public 
 lost their putative right of way. Diverr 
 gence could hardly go further between ancient 
 custom and modern land law. 
 
 From the variety of courses offered by the. 
 Salisbury table-land as a centre of travel, 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 
 
 71 
 
 our continental pedestrian has to plot out a 
 series of journeys that will show him the 
 characteristic regions of central and southern 
 England. Keeping to the old-time highways 
 of the ridges and the hill-sides; he wishes 
 
 tt.t.tA- WoIerAtis, 
 
 Fig, 2. 
 
 to view therefrom what may be seen of the 
 representative plains and valleys lying below 
 his path . Here a diagram map of river basins 
 will help us, for the river is always lord" of the 
 valley and sometirges of the plain also. Which, 
 then, of these many river valleys will be 
 selected for exploration ? 
 
72 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 By comparison of Figs, i and 2 it will 
 be noticed that four river valleys converge 
 around Salisbury Plain and the adjacent 
 /highlands. .These are the valleys of the 
 Thames-Kennet, the Bristol Avon, the Salis- 
 bury Avon* and the Test-Itchen, Our tra- 
 veller will, therefore, naturally want to see 
 something ^f all these , four river valleys. 
 Having schemed out the general plan of his 
 journey he will rely on maps and guide-books 
 for the detail. 
 
 But the ordinary literature and carto- 
 graphy of travel will avail him little, for 
 the^e are made to siiit the needs of travel- 
 lers by the low W9,ys along the valley floors 
 which have usurped the riame of the ancient 
 and original highways. These latter survive 
 from the early ages when pafetoral man fed 
 his flocks on the natural pasturage of the 
 Downs and had his home on the dry and tree- 
 less Soil of their slopes and hill-tops. The 
 valleys in those days were for the most part 
 choked with morass. Woodland and forest, 
 the haunt of wolf and wild boar, marten and 
 wild cat. To this old England of the pas- 
 toral age belong the megalithic remains of 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 73 
 
 Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and the still 
 more remarkable ones of Avebury, lying 
 between Salisbury Plain and the Cotswolds. 
 Evidence grows towards proof of a complex 
 civilization centring in these trading and 
 spiritual foci of the Downlands. The gather- 
 ing interest in unravelment of its record is 
 producing a whole new literature of travel. 
 Adding to this the literature of revived in- 
 terest in the mediaeval pilgrim journeys, which 
 also tended to follow the old highways, there 
 is a considerable resource for our continental 
 regionalist. And it may be noted that for 
 regular use of the green highways we do not 
 need to go back to the flint and the bronze 
 age, or even to the mediaeval pilgrimage. 
 They were used for cattle-droving right up 
 to the time of railways. There are said to 
 be still aliv6 old folk in the villages along 
 the base of the Downs who remember' the 
 dark line of animals silhouetted against the 
 sky as the west country drover moved his 
 cattle along the ridgeway- to the London 
 market. 
 
 There could be no better general introduc- 
 tion than Mr. Belloc's The Old Road. This will 
 
74 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 carry the traveller from Dover onAvards well 
 towards Salisbury Plain. His journey thither 
 can be completed with the aid of Pr. Williamsr 
 Freeman's Introduction to Field Archceology, 
 as illustrated in Hampshire. To the, same 
 order of Downland travel-book belongs Mr. 
 Hippisley Cox's The Green Roads of England. 
 This book gives : a clear presentation of the 
 whole system of " Green Roads," but departs 
 from the more accredited archaeological view 
 in treating the congruent civilization as wholly 
 neolithic. With the aid of Dr. Williana&r 
 Freeman, our regionalist friend may survey 
 from the vantage point of the ancient high- 
 ways,, the valley of the, Salisbury Avon, and 
 that noble remnant of primeval England, the 
 New Forest, aiid also the valley of the Test. 
 Mr.- Hippisley Cox's book will enable him to 
 see something of the upper Thames Valley 
 and also something of the valley of the Bristol 
 Avon. Finally, there is Professor Fleure's 
 analysis of evidence as tO-_^e state of the 
 country when the green highways were 
 main lines of communication not "'only for 
 southetn England, but also afforded through- 
 routes between the <:ontinent, England and 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS ^^ 
 
 Wales.i In a masterly re^synthesis and 
 from well-observed data "Professor Fleure 
 presents us with a vivid picture 6f that 
 ancient civilization as the social geographei: 
 sees it. 
 
 The immediate object of the regionaUst 
 rambler in his recourse to this new literature 
 oi the old moorland life is, to be sure, different 
 from that 6f . the writers riientioned. He is 
 concerned only' incidentally with the obser- ' 
 . vation of tumuli, the resurrection of forgotten 
 roadways or other objects of pious memory 
 or archaeological interest. His purpose is' 
 not anthropological but aesthetic and geo- 
 graphic. He will hope, with due anthropo- 
 logical aid, to enjoy the beauty and wonder, 
 the majesty and the miembry of the ancient 
 moorland life. But he wanders on the high ^ 
 moorlands with eye turned not to the past 
 but to the present. His object is to seek out 
 and reach certain vantage points, where the 
 moorland itself sinks into mere foreground, 
 and there rise into full view stretches of 
 
 ^ " Geographical Distribution of Anthropological 
 Types in Wales," H. J. Fleure and T. C. James, Anthrop(h 
 logical Journal, January-June, 1916. 
 
76 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 the river valley that meanders below. Hence 
 the chief use of the books mentione'3 is to 
 direct the regiorialist traveller to the passes^ 
 the high places, the escarpments' and the hill- 
 tops from which may be seen the adjacent 
 valleys. / 
 
 To take a single illustration. One of the 
 indispensable view-points is iJf&ngton Canip, 
 on the Lambourne spurs of the Berkshire 
 Downs. Standing here on one of the sacred 
 high places of Britain, immec^iately over the 
 Great White Horse carved on the chalk escarp- 
 ment, the spectator thrills at once to memory 
 and to scenery. There unfolds to inner 
 vision, first tlie story of early man and his " 
 struggle with the forest, then the epic of 
 Alfred; and to outer view the superb pano- 
 rama of the upper Thames Valley in its sweep 
 from the Cotswolds to the Chilterns. For full 
 historic appreciation Mr. G. K. Chesterton's 
 Ballad of the White Horse should be carried 
 in the knapsack for evocatory use at Uffington. 
 Camp. And at appropriate spots elsewhere 
 on the Downs may be su]bstituted for Mr. 
 Chesterton's historic muse, the more natural- 
 istic verse of Swinburne — 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS ^^ < ^^ 
 
 "Higher and higher to the North aspire the green, 
 
 smooth-swelling, unending downs; ' 
 East and west, on the brave earth's breast, glow 
 
 girdle-jewels of gleiming towns; 
 Southward shining the lands declining subside in' 
 
 peace that the sea's Ught crowns." 
 
 Our pedestrian traveller on the green 
 hill-ways is no regionalist, if ~he does not, in 
 the course of his journey, gather impressions 
 which eoxnpose into one grand picture. A 
 picture in which, indeed, the central interest 
 will be historical, if we mean by historical the 
 unfolding of ]that abiding interplay between 
 human society and geographical eiivironment 
 in which each undergoes continuous and cor- 
 relative change for better or worse. It is a 
 drama of evolution in which both Man and 
 Nature play an epic part. 
 
 At the dawn of British history we see the 
 highways set over the far-spreading tangle of 
 wood and swamp infested with carnivores 
 and fever. Round Stonehenge and Avebury 
 met the streams of influence whose mingling 
 has yielded the riches of our ancient tra- 
 ditions. The bronze workers and the tin 
 seekers, the gold prospectors, the refugees 
 from the Eastern Mediterranean , spreading 
 
78 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 through 'Europe to, West Britain, seem to 
 meet there the men whom archaeology has 
 followed from the Scythian plain to our 
 eastern chores. And who shall say what in 
 the stories , of Arthur and Merlin is not a 
 memory of struggles in the ultimate fusion 
 of these ancient elements of British life ? 
 Again, with the coming of Iron, the west is 
 the conservative stronghold of Bronze. Had^ 
 the Roman Invasion not overshadowed it, we 
 might doubtless have had evidence of other 
 kinds, besides the legend of Wayland Smith, 
 to tell us of the meeting of bronze and iron 
 civilisations in ^her future Wessex. Next, read- 
 ing between the lines of scanty Anglo-Saxon 
 data, we perceive a long struggle with, vary- 
 ing fortune between Briton and inva.der. For 
 resultant is created a composite unity. It 
 uses the invader's language, it cherishes the 
 sanctity of Glastonbury, it idealizes its Alfred,;" 
 re-incarnation of the spirit of Arthur. Every 
 legend is to the regiohalist on the spot no mere 
 story for the fireside, but an integjal element 
 in the spirit of the place. In this way, com- 
 bining my thopoesy with interpretative travel, 
 our i;anlbler soon comes to see and feel 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 79 
 
 the great Downs of Wessex as the. region 
 of intermingling and fusion of British tradi- 
 tions, and so a main spiritual matrix of 
 the national life. A deep significance thus, 
 attaches to the fact that it was Anglo-Celtic 
 Wessex (British in the full rich sense) that 
 helped the beginnings of English literature, 
 that gave the commencement of political 
 unity under Egbert,- that led the resurg- 
 ence under Alfred, that played a majestic 
 -part in the flowering of the Middle Ages, 
 -and has in our own time powerfully stimu-,, 
 lated the " literature of locality" with v 
 Williani Barnes, Thomas Hardy and W. H. 
 Hudson. 
 
 The historical factor in the regionalist 
 outlook it were better perhaps to call evo- 
 lutionary. For the latter word conveys the 
 riecessary implication of continuity with the 
 past, but directs attention also to the present 
 and to the future. It is, then, the evolution of 
 the Region in (so to speak) a joint partner- 
 ship with Man, that is the topic and the theme 
 of the regionalist. It is the story of Man's 
 movement from the high ground of the Downs 
 to the underlying valleys, anjd his deeds 
 
8o THE COMING POLITY 
 
 therein, that makes the main thread of the 
 drama which our regionaUst rambler is engaged - 
 in reading in tljie course of Kis journey. 
 With the wresting of the valleys from the 
 grip of wild nature and their occupation 
 by human societies come interactions and 
 complexities, whose resultants accumulating 
 through the ages give rise to the tangled 
 web of modern life. In our struggle to-day 
 with the Burden of Evil, how' often are 
 we bafifled through inability to reach the 
 ^primary elements of the situation ! We need 
 a method of analysis which wiir lay bare 
 the roots of social causation. And it must 
 be a method which shows the interrelation of 
 man and environmeht, of people and place 
 alike in country and town. The beginning 
 of such a method the regionalist claims for 
 his ' ' Valley Section. ' ' How this valley section 
 naturally arises during the regional survey 
 it is easy to see. Our French friend will, in 
 the course of his perambulations, have ex- 
 tended his observations to the valleys of the 
 Thames and the Bristol Avon. Let him make 
 •what geographers call a "section" of each, 
 and putting -them togetheiL, from west to 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 8i 
 
 east he will have before him a diagram like 
 this— 
 
 <^WM n« a>nn>su».0<u» cntfawnD rn miKM 
 
 eeiUNGfwwBlHISJiXA 
 
 Fig. 3.^ — Section through valleys of the Bristol Avon! , 
 / and the Thames. 
 
 Now a glance at a relief map of Scotland, 
 of the Scandinavian Peninsula, of Central ^ 
 Europe, South America and many other parts • 
 of the globe, shows that a seqtion from west 
 to east would make a diagram similar to the 
 above section of southern England. The 
 Rhine-Danube' valleys, for instance, are just \ 
 an enlarged version of the Avon-Thames 
 valleys. In short, we have here one of the 
 mbst characteristic pieces' of earth structure. 
 The river valley may be taken ^sjthe typical 
 geographical region, but the linked river 
 valleys on opposite sides of a low water part- 
 ing niay often be a more comprehensive and ' 
 fully representative area for sociological study. 
 Such valley sections' are the elemental dia- 
 grams of regionjal survey. 
 
82 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 The first aim of the survey is to see the 
 world as scenery— in terms of river valleys, 
 their mountain or moorland sources, their 
 hill-side walls, their upland plateaus, their 
 lowland plains and their marine or ocean 
 outlets. Again our typical regionalist, Mr.- 
 Belloc, who unites both English and French 
 experience in a rare degree' has, in his Path 
 to i^owe, described a piece of the world as 
 he saw it from successive upland vantage 
 grounds: " When I call up hy myself," 
 he writes, " this great march I see it all 
 mapped but in landscapes each of which 
 I caught from some mountain and each of 
 which joins on to that before and to that 
 after it till I can piece together the whole 
 road." . 
 
 But the regionalist sees the world not 
 merely as landscape. In his survey, the 
 river valley appears next as clothed with 
 characteristic vegetation, varying with soil 
 and subsoil, with contour and slope, with 
 rainfall and sunshine, and with man's influ- 
 ence above all. And when one valley is 
 compared with another, and their plant 
 associations studied, an ideal or typical linked 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 83 
 
 valley" section can be built up : on the steeper 
 western slope, coniferous ^ forests on the 
 higher ground, and mineral-bearing rocks on 
 l;he lower. Barren hill-tops mark the divide, 
 and down the -gentler eastern slope, woods 
 with their ^5^ild life, then upland sheep pas- 
 tures, then poorer arable lands and finally 
 the richer plain through which the river ^ 
 meanders. Within each belt of natural pro- 
 ducts, the suitableJiuman occupation appears, 
 and with this localized type of worker his 
 characteristic family life. Thus, in succes- 
 sion from west to east, there emerges in the 
 typical valley---or linked pair of these — the 
 miner, the woodman, the hunter, the shepherd, 
 on the higher levels ; then ther poor peasant 
 or -crofter with his oats _^and potatoes on 
 the thin soil next to the permanent pasture 
 (his light plough hot so long ago his mattock) ; 
 then the prosperous farmer with his deep 
 pjough and whea't on the richer soils ; and 
 finally, adjacent to the city, where the river 
 widens to estuary or sea, the busy gardener 
 with his spade. At the mouth of the river 
 the fisher with his net completes this series 
 ^ In England;; more frequently, oak. 
 
$4 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 of main regional occupations. Such a repre- 
 sentative section with its characteristic occu- 
 pational types niay thus be diagrammatically 
 represented. 
 
 
 
 ^^^^m^^ . 
 
 
 ^'^ % 
 
 -. J^" ^ ^i ■> ^*^- 
 
 Ei^. 4, — Valley section, with typical vegetation and 
 characteristic /egional'occijpations. 
 
 Presented in more graphic yet still frankly 
 conventionalized fashion, the same regional 
 panorama of environment, with its occupa- 
 tional types, is shown in the full-page block 
 which we owe to Mr. Mairejt's pencil. From 
 this still much simplified rural outline are 
 omitted the towns and cities indicated in 
 Fig. 4 that grow up at the points where 
 the various rustic belts mingle* or where the 
 lateral valleys emerge on the main valley. 
 Comparing in bird's-eye view the actual 
 Avon-Thames linked valley with the " ideal " 
 or imagined unit, we note wide departures, 
 yet also considerable conformity. On the 
 relatively steep western slope, there is not 
 
86 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 only the ^Bristol coalfield, but also the famous 
 " Bathstor^e " quarries, from which have come 
 the building materials for not a few. public 
 edifices and private h<Duses in London. The 
 coniferous forest of the typical western valley 
 is absent.; but, as the traveller crosses the 
 divide he notes that the western ^de with its 
 larger rainfall is better Wooded than the 
 eastern. On the long gentle eastern slope, 
 the firsf feature to catch the eye is the up- 
 land pastures of the Cotswolds. Is, then, the 
 forest hunter of the typical valley- absent ? 
 Not 'aitogether. Travel a few. miles north- 
 wards to the lateral valleys that link the 
 Thames with the Severn basin, and you find 
 yourself in a region beloved of the sportsman. 
 Girencestei:, for instance, the chief town <)f the 
 upper Thames, is one of the main sj^ffeng 
 centres of England, From there the well- 
 equipped horseman can hunt with a different 
 pack of hounds well-nigh every day of the 
 week from Monday to Saturday. The turf 
 of the ^Cotswolds, it is true, has not that 
 elastic quality which makes the fame of the 
 turf on the Downs, but it has merits which 
 bring horsemen to Cirencester, not only as 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 87 
 
 a Mecca of fox-hunting but also of polo- 
 jd^ayerS. But what of the sylvan cover 
 necessary alike for the food of foxes and the 
 supply of game for the sporting gun ? That 
 which nature has denied, the art, of venery 
 has supplied. The great game-forest stretch- 
 ing from Cirencester to Sapperton was laid 
 out and planted, in the eighteenth century, 
 and may be inspected to-day as a representa- 
 tive paradise of that domesticated variety 
 of -hunter cajled sportsman. 
 
 'Tis true that for a fairly close approxima- 
 tion to the standard or "ideal" type of 
 region, we- must go further afield than the 
 - Thames Basin, and choose a river descending 
 frpm more mountainous regions, through less 
 populous lowlands, to an estuarine city, .more 
 limited to its immediate region , than is- 
 London. Any of the , larger eastern river 
 valleys of Scotland with its western link will 
 serve.^ Take the Orchy-Tay as a sample 
 linked- valley. On the steep western slope 
 are coniferous forests and here and there a 
 granite or other quarry. On the long and 
 gentler eastern slope as we descend from 
 source to sea, we see how at nodal points 
 
88 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 there have naturally arisen distinctive types 
 of village, town and city,- each congruent 
 with the local environment and its charac- 
 teristic occupations. Beneath the vast hunt- 
 ing desolations of the broad mountain' tops 
 lie pastoral hill-sides. Below these, again, 
 are scattered arable crofts; and sparsfely 
 dotted hamleis lead us to the small upland 
 village of the main glen. From this, again, 
 one descends to the large and prosperous 
 village of the foot-hills ; with its railway 
 terminus where lowland and uplaifd meet. 
 Whether we look to east or west, each 
 siniilar mountain valley has its analogous 
 terminal \and initial village upon its fertile, 
 fan-shaped slope, and with its corresponding 
 minor market ; while next, central to the 
 broad agricultural strath, with its slow mean- 
 dering river, stan^^s the prosperous market- 
 town, the road and railway junction upon 
 which all the glen villages converge. A 
 day's march further down, and at the con- 
 vergence of several such valleys, stands the 
 larger country-town,' at the tidal limit of a 
 till lately navigable river. Finally, at the 
 mouth of the estuary rises the smoke of a 
 
■ ON THE HIGHWAYS. 89 
 
 great manufacturing city, a central world- 
 market in its way. 
 
 There are three traditional ways of land 
 travel : the hillway, the roadway, the railway. 
 Each is characteristic of a pa.rticular phase 
 of civilization and has its reaction on the 
 mentality of the traveller. The hillway 
 traveller sees the glory, the wonder and the 
 variety of the world. He sees it region by 
 region and 'so observes it as a natural, whole. 
 In other w^rds, he is acquiring the regional 
 outlook, and he correspondingly develops 
 the synthetic habit of mind. The roadWay 
 traveller sees more a succession of detached 
 impressions, with less frequent opportitnity 
 for synoptic vision. His habit of inind tends, 
 therefore, to be analytic, anjd in, general view 
 is apt to be but abstract. 
 
 And what is the mental reaction- of the 
 ' railway traveller towards the objective world ? 
 At the begiiining of a railway jouriiey, the 
 faces of your fellow-passengers are invisible, 
 being immersed in newspapers and maga- 
 zines. At the end of the journey you observe 
 
go THE COMING POLITY 
 
 on their countenances the marks of weari- 
 ness and boredom. They have too much 
 missed the opportunities of mental refresh- 
 ment that come through the simplest ob- 
 servation ; and, being half conscious of the 
 omission, they are correspondingly sorry for 
 themselves and annoyed with others . Instead 
 of sitting in receipt of a wealth of direct 
 impressions, they have occupied themselves 
 in seeing but indirectly through the eyes of 
 those merchants in spiritual traf&c who, in 
 the words of one of the most successful, 
 " buy paper and sell it inked." Thus is the 
 meni;al outlook of the rail\yay traveller turned 
 the more surely towards . the idols of the 
 market, the theatre and the tribe. These 
 flourish luxuriantly amongst townsfolk fed 
 on print and rhetoric, stail^ved of nature 
 contacts, denied historic culture. 
 
 Man's conquest of the air has added to the 
 wSys of locomotion a new mode Which pro- 
 mises to reverse the railway tendency towards' 
 the de-regionalizing and de-spiritualizing of 
 travel. For the airman sees again the natural 
 regions of the world, and these more than 
 ever of old, in broad and synoptic vision. 
 
ON THE HIGHWAYS 91 
 
 which again is intensified by the ecstasy of 
 flight, to inner clarity and unity. By a 
 strangely, appropriate turn in the" whirligig 
 'of time, the " highways " of the airmen 
 '^ '^ would seem to be again concentrating towards 
 Salisbury Plain, as did of, old the ridgew4ys 
 of the hillmen. Against the regional f oqus 
 of roadways at Cirencester, and of railways 
 at Swindon, the more artificial concentration 
 of London has prevailed. But will not a 
 fresh rivalry proceed, from Salisbury Plain 
 in competition for the favour of the race of 
 airmen ? The call of Stonehenge will surely 
 be renewed in the nascent age. of aerial 
 locomotion. And the doctrine of regionalism, 
 with its accompanying synthesis and implied 
 political and educational transformations, 
 must needs be more and more heard among 
 the vivid elUe of this first generation to 
 master the art of flying. It is no accident 
 that to the development of -this doctrine and 
 to the perfection of that art, France has alike 
 contributed so eminent a share. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE RURAL PROBLEM 
 
 LePlay is the father of scientific regional- 
 ism. He has taught us to think in terms of 
 * regional sequence. His line of reasoning, 
 begins with the' soil and its natural products^; 
 it continues with man, the creature of work 
 and place; it culminates in man the builder 
 of cities and creator of arts and sciences; 
 and it returns through all the vicissitudes of 
 war and peace to end again in the, soil with 
 its fertility renewed and increased by the 
 hand of man, or ruined and destroyed by 
 the same hand-. The tale of that cycle, in 
 its full complexity, is the history of civiliza- 
 tion. The merit of LePlay is to have in- 
 sisted on the elemental beginnings and to 
 have elucidated their continuity throughout, 
 the cycle. Let us consider some examples. 
 
 The chalk Downs of southern England 
 
 when left to nature develop their carpet of 
 
 herbage and r^eject all other vegetation, 
 
 92 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM 93 
 
 Probably since the age , of flint-^sopae say 
 during a score of millenniums — this pasturage 
 has continuously carried its flocks of sheep 
 and its community of shepherds . Even to-day 
 there are on Salisbury Plain men who have 
 been shepherds from fathfer to son, pertainly 
 for centuries, and probably far longer. In 
 this prolonged interaction between environ- 
 ment, occupation, and family life there evolve 
 certain human dispositions and social tradi- 
 tions tending to fix the pastoral type. A 
 simple analysis will m?ike this clear. 
 
 For the shepherd, survival and prosperity 
 are determined by the numbers and quality 
 of his flock. His habit of mind and mode of 
 life, renewed from generation to generation, 
 thus inevitably take their stamp from the 
 character and aims of his occupation. ' His 
 ideals of success and achievement will be 
 correspondingly coloured, and will tend to 
 be expressed not in terms of things, as with 
 the flint or metal worker and his successors 
 the modern engineers whose aims and mode 
 of thought are so widely dominant to-day, ^ 
 but in terms of quantity and quality of life. 
 The monuments of. this pastoral culture in 
 
94 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 an early age .Were the megalithic temples of 
 Avebury and Stonehenge ; and in a later one, 
 combining with peasant constructiveness it 
 reared the soaring spire of Salisbury Cathedral 
 and the noble towers of Winchester. These 
 architectural creations fittingly express the 
 ever-renewing quest of life more abundant. 
 
 Passing from the shepherd to the peasant 
 type, let us visit with LePlay a hill-side farm 
 on a southern slope of the chalk Downs. 
 Yielding to the fascinatioh of that psycho- 
 logical analysis which, to be sure, should 
 crown rather than initiate the observations 
 of the regionalist, we will begin; by inquiring 
 how the farmer, too, like the shepherd, has 
 his habits of mind shaped by his occupation. 
 The peasant, in so far as he is a stock-breeder, 
 .will naturally" tend to select and breed 
 superior types — cows that will give more and 
 richer milk, horses that are fleeter and 
 stronger. Survival value, therefore, for him, 
 also comes to be measured by capacity to 
 maintain and improve quality of life. So, 
 too, for his crops and pastures. There is 
 the same economic thrust towards selection 
 and improvement of seeds and soil—for 
 
 J, 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM 95 
 
 instance, one kind of pasture carrying twice 
 as many cattle to the acre as another. The 
 ideals of the peasant thus tend to be expressed 
 in terms of quantity and quality of life, as 
 do those of the shephei'd. Yet less directly 
 and insistently with the peasant, because he 
 is nearer to and more involved in the urban 
 market, with its modifying tendencies towards . 
 "business." 
 
 Turning from psychology to economics, we 
 note the farmer has ploughed up and put 
 under crop a portion of the old grass down- 
 land. His arable is gradually creeping up 
 the hill-side, and as it -goes it is transforming 
 to agricultural use the traditional pasturage 
 of the shepherd. But simultaneously the 
 flocks of the shepherd increase and need more 
 pasturage. Thus in the drive of economic 
 pressure there begins' the struggle for exist- 
 ence between shepherd and farmer, between 
 the pastoral and the agricultural type of 
 family. , The strife is, in our modern complex 
 coihmunity, overlaid by many interactions^ 
 which obscure the simpler issues. The farmer, 
 for instance, may purchase the shepherd's 
 flock and hire the shepherd himself to 
 
96 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 continue its care as a wage labourer. That 
 transformation has, indeed, become long ago 
 normalized in all the countries of western 
 Europe. It means, none the less, disruption 
 of the pastoral group; and this with all 
 the changes in spcial function and structure 
 which are implied in that break-up of an 
 old-rooted form of community life. The 
 shepherd's sons go to town, and in the fur- 
 nace of the city they are transmuted into 
 types apparently new, but really- variants of 
 the primitive one. How often, for instance, 
 do they become porters, railway, guards, and 
 policemen? Or, it may be, poets, painters, 
 divines ? In either set of cases ,they gravi- 
 tate into positions where the traditional 
 qualities of the pastoral life— its trustworthi- 
 ness and imaginativeness, its habitudes of ^ 
 life-service and its instincts of spiritual ._; 
 aspiration — may again count in the social 
 struggle. Or, again, they lapse to levels 
 which bring out the traditional defects of 
 the pastoral life; hence they also too often 
 become unskilled labourers, or even recruit 
 that artificial urban residuum which we call 
 the vicious and the criminal classes. 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM 97 
 
 Returning to the chalk country from this 
 urban excursus, let us note some further 
 events of to-day, on that ancient homeland 
 and eeiitre of English pastoralism, Salisbury 
 Plain. Just as the farmers ha^e been tend- 
 ing to oust the shepherds, so now another 
 elemental type of human occupation is en- 
 croaching on and even expelling the farmer. 
 It is not very long since Aldershot sufficed 
 for the field manoeuvres of the British Army. 
 Thence the soldiers extended their operations 
 to Salisbury Plain. The farmer had io give 
 way to the~ soldier, the agricultural to the 
 military community. And even before the 
 war, with its new urgencfes, there had for a 
 long time proceeded a steady encroachment , 
 of the camp upon the Jarm. Here ^ again is 
 no mere local and transient transformation; 
 like the struggle of farmer and shepherd, it 
 is one of the formative processes of history. 
 Scratch the soldier and you find the sportsman ; 
 and within the sportsman persists that most 
 elemental of all occupational types, the hunter. 
 
 Now consider the primitive hunter in his 
 original milieu and normal mode of life. 
 The persistence of the hunting tribe demahds 
 
 H . 
 
q8 the coming polity 
 
 an ever-enlarging area in the pursuit o-f game 
 for livejiho0(ii The hunting community, from 
 the very nfiture of things, sooner than most 
 modes of hfe, exhaust's its field of supply, 
 and is driven with irresistible pressure to 
 extend its boundaries. The desire for terrir- 
 torial expansion thus becomes implanted as 
 a tradition, and fixed as a habit of mind in 
 the hunting type. The manner of its per-; 
 sistence and activity in the many varieties, 
 and mutations of the hunter type throughout 
 past and'present, and in contemporary society, 
 is one of the many re-writings of history and 
 of contemporary sociology which are await- 
 ing monographic treatment by the LePlay 
 method. In olden times the Tiistory of 
 Dominion usdd to be written with rapture by 
 the Bards of the Conquerors. Nowadays it 
 is recorded with dullness by their prosaic 
 successors, the academic historians. Some- 
 times, however, it is composed by the apolo- 
 gists or the satirists of the conqueredr It 
 has Qccasioijaliy been written, for the People 
 by the romanticists of urban labour. AH 
 these " histories " now await re-interpreta- 
 tion by the realists of rustic labour. 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM 99 
 
 Let us examine somewhat more minutely 
 the psychology of the hunter. For him sur- 
 vival and achievement is in the measure of 
 his bag of game/Success, therefore, is in 
 terms of the successful infliction of death. 
 His habits of mind will be similarly oriented 
 and his ideals of life correspondingly coloured. 
 -So far, then, we have in sharp contrast the 
 shepherd's ideals in terms of quality of life 
 and the hunter's in quantity of death. W. H. 
 Hudson, the prose Burns of the Downs, in 
 his enchanting study of A Shepherd's Life, 
 contrasts the characteristic attitude of the 
 gamekeeper and the shepherd towards wild 
 life. The latter readily extends his loving 
 care from domesticated to wild animals,- he 
 seeks to protect them, and tends, therefore, 
 to create in his grazing area a sanctuary of 
 wild life. Says Mr. Hudson : " The game- 
 keeper cannot have this feeling [of liabitual 
 tenderness towards wild life]. He may come 
 to his task with the liveliest interest in, even 
 with sympathy for, the wild creatures amidst 
 which Tie ivill spend his hfe, but it is all 
 soon lost. ,His business in the woods is to 
 kill, and the reflex effect is to lower, if not 
 
lop THE COMING POLITY' - 
 
 extinguish, his interest in the Hving animal in 
 i;ts natural life and mind.", And naturally 
 so, since he must needs mainly think of it as 
 an opponent. to be defeated, taken captive, 
 expelled, or slain outright. 
 
 The mere contrast of pastoral and hunting 
 psychology is by no means the end of their 
 story. Recall how the shepherd is ever 
 needing new pasturage and the peasant new 
 tillage ; while the hunter himself with fiercest 
 ui'gency demands increase of hunting-grounds. 
 Conflict inevitably ei^sues. The shepherds 
 ■become nomadized in the worst senses, and 
 raid the peasant communities accordingly. 
 These defend tlieir settlements with ramparts 
 and walls, and their young men are encouraged 
 to play the warrior in self-defence and in 
 counter-attack. But the peasaint, most pacific 
 of occupational types, is longest resistant to 
 the combative life ; hence there arises the 
 immemorial custom of tribute from agricul- 
 tural to predatory pastoral comniunities — 
 blackmail, in fact, and leading to " civilize^d " 
 developments top numerous for outline here. 
 
 Where in this incipient drama of regional 
 destruction comes the hunter ? He, only too 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM loi 
 
 readily of all, turns man-hunter; and this 
 not ntierely because it is congruent with his 
 natural occupation and the highest intensi- 
 fication of it, but for an even deeper and 
 subtler reason. In the hunting community, 
 it is the young men who, by their greater 
 prowess in the chase, become the leaders of 
 the community and who direct its course in 
 terms of the dispositions of youth. Thus 
 is the hunting community impelled to the 
 warrior life by the double drive of occupa- 
 tional tendency and by the combative instinct 
 of the young male. A new r6le, therefore, 
 oj)ens to the hunter in the con^fhct of occupa- 
 tional types. He unifies and organizes the 
 peasant, the shepherd, and all the others for 
 war. To begin with, perhaps,- it is inter- 
 local and inter^tribal war, next it is inter- 
 regional war, and so on to the greater wars 
 which have culminated in the struggle of our 
 own day, in which all these primitive factors 
 and their working are still so plain. 
 
 Now facts have been accumulating to 
 support a generalization which, if it be con- 
 firmed, is of great significance for human 
 development. Each characteristic regional 
 
102 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 occupation tends to generate in the com- 
 munities th^t live by it a particular set of 
 qualities and also of limitations and defects. 
 The generalization is that true co-operation- 
 complex co-operation, that is, as^ for instance, 
 in the war against the primitive forest in the 
 ^Eijglish valleys — among occupational types 
 tends not only to develop their occupational 
 qualities, but also towards eliminating^ the 
 occupational defects; while on the other 
 hand inter-occupational . conflict t^nds to 
 develop the defects of the combatant types 
 and to deteriorate or eliminate their qualities ._ 
 But as we have, lately been having experi- 
 mental proof, war becomes a form of inter-com-^ 
 munitary couflict with inter-occupational co- 
 operations corresponding : and these develop 
 qualities, and even to a certain extent eliminate 
 defects. That tlie hunter, early in his career 
 as organizer of war, learned to use and de- 
 velop this moral potentiality of war, as well 
 as many others less pleasing, may safely be 
 assumed, as well as read at large in history 
 or seen anew. His capacity to use war for 
 its evocation of good as well as of evil, for 
 raising and not siriiply lowering the moral 
 
; THE RURAL PROBLEM 103 
 
 poteutiality of a community, has thus en- 
 dowed the hunter-warrior with a spiritual 
 range of which the extent may far exceed, 
 and the irrtensity well-nigh rival, that of the 
 shepherd-prophet. Thus we come nearer to 
 understanding that surprising docility which 
 has characterized so many peasant commu- 
 nities throughout history, under the exacting 
 domination of the hunter-warrior. - 
 
 What of the future evolution of this potent 
 occupational type ? What clues are there to 
 suggest the possible development of its more 
 constructive r6le ? Recall that, as the shep- 
 herd,- the sailor, the peasant, with their 
 craft-knowledge of the stars and the seasons, 
 have laid the foundations of astronomy and 
 the mathematical sciences, so from the craft- 
 lore of the hunter have come not a few main 
 beginnings of the organic or natural sciences. 
 The hunter as naturalist undergoes a normal 
 development that runs, in a measure, counter 
 to that of the hunter as warrior. Dwelling 
 in the haunts of animal life, he comes' to 
 know the beasts of the forest and the field 
 with an intimacy that, at least in those 
 individuals o£ gentler temperament and 
 
■ 7' -, 
 
 104 ■ THE COMING POLITY 
 
 meditative habit, must make for the care 
 rather than the destruction of life;. But prob- 
 ably this trend of tenderniBss and meditation 
 operates on the hunter mainly through his 
 children, for these in their manner of being 
 and their ways of life are so close > to the 
 young of animals as often to make pets of- 
 them. And here, -as in so many other 
 ways, the children rnay be educators of the 
 parents. 
 
 ._The trend of circumstance thus impels the- 
 hunter in t\yo opposite directions. One is a 
 turning to tlje lust of death; but the other 
 is a turning away from it, tdwards a loving 
 care for, and interest in, life.' If the lattei^ 
 mood comes to dominate the former, there 
 results that transformation of character known 
 theologically as "conversion." Spurred'^ by 
 the latter impulse, the hunter sees the vision 
 of St, Hubert, which thus takes its place, 
 not yet as a normal, but as a supernormal- 
 metamorphosis. The problem is, how can 
 it be normalized ? There the sociologist may 
 leave it to be discussed between the natural- 
 ists themselves and those who continue the | 
 tradition of pastoral ethics. 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM i9^ 
 
 _ But the remark may be permitted that 
 we are: recommending nbt a^fp'feigrl but a 
 domestic mission. We have stated the pro- 
 blem as for the inhabitants of the primeval 
 forest. But manifestly it is in principle not 
 dissimilar for the preservers of pheasant 
 coverts and the owners of grouse moors, for 
 shooting tenants and hunting squires. Re- 
 garded as a contemporary problem of ciyilized 
 societies, this age-long, question of the hunter's 
 conversion may seem remoter than ever from 
 solution, in face of the widespread arousal 
 of reversionary elements indicated by the 
 war. But suppose that the generation ante- 
 cedent to the war had, throughout all classes, 
 in every belligerent nation, been afforded 
 ample opportunities for display of hunting 
 prowess at the onset of youth, when combat 
 with the elemental forces of nature is in- 
 stinctively sought.; and suppose the occa- 
 sions so provided had been designed tO' 
 encourage the qualities and virtues of the 
 hunting life, and to discourage or reverse 
 the hunting defects an(d vices! These as- 
 sumptions, do not seem extravagant, when 
 we reflect that the Boy Scout movement 
 
io6 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 starts from this outlook, and at its best 
 aspires to realize these ideals in the oncoming 
 generation. The greatest significance then 
 attaches to this initiative. May- it not, in 
 fact, turn out to be the very greatest of all 
 our English/Contributions to the real advanee:- 
 ment of education ? ^ 
 
 This movement in its^igin and growth 
 recapitulates with curious fidelity the natural 
 divergences of the primitive hunting life. 
 Already two well-mapked types of Boy Scout 
 begin to appear. In the one the incipient 
 warrior tends to subordinate the naturalist, 
 and in the other the naturalist the warrior. 
 The " Lone Scouts," with their emphasis on 
 forest craft and the use of the camera in the 
 stalking of animals, illustrate the latter 
 change. And that Baden-Powell's boys have 
 exhibited so little tendency to the former 
 change, even in these, military days, shows 
 how far the movement has gone towards 
 re-establishing that process of coliversioii, 
 1 which anthropologists and psychologists agree 
 in cbnsideiring as organic and not exceptional, 
 however later conditions may have made it 
 seem so, 
 
THE RURAL PROBLEM 107 
 
 Their latest achievement well illustrates 
 this ethical tendency. The founder, in a 
 recent letter to Tfi,e Times, informs us what 
 the. Boy Scouts are doing to counteract that 
 increase of juvenile crime which has shown 
 itself not only in belligerent countries, but 
 even amongst neutrals- — a strange combina- 
 tion of mass suggestion and occupational 
 reversion. He writes as follows— 
 
 ' ' For checking the increase of . j uvenile crime 
 the municipal authorities of one great centre 
 called in the help of the Boy Scouts a few 
 months ago. As a result a system has been 
 established whereby each Scout takes at 
 least one street boy under his charge, and 
 brings him in as an honorary member to use 
 the Scouts' clubs, and to play in their games, 
 and practise their hobbies, thereby gaining 
 improved environment and activities. We 
 find that the worst Hobltgan soon makes the 
 best Scout ; he only needs direction for his 
 adventurous energy and attractive pursuits 
 to fill a void. So soon as he proves his 
 worth he is given an armlet to wear as a 
 ' temporary Scout . ' " 
 
io8 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 Here assuredly is seen at work one of 
 those " moraL equivalents of war" which 
 William James foresaw amongst the social 
 inventions of the Juture. To extend and 
 multiply such instances is to advance the 
 process of converting the ^perennial hunter 
 that is in every youth. That other and 
 higher stages of ethical operation are re- 
 quired to complete and maintain the good 
 work so begun, no one will deny; but. none 
 the less we -may rejoice over this return to 
 nature wliich is even already justifying the 
 best teaching of LePlay even more deeply 
 than that of Rousseau. This edilcatiohal 
 philosophy has now tq think out and organize 
 opportunities for constructive application of 
 impassioned youth's creative impulses. The 
 problem is one for town and country^ alike. 
 And it is not to be forgotten: that, from the- 
 rrtstic standpoint, the central issue in the 
 matter of war and peace is : How to effect 
 and maintain the conversion of the hunter ? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 \ 
 
 THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The principle of interpretation for which 
 LePlay stands we shall consider in a some- 
 what methodic way in a later chapter. But 
 first we would drive home its moral signifi- 
 cance and political iiriplications by sorne 
 further illustrations chosen as supplementary 
 to those given in the last chapter. And in 
 order that the illustrative examples may be 
 fconsidered on their merits, we plead with 
 the critical reader to bear in mind a large 
 /reservation. It is this — that we do not put 
 forward the persistence of occupational trdits 
 as an exhaustive explanation of modern and 
 contemporary types, but as a basal factor 
 in their development and success in life. 
 
 Auguste Comte is popularly supposed to 
 
 be a Radical, a democratic man of modern 
 
 - science. But he makes his contribution to 
 
 109 ' 
 
no THE COMING POLITY 
 
 sociology from the standpoint of the hierarchy 
 of feehng and genius, of the aristocracy of 
 action and thought. Conversely, it is Fr6Mnc 
 LePlay whose point of viewha? been utilized 
 and applied in the foregoing chapter — and who 
 is popularly supposed even in his own country 
 to make his appeal to capitalist and con- 
 servative, to aristocrat and priest — -who has 
 really established for us the vital doctrine 
 of all democracy; which is only becoming" 
 apparent as Liberal nonsense of the Sove- 
 reignty of the People, defined in terms of the 
 Infallibility of Majorities of the electors of 
 county,! city, and parish of Buncombe, goes 
 the Way of the once current Tory nonsense 
 about the Divine Right of Kings. Comte 
 sees the great stream of Humanity; but in 
 this he calls attention mainly to the Calendar \ 
 of Great Men, to men of genius as Her chief 
 servants. Bnt ' patrician and priest, once 
 established in power, ar« apt to regard 
 proletarian and woman as little better than 
 grown, children, to "be. guided^ and governed 
 by their elders, pastots and. masters. For 
 LePlay, however, worker and woman unite 
 to form the elementary human family, and 
 
THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY iii 
 
 from them, not only by bodily descent, but 
 by social descent-^that is, from their every- 
 day life and labour — there develops the 
 essential "fabric ^f institutions and ideas, 
 temporal and spiritual. No blossom, how- 
 ever rare or marvellous, whether of practical, 
 intellectual or spiritual genius, but comes 
 ultimately from this humble root— :this tiny- 
 seed of simple daily humali life- — 
 
 " The lord is hay, the peasant grass— 
 This wood, but that the growing tree." 
 
 With Coiiite and the historians we visit the 
 historic dome of Aix, and thrill as we read 
 " Carblo Magno " upon its vaulted floor ; but 
 with LePlay we see first the living, everyday 
 Charlemagne, a solid, thrifty Frankish farmer 
 striding round :his estate, seeing that his 
 stewards keep accounts even of th6 eggs — 
 that is, have the assured wherewithal to main- 
 tain cities in peace, armies in war. We-know 
 the northern Lords of Battle— ^our Cceur de 
 Lion, our Bruce — from legend or history ; Le 
 Play shows us- first of all the viking axeman, 
 not the coronet; he sees in their ax^craft, the 
 poise and swing and skill of woodman, of 
 
112 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 house- and boat-builder over Scandinavia or 
 Canada to-day. The historians," Gibbon or 
 ^Cornte or" Sir Walter, all explain for us much 
 of the present-day by help of the survivals 
 of the past; but LePlay, like Lyell, explains 
 to us the Past from the actual Present. - 
 
 The method is less roinantic ; there may t " 
 be some disenchantment in learning that the 
 commanding^, the supremely self-assertive, 
 dignity of Norman noble was based on the- 
 swift decision and authority, the necessary 
 and unquestioning obedience which neces- 
 sarily springs up on board of every fishing- 
 boat; and that the hauteur of Lady Clara 
 Vere de Vere comes not from a hundred 
 earls or even jarls, but from the simple 
 ancestral fisher-carle, whose boys must learn 
 to look sharp with the sail while he sits by - 
 the helm. The individuality, the indepen- , 
 dence of the women of western Europe is 
 for LePlay neither American nor New ; it is 
 the direct product of the life-conditions of 
 all North Sea fisherwiveSi whos6 men pass 
 their lives a-t sea, or in intervals of rest 
 when they return ; so leaving their women- 
 folk, indeed compelling them, to develop the 
 
THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY 113 
 
 qualities of man and woman in one. And 
 when the mother has to be father too, then 
 the eldest girl, however small, must be much 
 more bf mother; so responsibility begins 
 early, and here as everywhere gives indi- 
 viduality for its frUit. 
 
 In America it is, where democracy has free 
 play, and where it is less confused by old 
 developments and survivals of all kinds^ that 
 the natural growth of things is most obvious. 
 How the stout axeman carves' his way to 
 fortune; wealth and power—" From Log Cabin 
 to White House " — is one of the most thread- 
 bare themes ; and who does not see " Poor 
 Richard" as a ca,nny- Yankee, and Emerson 
 as his more spiritual brother ? 
 'We may follow the same elernental clues 
 into many phases ot life. The dull and 
 unimaginative wealth of England and 
 America, which so seldom gets any realities 
 for its money save sorirow for its children, 
 is half explained when we read the story of 
 the Industrial Revolution, and see how the 
 nobler leaders of the working class have been 
 constantly wasting their lives in barren 
 politics; or yet more clearly when we follow 
 
114 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 the fate of Robert Burns, and then" see how 
 it was left to too many of the grosser and 
 duller types, the Arkwrights and their like, to 
 drudge or gripe or crush their way to fortune. 
 Or let us now take race with occupation, 
 and in the concluding struggle of the Civil 
 War, ask what is the duel of Grant and 
 Lee— of ' Grant the hamnxerer-with Lee the 
 strategist — but the fight of heavy and- down- 
 right hitter with wary and skilful gipsy 
 guide? And if we ask ior light on Grant's - 
 racial type, what more characteristic than 
 when he says, " I will fight it out on this 
 line." For (all the better if unconsciously) 
 he is renewing the age-old war-cry of his. 
 ^clan : " Stand fast, Craigellachie ! ' '—the only 
 possible strategy in holding one's narrow 
 glen. And if Strathspey look to the American 
 a small outlandish place for breeding the' 
 ancestors of a hero of. his continent, let him 
 look in his atlas and see what coast, what 
 river-mouth in history must have borne first 
 the shock of the all- victorious Norse migra- 
 &ns which were to be the unmaking and 
 making of Europe. Then he will see that these 
 Craigellachie folk are of one of the oldest 
 
THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY 115 
 
 fightrng breeds, the children of King Arthur's 
 vanguard, the children also of his victors. 
 
 This elemental way of looking at alllnen 
 and women is no doirbt to many a common- 
 place, at least in general terms. They know 
 that if rank be rank^ there must lie under 
 its stamp the gold.; that rank is nojt mere 
 stamp : that men must rise to rank, develop 
 rank, attain rank through function, and in 
 the measure of the reality and range, of 
 actual deed. That the war-duke is a soldier 
 at hi& highest, the admiral a seaman at his 
 best, no one will ever deny ; but he who 
 doubts or forgets that there is the stuff df 
 viking and admiral in every fishing, village 
 of Devqil or of Fife must surely have for- 
 gotten that Drake or Jean Bart or Paul 
 Jones were but such pirate- venturers (some 
 say Columbus tooj, or that the kings and 
 nobles of Europe are proud -to represent the 
 younger branches of existing Norse peasant 
 and 'fisher stocks. As the child is father 
 ' of the man, so is the worker of all men; 
 and it i& time to be thinking less with the 
 politician or the cleric, , of the worker as a 
 child (to be led by the nose or educated 
 
ii6 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 respectively), but to recognize in him, accord- 
 ing to his kind, the stuff of each type however 
 highly developed— of skill however masterly, 
 of genius however sublime, of virtue however 
 pure. 
 
 Thus, as James Watt, instrument-maker, 
 Glasgow j is the master smith of the eighteenth 
 century, so Lord Kelvin was but a subtler 
 avatar of the same' craft-type in the nine- 
 teenth • fundamentally, of course, neither 
 lord nor professor nor wrangler, but just" the 
 best Glasgow instrument-maker in his time 
 and turn, developed by the problerhs which 
 his life there among the shipbuilders and 
 electricians brought him. So Whitworth, So 
 Armstrong were swordsmith, arrowsmifh; all 
 the inventors, in short, are Thinking Smiths, 
 be they lords of peace or war. Again, they 
 who read the secrets of life are the Thinking 
 Rustics: thus Pasteur was the thrifty, Jura 
 peasant, Darwin the Midland truant and 
 poacher, fancier and gardener, happily only 
 half settled into squire. I 
 
 Even in more abstract, thought the same ' 
 principle holds. No philosopher, however 
 sedentary, should need much introspection 
 
THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY ii^ 
 
 to recognize his profound kinship here with 
 the dreamy and dreary loafer, there wi.th the 
 restless and careless tramp, rustic or urban, 
 as his case may be. 
 
 Next, why does the coal-master or iron- 
 master, the master-weaver or master-smith, 
 change his politics as he becomes landowner 
 and lord ? It is not primarily a change of 
 society; the man is not a mere snob : but 
 he inevitably leaves the direct and simple 
 rationality of the workshop for the cautious 
 empiricism of the field ; in a word, from 
 artisan be has become peasant. Here for 
 the first time he reahzes the limitations of 
 argument, the simplifications of legislators, 
 the complexity of life and labour. In short 
 he becomes aware of his own ignorance in 
 dealing with human affairs, and so his simple 
 Liberal formulae, made in Birmingham or 
 Manchester, repaired in Newcastle, applied 
 in Westminster, lose their former hold upon 
 him. Little wonder that he lapses from 
 grace — deployed by his successors in the 
 party, until the call comes for them also to 
 go up higher in their turn, and there help hipa 
 to let well (and ill) alone, 
 
- CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE REGIONAL DRAMA 
 
 We have now presented in brief outline the 
 sahent thought of the two French schook 
 of social science, respectively regionalist and 
 humanist, which have been in the shade 
 ^luring the Germanic vogue. We have tried 
 by exemplary illustrations to exhibit their 
 mode of working and its resulting interpreta- 
 tions. But we have as yet affirmed rather 
 than demonstrated -' their co-ordinate and 
 complementary character ; and it must be 
 coiif essed that their respective adepts, ±he 
 disciples of Cdmte and of LePlay, have 
 seldom realized this n^ed. We shall, in 
 succeeding chapters', at least reassert and 
 illustrate their, co-ordination in a-njd through 
 the doctrine of Givism; but first we would 
 reinforce the regional interpretation of men 
 and things by a recapitulation and bring- 
 ing together of the various analyses already 
 
 •• ii8 ■--■■,, ■ -' 
 
THE REGIONAL DRAMA 119 
 
 made according to the LePlay method. 
 In pfesenting such summary and restate- 
 ment through the concept of Regional Drama, 
 we trust to strike the synthetic note also. 
 
 In the forest and uplands the hunter ranges ; 
 his tools are primitive, he runs on foot, he 
 wins his life by perpetually risking it ; he is 
 in peril when the stag or wild boar turns at 
 bay ; he risks the precipice and the fangs of 
 the beast of prey. As yesterday it was the 
 young man :whQ won at Bisley, or who now 
 gets the Victoria Cross,' so among hunters 
 the speed and endurance of youth count for 
 more than the cunning of age. And though 
 it seems probable that women and not men 
 invented the noose and the hook, yet inevi- 
 tably from sheer necessity, and not merely 
 from, the brutality of imen, the wornen of the^ 
 hunting people are drudges and burden- 
 carriers, the brief beauty of the young girl 
 speedily wearing into the withered plainness 
 ' of the squaw. For imagine London with all 
 its restaurants abolished and even its conve- 
 nient Lyons' tea-shops and A B C 's vanished ; 
 
120 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 the city once more a tbnely stretch of swamp 
 and low hills, and the few remaining 
 Londoners compelled to get their meals by 
 killing the wild beasts and birds.. Instead 
 of the men carrying parcels for the women 
 then, sheer common sense would compel the 
 London woman to insist on carrying every- 
 thing possible, that the man might be free, 
 his hands carrying only his missiles, and his 
 muscles fresh arid untired, to run swiftly or 
 creep cautiously after any eatable creature 
 that he might see. 
 
 If the hunter can increase his radius two- 
 fold, he increases the area of his hunting- 
 grounds fourfold. So the hunter is the 
 expansionist. Should another hunting group 
 appear in the neighbourhood not too near, 
 each will drive the garne towards the other ; 
 let it approach too closely, and the game is so 
 iar diminished that starvation is threatened-. 
 The remedy is obvious ; it is War. Arid 
 because the hunter's ideal is the successful 
 infiiption of death at 9,ny risk, he passes 
 naturally from the noble hunt of the stag to 
 the noblest hunt, the hunt of Men. So the 
 Hunter becomes the War Lord, and the W^ar 
 
THE REGIONAL DRAMA 121 
 
 Lord - in all subsequent stages remains the" 
 Hunter, from the time of Niinrod. to the time 
 of Theodore Roosevelt and his crowned com- 
 peers upon the thrones of Europe. Lord 
 Kitchener knew that the hunt is the best 
 training for an officer, and laid out a great 
 game-park in Khartoum on that principle. 
 In Scotland, Skye has been a prolific home of 
 generals-, a little Ireland in fact ; and in 
 England, Devonshire, the last habitat of the 
 red deer as well as a land of fisher-ports, 
 is also' the birthplace of Drake and Hawkins, 
 of Raleigh and Frobisher, of John Churchill 
 the first Duke of Marlborough, and George 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle. 
 
 The hunter is not the only inhabitant of the 
 river basin. Farther down a clearing has 
 been made, agriculture has begun, and by 
 degrees one primitive industry after another 
 is evolved, and a wide range of occupations 
 develops the constructive arts . The shepherd 
 appears upon the downs ; poor peasants 
 plough the foot-hills and rich pheasants the 
 plains ; while In sheltered and sunny spots 
 fruit trees are planted, and in the rich allu- 
 vium intensive gardening develops. Then the 
 
122 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 woodman comes up, and sets to work to fell 
 the trees which give cover to the game, and 
 sends the' logs jdown the river to, the mouth 
 for the fisherman to make his boats. The . 
 hunter now becomes not merely the warrior, 
 but the organizer of war. He embroils his 
 valley with the next one, and shepherd and 
 peasant, woodmahand fisher, all alike accept 
 his leadership. It is not only because he is 
 the most efficient man at this particular 
 task ; but also-, because, deep in the sub- 
 conscious inind, men are all hunters at heart, 
 having behind thern countless generations 
 pi hunting ancestry. Thus the ploughman.^ 
 watches his opportunity to set a snare for a 
 rabbit, and takes even more pleasure in 
 catching one than in driving his furrow 
 straight; and the artisans in industrial cities 
 give their free afternoons to watch thp hunting , 
 mimicry of football. _ 
 
 The -huntei: is the man of imagination.: 
 The strenuous vivid life of the chase, the 
 full meal after hours and perhaps days of 
 fasting, creates a vivid dream life and" the- . 
 sense of the other world. As war lord, the 
 hunter must needs haye his chaplain. He has 
 
THE REGIONAL DRAMA 123 
 
 eyen his theory of reUgion; and makes his 
 ^own interpretation of the rehgious ideas of the 
 shepherd and- peasant : his- interpretation 
 being that all those things belong to the 
 dream world, and rnay very likely be realized 
 in that life after death which is regarded as . 
 closely related to the dream world. Colonel 
 Maude tells us to-day that religions were 
 invented in order ,to drive cowards to fight 
 and slackers to enlist. On the whole per- 
 *haps- this is the theory of religion most 
 normal in the Mechanical-Imperial-Financiail 
 age. _^ " ■ 
 
 "For John P. Robinson, he - , 
 
 Says they didn't know everything down in Judee." 
 
 What they -knew in Judee would be. good for 
 Sundays; what they did not know, e.g. cut- 
 throat euchre, the gentle arts of adulteration 
 and commercial competition, and the inven- 
 tion and use of machine guns, are real and 
 practical and the business of weekdays. But 
 as a matter of fact all religions are prac- 
 tical, and the best of them spring from the 
 actual life and work of the shepherd and 
 peasant, when these, in comparative freedom. 
 
124 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 develop their own mentality and express their 
 own ideals. 
 
 In that Wonderful Century that lies around 
 600 B.C., Buddha preached iji India, Zoroaster 
 in Persia, Confucius in China, the Book of 
 the Law was found in Jerusalem, and the 
 formative period of Greek religious thought 
 began. From the hills of Palestine came those 
 .conceptions of pastoral ethics expressed for 
 us in such phrases as " The LamH of God," 
 and " The Good Shepherd giveth his life 
 for the sheep," and this good shepherd is 
 no mythical personage,^ but real and actual, 
 as many a tombstone in the churchyards 
 oh the Downs, the Cheviots and elsewhere 
 bears witness. 
 
 The other occupational types also have each 
 of them their, natural ethic, rising into natural 
 religion. But it is only in tiie pastoral life 
 that self-sacrifice develops directly from the 
 occupational disposition, into highest sanctity 
 of moral elevation. . In other types the normal 
 tendency runs less in this direction, indeed in 
 a descending ratio from peasant ~ to hunter. 
 In the hunting occupation, the- conditions of 
 survival tend, as we have seen, in an opposite 
 
THE REGIONAL DRAMA —125 
 
 direction. The idealization they culminate 
 in is not that of self-sacrifice, but of other- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Hence, if there is to he an approximation 
 towards the pastoral ethic, on the part of 
 the non-pastoral folk, there is need for a 
 'transformative process of conversion or re- 
 birth; and correspondingly the theory and 
 practice of religious regeneration will naturally 
 arise. And this will not be without its use 
 in the pastoral life also. For even the 
 shepherd requires conversion. There remains 
 in him enough of the old Adam {i.e. the 
 primitive hunter) to turn bandit on moderate 
 provocation. Yielding to that temptation, 
 he backslides to a lower inoral stage— quite • 
 literally he de-grades himself, from shepherd 
 to hunter. ' 
 
 Coming now to the peasant we may recall 
 haw the vine and the olive growers of Greece 
 slowly developed the idea of Olympus into 
 the idealization of the perfection of humanity 
 of either sex and all ages— Eros, Hermes, 
 Dionysos, Apollo, Hephaestos, Zeus ; Hebe, 
 Artemis, Aphrodite, Athene, Hera, Demeter. 
 These divine creations are -the imagined 
 
126 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 perfections or super-norms of the human Ufe 
 cycle in that peasant milieu. In contrast" 
 "to the pastoral ethic of self-sacrifice, these 
 are thus also the ipomplemental ideals of 
 self-development. 
 
 Passing further eastwards let us illustrate 
 from another type of peasant milieu. _ In 
 Persia, where the desert has most contended 
 with the oasis, was born the > most strenuous 
 of religions.- It called on man to bear part 
 in the arduous, fight against the undying 
 powers of evil. But with the advance of 
 the desert, this religious effort narrowed into 
 an acceptance of the fatalism and pessimism 
 of Omar Khayyam, that gardener-lover who 
 saw his roses die for lack of water. Again 
 consider Buddhisiii. Is it not the last- great 
 effort of the tillers^ of the Plains of Northern 
 India, so prolific of life, but swept by whole- 
 sale death, to reconcile the contradictions of 
 nature ? Again, in Confucianism is expressed 
 the ethics that spring frotn the minute a.nd 
 conscientious labour of the cultivator of rice — 
 above all his social andfamily co-operation. 
 
 Such are the great religions ol the world ; 
 they are all real and practical, they all deal 
 
THE REGIONAL DRAMA 127 
 
 with actual everyday life, and their aspira- 
 tions relate to here and now. True, " they 
 didn't know everything down in Judee " ; 
 but^ knowing however little,^ they knew that 
 little with a clearness and thoroughness that 
 are not so easily attained now ; and that lijtle 
 was what is best worth knowing. The 
 Churches ha^^e made the advice, V' Seek ye 
 jfirst the Kingdom of Heaven, "/so familiar 
 that it has come to appear to men as a mean- 
 ingless exhortation ; but if seriously examined 
 it is seen to be the first and last word of states^ 
 manship. " What shall it profit a man if he 
 gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " 
 The impUed answer has become an apparent 
 paradox; but it is nothing more than the 
 tnost elementary common sense. ' 
 
CHAPTER: VII ^ 
 
 , TOWN AKD COUNTRY 
 
 In tracing the outline of the Regional 
 Drama, we foUoweii the r6le of the occupa-. 
 tional types from primary work, through 
 mutual interplay, up to ' manifestations of 
 religious ' activity. But the place where 
 dramatic action is intense^t we omitted from 
 the stpry. Where in the regional drama 
 come the town and the city? To that' 
 question we now turn.^ 
 
 In a previous chkpter we assumed our 
 
 continental rambler to have traversed the 
 
 southern edge of the Thsirries Valley, turned 
 
 northwards at the Cotswolds, and walked., 
 
 some distance along the western lip of the 
 
 hills in which the rnain stream rises. He 
 
 would come to vantage,- points in the Cot-s-- 
 
 wolds from which striking panoramas unfold. 
 
 Eastwards the eye traces out the gathering 
 
 head- waters of the,. Thames. Northwards 
 
 128 
 
TOWN AND CGUNTRY 129 
 
 stretches the great English plain of multiform 
 undulations, amidst which the Thames Valley 
 itself is: but a trough. Westwards is ' the 
 valley of the Severn, rising on its 'far side into 
 the, beautiful outline of the Malvern Hills, 
 and beyond these,*- visible on an occasional 
 clear day, is the dark edge. of that ancient 
 mountain mass which is the .body of Wales, 
 and, as geologists tell us, the parent of the 
 English plain, built up from its detritus. 
 
 Thus from the vantage ,. points of the Cots- 
 •wold uplands, many regions invite to further 
 exploration. JBut we will suppose that our 
 visitor, decides to make the return journey 
 by road down the valley floor, intent now not 
 on comparing regions and enjoying scenery, 
 but on the study of that labyrinthine problem, 
 the relation of town and country. We will, 
 pause with him in one of the small towns on 
 the eastern Gotswold slopes, that serve as 
 market and educational centre for their 
 district. Such a place is Chipping Campden, 
 once a town of some importance when the 
 wool industry was at its height and England 
 was learning the secret of the Flemish manu- 
 facturing cities. Sinking later, well-nigh to 
 
130 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 the status of a village, Chipping Campden has 
 undergone some revival in our own days, 
 thanks largely to the migration thither of 
 Mr. Ashbee arid his group of art workers from 
 East London. ^ 
 
 A walk through the High Street of Chipping 
 Campden shows, not one or two survivals of 
 mediaeval and renaissance architecture, but a 
 whole sequence of notable edifices, public 
 and private.- The church and the market^ 
 , hall, the rows of gabled stone-built houses, 
 all conipose into a vision of civic dignity and 
 beauty. You ask who planned and erected 
 these buildings and ordered their lay-out 
 and their proportions, so ^.that the whole, 
 frorn great church to cottage, unites into a 
 single harmony L You are told it was the 
 work of ^ local masons, who built without 
 architects and, as it were, like bees, by tradi- 
 tion, nqt by book-learning. Mr. Ashbee tells 
 us that an occasional stifvivor of this type of 
 master-craftsman is still to be found amongst 
 the masons of the district. 
 
 A long- day's walk down the valley you 
 come ' to Oxford. ' By general consent the 
 High Street of Oxford is among the archi- 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 131 
 
 tectural masterpieces of the world. Coming 
 into it direct frorrt Cotswold towns and 
 villages you discern at once, if not the secret 
 of its beauty, yet the manner of its coming 
 into being. It is a magnified and glorified 
 version of the High Street of Chipping Ca.mp-f'f- 
 den. The conclusion leaps to the eye that 
 Oxford was built by Cotswold masons, who 
 came down the valley Bringing with them 
 the limestone of the hilt quarries, and with it 
 the aptitudes a-^nd tradition, the social and 
 Cvmiulative iustincty of their craft. But who 
 and what were the masons ? 
 
 Throughout the history of civilization it is 
 the peasant who is par excellence the builder, 
 as the Germanic word' bauer,- in its double 
 meaning of builder and peasant, aptly recalls. 
 Those early shepherd communities whom we 
 have seen moving- with their flocks over the 
 upland pastures, came in time to cultivate 
 the southern slopes and passed from the 
 purely pastoral to the mixed agricultural, and 
 pastoral life. The hill-top encampment, re- 
 mains of which still survive at intervals of a 
 day's, march all along the Downs, gave place 
 to the upland village ; and as the valleys were 
 
132 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 cleared of forest and drained of swamp, the 
 market town would appear at, junction- of 
 roads or ford of river. In tie latter case the 
 town might the mor^^ readily grow into a 
 city like Oxford or Westminster, because 
 the river added both its traffic and its perils, 
 thus calling for spiritual aids and remedies 
 and yielding the toll to pay for them. 
 
 Wherever the peasant fixes his home or 
 takes his goods to market, there he builds 
 'for permanence, with the materials of the 
 region — ^limestone in the Cotswolds, brick in 
 the clay bottoms like East : London, timber 
 in the oak-forested slopes of the West Country. 
 In building, the peasant unawares becomes 
 the citizen. As the hunter organizes all the 
 •varied rustic types, up and down the valley 
 for war, so under impulse and direction from 
 the peasant, they bepome - organized for the 
 building and the mainteriance of, towns and 
 cities. Into, this ur,ban co-operation each 
 regional type brings the material of its 
 occupation and the: characteristic traits of 
 its exercise. The quarryman comes to town 
 with his building stone and tools, and re- 
 mains there as mason : the forester as.qar- 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 133 
 
 penter or engineer. The shepl^erd brings his 
 wool and his stuffs, arid remains as weaver,' 
 clothier, and what not. How the pastoral 
 habits of mind and traditional outlook tend 
 to give the shepherd as citizen a certain 
 moral' leadership we have already seen. 
 
 The distinction for us moderns between 
 town and city turns on numbers of inhabitants 
 and on administrative machinery. But going 
 back to the times before we gave ourselves 
 body and soul into the hands of politicians, 
 ' la-^yers and statisticians, we find the \ dis- 
 ' tinctiqn was not ""quantitative and material 
 , but qualitative and spiritual. The cathedral 
 which, in former times, gave c^ivic status was 
 no mere building or even passive place of 
 worship. It was the living and throbbing 
 organ of social life which gathered into itself, 
 and re-expf essed ' as corporate individuality, 
 the finer aspirations of ^ citizen and rustic 
 alike. To its building, maintenance and 
 functioning wer^ given the best services of 
 the workshop and of its craftsmen, because 
 it afforded an abiding opportunity of express- 
 ing through the medium of their craft, at 
 once their own personality and ideas, and 
 
134 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 fhose of their city and region. The common 
 notion that the "Church Mihtant became a 
 spiritual .power because it created the arts 
 and the sciences, is in a sense true, yet so 
 stated it reverses the natural order of things. 
 The Church Militant became a spiritual 
 
 , power because, through it, the arts and the 
 sciences of the day were able to function freely 
 and creatively. In the measure that' the 
 church ceased to afford -that spontaneous 
 outlet, it was not a spiritual power, however 
 powerful and even spiritual it might be. But 
 the cathedral when fully alive, did, indeed,. , 
 spiritualize its place and people. In other 
 words it made- a town into a city. ^ 
 
 Let us try to show our continental friend, 
 as we convoy him down the Thames Valley, 
 how our toAvn's and cities are to-day being 
 made and unmade, l We shall doubtless arrive 
 at some town on a market day. We take our 
 stand amid the stalls and the booths of the 
 country folk, who have brought to town for 
 sale a variety of goods, both in bulk and sam- 
 ple, for the, maintenance or the delectation of 
 
 ..the townsfolk.' We halt in /this town for the 
 night, and make- a second perambulation 
 
TOWN AND eOUNTRY 135 
 
 throug]i its streets on the following day. The 
 market place is empty, the stalls^ and the 
 booths are ren\bved. But the shops and the 
 warehouses remain. Their contents arp mani- 
 festly the stored accumulations of produce 
 , direct from rural or maritime sources, or 
 manufactured at one or more removes from 
 the primary products of peasant^ shepherd 
 and miner, lOf hunter or forester or fisherman. 
 In other words the shops and the warehouses 
 are permanent booths and stalls, and we shall 
 doubtless not be far wrong if w;e -represent to 
 our companion that these shops and wate- 
 houses derive their origin- and th'eir main- 
 tenance largely from rustic an d^seafaring folk, 
 who, having come to market, have stayed in 
 town for good and ill. 
 
 Let us exarpine some implications of this 
 continuing urban recruitment. Habits of 
 mind and disposition of character engendered 
 in rustic occupations long persist in individuals 
 even when they migrate to town and there 
 practise the urban counterparts gr variants 
 of such rustic occupations. And though 
 there be no organic inheritance^ of such 
 traits in the second generation of urban 
 
136 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 "• .■ . . - ' .' 
 
 dwellers, yet social and family traditions 
 ..lend to fix such traits ; and this tendency will 
 be reinforced by the maintenance of inter- 
 course between the rural and urban families 
 of similar trades, with its interrnarriages and 
 interchange of careers accordingly. ^ And 
 below all these social fixations of specific 
 rustic dispositions in particular urban ^trades,; 
 there goes on a steady and continuous process 
 of reversion towards riiral type. The suc- 
 cessful tradesman buys a country house for 
 the pleasure and status of his family and his 
 own tranquillity in old age. His sons grow 
 up devoted to the coilntry pursuits of the 
 rural gentry. Their real education is too 
 often only at the hands of gamekeeper and 
 
 ^ Certain temperaments gravitate to certain occupa- 
 tions. There is considerable evidence of the inheritance 
 of deep temperahiental differences often associated 
 with racial difference. From each occujiation therie 
 has been a persistent sifting out of the incongruous 
 rebellious temperaments {e. g. running off to sea, to 
 London, to North-west Ca;nada). Thus, while tradition^ 
 counts for much, ' there is probably genuine natural- 
 inheritance fixing occupational traits. These ideas will 
 be discussed in more detail in subsequent books of this , 
 series, and notably in Human Geography in Western 
 'Europe, by Professor Fleure. 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 137 
 
 groom : so that they revert to the hunting 
 type. And the family's transference to that 
 social formation is hasteneS^ by the marriage 
 of the daughters into the rural aristocracy, 
 with the adoption of naval and roilitary 
 careers by the sons and grandsons. 
 
 So far, then, the town is but a country village 
 enlarged and stored with honey from upland 
 hives. ' But the town is not only a permanent 
 Market, it is also a permanent Fair, as we 
 may yerify, if by good chance our itinerary 
 takes lis through a town in which one of the 
 old-fashioned Fairs has survived and happens 
 on our arrival to be in full swing. If we could 
 time a visit for the beginning of September 
 we might participate in the Autunin Fair at 
 Oxford. We will disregard the buying and 
 selHng of material goods, much in evidence 
 thpugh this be. It is something beyond fhe 
 economic, that characterizes the spirit of the 
 Fair. What distinguishes the Fair from the 
 weekly or monthly market is, first of all, that 
 it is an annual or biannual event coinciding 
 with some gr©at Church Festival, or perhaps 
 with the day of the Patron Saint of the parish 
 (as at Oxford on St.' Giles's Day). It is, 
 
JSS THE COMING POLITY 
 
 theref ore> essentially an occasion for relaxation 
 and even" revels — a tirne Avhen the needs of the 
 inner life are givgn full play and the liberated 
 spirit seeks its Elysium. Priest and bishop,"^: 
 monk and friar, with all their resource of art 
 and Jknowledge, all their skill in ritual and 
 drama, could not, even in. the heyday of the 
 Church, completely satisfy the claims / of the 
 inner life. So the immemorial customs of . 
 the Fair persisted and flourished. That the 
 same word, in at least one great European lan- 
 guage, stands for both Fair and Mass, is for the 
 student of LePlay an item of significance. 
 
 Let us, therefore, mingle with the motley 
 crowd of townsfolk and rus,tics from far and 
 near, as they surge round the booths ctf the 
 mimes and the musicians, the dancing rings__ 
 and the boxing matches, the "vendors of 
 curiosities and charms, the fortune-tellers 
 and interpreters of dreams, the lightning ^ 
 artist, the stargazer with his telescope,, the 
 herbalist with his simples, the itinerant 
 preacher, the mob orator, a;nd so on in inex- 
 haustible variety. 
 
 When next day we have slept off the fa- 
 tigues of the Fair, questions as to its meaning 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 139 
 
 arise, and perhaps clues to its interpretation 
 reveal themselves. Can any connection, for 
 instance, be established between St. Giles's 
 Fair and the University of Oxford ? Outsid« 
 the books of scholars .who put together and 
 recount what they have read about the genesis 
 of universities in written documents, there 
 are legendary origins. According to one of 
 these, there are, Mediterranean universities 
 which arose frorh the inediaeval' custom of 
 disputation: among the groups of the learned 
 -and the curious who ga'thered round merchant 
 vendors of Greek and Arabic Manuscripts 
 at the Annual Fair. Whether the mediseval 
 vendors of those literary treasures ever visited 
 the Autumn Fair at Oxford, academic his- 
 torians do not say. Indeed they have become 
 strangely silent as to the remoter origins of 
 the university, since the German fashion of 
 writing history exclusively from documen- 
 tary evidence came in. With the ad0)tion 
 of that fashion, it has become customary to 
 assume that folk-lore is either lingering super- 
 stition or debased remnants of learned culture. 
 But there is another way of comparing the 
 spiritual, traffickers oi the Fair with the 
 
140 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 priests arid professors, the savants and artists 
 of the schools. They all of thern profess to 
 do one or both of two things'. To enhance 
 life or to interpret it is what we desire for, 
 ourselves. And in' that quest we seek the 
 aid of practitioners" 'who are experts in 
 enhanceiiient, arid of professors who are 
 specialists in interpretation. In' the former 
 professional class may be bracketed, without 
 disrespect to either, the priest of established 
 religion and the vendor of charms ; in the 
 latter, the professor of philosophy and the 
 fortune-teller. From the standpoint of func- 
 tion and not status, all four professional 
 types are co-ordinate and to be respected; 
 if, and so long as, they do enhance life and. 
 interpret it, each for his particular clients. 
 
 Of all the many distinctions between the 
 practitioners and specialists of the Fair and 
 those of the Schools, we single out one as, 
 vita|^ The former represent a tradition of 
 " occult " science, which is not only of vastly 
 greater antiquity than that of the schools, 
 but contrasts with it in a notable _way. It 
 tlaims to be comprehensive, synthetic and 
 symbolic ; while the science of the schools 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 141 
 
 has, sinte the Germanic vogue became es- 
 tabhshed in our universities, increasingl}/^' 
 prided itself on being the opposite— i'.e. spe- 
 ciahzed, analytic and detached. Knowledge 
 may be calle4: symbolic when it is resumed 
 in formulae or symbols which have a value 
 at once for interpreting and enhancing life. 
 Aiid since whatever enhances life has religious 
 and aesthetic value, it follows that symbolic 
 knowledge touches directly and simultaneously 
 science, art and religion. Knowledge which, 
 like that of the specialists, disclaims this 
 triple intention may be called detached. 
 
 The science, the art and the religion of the. 
 schools, and consequently of the leisure and 
 official classes, have under the specializing 
 spirit tended to drift apart and -become 
 separate things. That tendency has, to be 
 sure, its. own advantages, as notably in 
 quantitative increase of positive, knowledge, 
 and its -elaboration of technique. It is hazar- 
 dous to suggest that the cultivators of official 
 science and religion have anything to learn in 
 actual detailed knowledge from the occult 
 sciences and arts. But there is something 
 they might learn from the spirit of the latter. 
 
142 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 For these have maintained that union of hfe 
 and knowledge and labour, which, is the first 
 axiom of the rustic world and of the common 
 people everywhere. From this- unified source 
 of their economic being; as of their spiritual re- 
 newal, the citizens of each passing generation 
 tend to drift away, in proportion as they 
 become isolated by sub-division ai;id special- 
 ization of functions, from that regional life 
 whose crown the city should be. What 
 better illustration of this drift than books, 
 both popular and scholarly, on Oxford and 
 its Colleges, in, which St. Giles's Fair, past or 
 present, is not even mentioned ! 
 
 In the art of repairing and renewing cities 
 (whi<;h is the true and original art of politics) 
 there is a lesson to be learned from the- Fair. 
 There are in the Fair deeps of humanity^ as 
 well ] as shallows of vanity. The lesson is, 
 that a city's spiritual organs need constant 
 renewal o£ contacts" with rustic life and labour. 
 Without that continuous revitalizing, the 
 spiritual organs of a city wither and formalize, 
 or ferment to active degeneracy. In the 
 former case, the city sinks to the level of a 
 mere town; in the latter it flames into posi- 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 143 
 
 tive evils against which the prophet declaims 
 and the reformer contends. To this city of 
 evils there comes from tirtie to time the Good 
 Shepherd to seek and ta save that which was 
 lost. And from it fltees Christian, the Pilgrim, 
 in search for the Celestial City of his dreams. 
 . The town — ^however vast its storage, exten- 
 sive its reshaping of rustic products by 
 manufactures> however elaborate its com- 
 munications, magnificent its exchanges and 
 banks, limitless though be its income of 
 tribute — is still but a permanent Market. It 
 is in the grip of circumstance, and passive 
 to tradition. A town becomes a true city in 
 the measure that it develops new' and higher 
 powers to enrich and enhance the inner life 
 of its citizens, to combine their diverse 
 interests into an ethical polity, and to evoke 
 those high gifts of personality which master 
 circumstance, ' transcend tradition, and rise 
 on the wings of the spirit into the realm of 
 creative culture. That is what many historic 
 cities have, in their different ways, done for, 
 their citizens, and so became real centres of 
 spiritual life for their time and region,, and 
 even to this day for us. 
 
144 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 How this spiritual process worked through 
 the cathedral in the mfediseval city we have 
 briefly indicated.^ But let us -not forget inr, 
 the mediaeval city, the Town Hall with its - 
 Belfry, the Guild Houses, the Colleges, the, 
 Abbey, and the Castle. In spite of bickerings, 
 rivalries and disputes often acute, all these - 
 did at their best work together towards- the~ 
 beautification and ennobling of civic life. 
 It was that workijEjg together which 'made 
 mediaeval civilization ; it was in the end their 
 severance, discord and resulting sterility that 
 unmade it. _ The representative institutions 
 of the mediseyaT city were the Cathedral of 
 the Seculars, the Abbey of the Regulars, the 
 Townhall of the People and the Castle of 
 the Chiefs. , In so far as these four institutions 
 were in unison there resulted a natural balance 
 of spiritual and teinporal powers. . The upset- 
 ting of that balance in favour of the i temporal 
 power not only destroyed nlediseval civiliza- 
 tion, but inaugurated the modern movement 
 which has its climax in the Absolute State: 
 
 By similar analysis of civic lif^ in other 
 
 ^ For a fuller analysis see Biaxdovd, InterpretaMons 
 and Forecasts, Chapter VI. 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 145 
 
 historic periods, the history of civiUzatiorl 
 could be written~iii its own proper terms, ie. 
 of cities. A new concreteness and clearness 
 wojild thus be given to Comte's -conception 
 of r history as interplay of temporal and 
 spiritual powers. Behind the' spectacular 
 movements oi Chiefs and Peipple, of Emo- 
 tionals and Intellectuals, which make the 
 temporo-spiritual drama, we should see the 
 more concrete arid - definite civic drama. 
 And again behind the rise and fall of cities, 
 their maintenance, decay and renewal, we 
 discern since the impulse of XePlay, the 
 regional ' drama. In the sweep and orbit 
 of this dramatic cycle, there are, as we have 
 seen, two foci. Around one works the con- 
 structive instinct of the peasanj;; around 
 the Other, the destructive instinct of the 
 hunter in his unconvertfed and elemental 
 state. - From being, as rustic, relatively pas- 
 sive to nature, the peasant as city-builder 
 turns upon his environment as plastic to his 
 , purpose and shapes it to his heart's desire. 
 In contrast to this constructive process of 
 civilization is the predatory activity of the 
 hunter-warrior, for yhom the stored wealth 
 
146 THE COMING POLITY / 
 
 of cities is object of loot, or source of tribute. 
 For historians of race and dynasty, of state 
 and ©mpire, it is the hunter-warrior who has 
 seerned the prominent maker of history. 
 Again, therefore, does this clue of LePlay's 
 lead us towards a conclusion remote from the 
 thought of academies, but close to thcheart of 
 tradition . It is this— thsit the peasant and the 
 hunter are the essential thinkers and makers 
 of rival systems of history, and therefore of 
 politics, as previously we saw shepherd and 
 hunter to be the ultimate terrns in rival 
 d6ctrines of life and ideals, and therefore, of 
 religions. , 
 
 What is the practical conclusion to be 
 'deduced from our historic generalization? . 
 What is its political value ? In other words, 
 what its bearing on that reconstruction of 
 pcditics to which we are seeking the clues? 
 Our examination of the rural problem in a 
 previous chapter disclosed as its vital 'issue 
 the moral conversion of the Hunter by the 
 Shepherd. Similarly it would seem that the 
 central element of urban life is of analogous 
 order. In brief, how can the Peasant, him- 
 self turned citizen,, civilize— i.e. civicize— the 
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY 147 
 
 Hunter rupon whom the Shepherd has aheady 
 done a preparatory work of moral purifica- 
 tion? If it be objected that this is not a 
 practical but a visionary conclusion, we 
 answer by reference, to the language of the 
 great reUgions and their record in the moral- 
 ization of communities./ Let the practical 
 man take this language and record literally 
 ihstead , of figuratively and he will come to 
 see that there is a more intimate relation 
 between vision and. performance than he 
 ifliagines. And as to the future, what has 
 been done may be done again. What has 
 failed may be tried again and with possi- 
 bility of better results. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STATE AND CITY 
 
 Consider the contrast implied in the words 
 civil and military, with all that it connotes 
 in the history of political liberty. Consider 
 also its full charge af meaning in the hazards" 
 and crises of contemporary life. In the one 
 Word is resuined the history of "a city-state, 
 and its constructive contribution to human 
 development. In the other is resumed the 
 legacy of an empire which lived on the tribute 
 of _cities. True that empire was. but a phase 
 in the life cycle of the very same city-state.. It 
 is the secret of that transition we are seeking. 
 '- Nowadays the word "civil" has suffered 
 attenuation and become but the ghost of its 
 original self. For the loss of its concrete and 
 vital element we have doubtless to thank 
 tlie abstract mind of the modern lawyer. 
 Without its civic implication the word be- 
 came 'devitalized and served no longer as a 
 
 148 -- 
 
STATE AND CITY 
 
 bulwark against its rival, but as a temptationX 
 to hostile attack. The progress of decay left 
 the phrase and the idea of civil law, with its, 
 corollary of civic life, spiritless ; and this just 
 when strength was needed to withstand the 
 successive waves of militarism, that arose 
 with increasing intensity as Liberalism de- 
 clined, during the later nineteenth century. 
 The process has been similar in principle- in 
 each country of western Europe, but most 
 emphatic and threatening in that where the 
 imperial and militarist heritage of Rome took 
 firmest root through deliberate cultivation in 
 our own days, as it declined in the nation 
 which was its more natural heir. From 
 the symptomatic^ episode of Zabern might 
 fittingly be derived a specific title for the . 
 fever of militarism. It would enrich the 
 vocabulary of social science and commemo- 
 rate the event, if we agreed to designate 
 this wasting disease of the body politic, as 
 Zabernitis. -, 
 
 A similar decay is seen in the substitution . 
 of the abstract and colourless: word " civiliza- 
 tion," for the more concrete and human word 
 " civilitv." How receni: is thejsubstitution. 
 
150, THE COMING POLITY 
 
 readers of Boswell may recall, for Johnson 
 would not admit " civilization " as a legiti- 
 mate word and insisted on the use of, 
 " civility." The latter, with implied contrast 
 of; rusticity, is: manifestly nearer in reference 
 and intention to the springs of civic life than 
 is its more abstract rival. These illustrations 
 are samples of a tendency in modern tiriies 
 to dissociate the civilizing process from cities 
 and city life. It is clearly no mere coinci- 
 dence that this tendency should have grown 
 concurrently witji the increasing subordination 
 of cities to centralized state governments. . 
 True the bureaucracy of the State denominates 
 itself as an administration of Civil Se^'vice. 
 And this, the citizen, in the innocence of his 
 heart, assumes to be a ministering of civic 
 service, with progress of cities accordingly. 
 
 The rhodern State has taken over and , 
 absorbed into itself as nluch as it could 
 grasp of the heritage thai properly/ belong! 
 to its constituent cities. The uncomplaining 
 docility of these in submitting to the loss of ' 
 their birthright is a social phenomenon that 
 merits a fuller investigation than it has re- 
 ceived. " It is expUcable neither by the region- 
 
STATE AND CITY 151 
 
 alisEQ of LePlay, the humanism of Comte, 
 npr yet by both together. But wandering 
 to and fro between metropohtan capitals and 
 their provincial cities, with the formulae of 
 Comte andLeirlay in mind, and not forget-^ 
 ting those of Darwin, one gather^ certain 
 clues as to the causes, the consec^uences 
 and the method of the spoliation, and the 
 submissiveness of its victims. 
 
 To. prevent misunderstariding, it should be 
 made clear that we distinguish sharply be- 
 tween the Nation and the State. A people 
 conceive themselves a natipn when united 
 by common memories, and by aspirations 
 extending even beyond regional boundaries. 
 In a very real sense there is a national' spirit. 
 It receives embodiment — say, rather ensoul- 
 ment — ^in characteristic arts and institutions, 
 Language is commonly but not invariably its 
 chief vehicle. In Switzeirland and in Belgium 
 the national spirit lives in a memory and an 
 aspiration of freedom that finds expression 
 in ways seemingly independent of language. 
 In Germany the form is essentially musical, 
 as well as linguistic, and in Italy civic and 
 artistic in theJj: fullest and technical senses. 
 
152- THE COMING POLITY 
 
 In Scotland the national" spirit had its charac- 
 teristic expression, as frequently elsewhere, in 
 folk ballad. For France it has found supreme 
 expression in that instrument of lucidity- 
 French prose ; for England in the succession 
 of poets from Chancer and Shakespeare 
 to Shelley, Tennyson and Browning, .and 
 their hving successors. If now we ask who 
 stands in the popular imagination for, the 
 State, as do the poet, musician, artist, 
 writer for the nation, the answer is not 
 less manifest. It is the soldier, the police- 
 man, the M.P., the tax-gatherer, and now 
 in our fully centralized states above and 
 beyond all these a mysterious functionary 
 commonly known — or unknown — as the 
 bureaucrat. The conclusion obviously fol- 
 lows : that the realities for which the terms 
 "Nation" and ^' State " stand, belong to 
 contrasted categories as' respectively spiritual 
 and temporal powers.^ 
 
 In our proposed inquiry into the concept of 
 
 ^ The contrast between the Nation as cultural, and 
 the State as political, legal and military, has been well 
 worked out by A. E,. Zimxnem, §ociQlogical .Review;' 
 Ja,iiuary 1916. 
 
STATE AND CITY 153 
 
 "the State," a further proviso is also neces- 
 sary. The customary prqcedure of specula- 
 tive politics we reverse; instead of beginning 
 with a definition of the State, we end, if not 
 with a definition, at least with a definitive 
 concept which we submit for consideration 
 to those interested in the reconstruction of 
 politics! For an initial light on the problem 
 of the State we search by inquiring into the 
 nature of the city, the relation of cities to one 
 another, and to their Respective regions. 
 
 Whatever else the city may be and do, 
 there can be no question that it serves one 
 specialized function, which no other instru- 
 ment of man or nature performs with the 
 same directness, fullness and perfection of 
 adaptation. May not the city be the long- 
 sought missing link between animal and 
 human evolution? -Biologists puzzle over 
 the relationship of the individual to the species 
 in respect to the inheritance of acquired 
 characters. But suppose that civic life and 
 city development represent the supreme striv- 
 ing of nature to balance the freedom of the 
 individual and the continuity Qf the species [ 
 The central and significant fact is that the city 
 
154 THE COMING POLITY :- 
 
 dods function as the specialized organ of social 
 tran^issioh. It is the vehicle of acquired 
 inheritq,nce. It accumulates and embodies 
 the culture heritage of a region, and combines 
 it in some measure and kind with the cul- 
 ture heritage of larger units,, national, racial, 
 religious, human. It stamps the resultant 
 product upon each passing generationi of its 
 citizens. The stamp has an obverse and a 
 reverse. One side is the individuality of the 
 city— the sign manual of its regional life and 
 record. On the other are the marks of the 
 civilization, in which ^ach particular city is 
 a constituent element. Like a phonographic 
 plate, the city receives the experiences of 
 each passing generation and hands the record 
 on to the next. It is the instrument primarily 
 of the regional memory, but serve.^ also as 
 th& memory of larger groups, with a faithful- 
 ness proportional to the vividness of the 
 corresponding experience. But the civic r61e 
 , is far from passive. It is also (and essentially) 
 active, creative, evocatory. By some subtle- 
 alchemy, the spirit of, the city selects, and 
 blends memories of the past with experiences 
 of the present and hopes for the future. The 
 
STATE AND CITY 155 
 
 complex product expresses, or rather consti- 
 tutes and is, that individuaUty of the city 
 which it impresses on each oncoming gaiera- 
 tion of its citizens. These in turn react' on 
 civic Ufe in ways that vary from the pas- 
 sivity of a Dombey to the militancy of a 
 Dickens. Is not opulence of personality in 
 each citizen determined by the fullness with 
 which he inherits the past from his city and 
 contributes to its future his own experience 
 of the present and his ideals for the future? 
 By such interaction between civic and indivi- 
 dual life, the city in its more abiding persist- 
 ence and continuity serves the purpose of 
 selective retrospect for the people of its region, 
 at times also, as in cathedral-building days 
 (and why not again?), of creative prospect. 
 It is thus, par excellence, the organ of human 
 Revolution and also, alas, of degeneration. 
 Regarded from the standpoint of a naturalistic 
 humanism, does it not seem that the city, in 
 its being and becoming, is, as it were, the very 
 incarnatit)n of the evolutionary process? Is 
 it not the spirit of evolution come to self- 
 consciousness and fraught with the destiny 
 of its own regional life ? 
 
156 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 The regional life concentrates in the city 
 and functions through its activity. Regional 
 elan vital ixmis in civic life. The city and 
 its region compose into the true social 
 unit. This vital truth, the practical wisdom 
 of the Roman Catholic Church recognized 
 and applied in its episcopal organization by 
 dioceses. It treated cities and citizens as 
 what' they essentially are, psychic entities, 
 yet it did not forget that bread and wine 
 are produced from land jby labour. A secular 
 version of the same elerneiital truth is the 
 saying that Boston is not a place but a state 
 of niind. 
 
 C Let us, then, assume that the progressive 
 struggle and, co-operation of living beings, 
 which we call evolution, has its culminating 
 manifestation in the life of cities. The striv- 
 ing of ^cities to extend their power and infiu-' - 
 ence beyond theii: natural region is thus 
 interpretable in two senses. In the first place 
 as a particular £ase of the general struggle -for 
 survival. In the second, as a reaching- and 
 groping towards -those higher, forms of collec- 
 tive life which are evolved mainly through co- 
 bperation and mutual aid.' In so far a& the 
 
STATE AND QTY 157 
 
 cdiripetitioti of cities is a natural struggle for 
 survival, we should expect to find developed 
 a whole armoury of those instinctive devices 
 for the defeat of rivals, which the natural 
 selectionists have taught us to look for. To 
 take one or twa instances which on the face 
 of them seem to invite this explanation. A 
 railway system is organized, which perhaps 
 makes it less expeditious to travel from one 
 " provincial " city to another, by the chord 
 of a circle, than along the two radii that 
 connect them via the capital. Again, there 
 is the metropolitan custom of cashing at a 
 discount cheques drawn on provincial banks. 
 This is tantamount to establishing in favour 
 of the capital a permanent difference in ex- 
 change against, air provincial cities, in the real 
 and effective currency .of the realm which 
 of course consists of cheques, as against the 
 official and nominal currency of coin arid bank 
 notes. 
 
 But if in the scheme of nature it is the 
 essential function of cities, to transmit the 
 culture heritage of mankind, then it is towards 
 assault on this spiritual quality that the 
 competitive strife would mainly turn. Is it 
 
158 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 nQt an illustratidn in point, that from the 
 dawn of history till the burning of J^ouvain, 
 the conqueror's road tb exploitation of foreign 
 countries has lain throiigh the destruction of 
 their culture cities ? It has been put forward 
 in extenuation of the burning of Louvain and 
 its University Library that only an eighth 
 of the city was destroyed, as though the 
 value of the British Museum were assessed 
 by accounting it not "^a thousandth part of 
 London! A more finished procedure than 
 the burning of libraries is the endeavour to 
 incorporate the culture^ heritage of the con- 
 quered into that of the conquering city. When 
 Nebuchadnezzar carried off the Jews from 
 Jerusalem to Babylon,' it was not merely to 
 make slaves of them, but also for culture 
 purposes, as the subsequent return with full 
 complement of-: historic tradition would seem 
 to show. It was ; the commonest of devices 
 in the competition of cities during the Italian 
 Renaissance, for the victorious prince to treat 
 the artists and sculptors of a defeated city, 
 as the richest p^rt of -his spoil. A more 
 devious instance is the trick of exploit- 
 ing a characteristic tradition of one city to 
 
STATE AND CITY 159 
 
 the profit of another. There may be cited, 
 in illustration of this, the carefully organized 
 exploitation by Berlin in 1913 of the Battle 
 of Le^)zig in 1813 by means of its centenary 
 celebration. In the official French publica- 
 tion on the origin of the war may be seen 
 letters from the French Ambassador in Ger- 
 many to his own GxJv^rnment, giving warning 
 of the pefils likely to result from the heated 
 enthusiasm worked up by Berlin in memory 
 of 18 13. " Leipzig " proved indeed to be a 
 "state of nlind " — a great state of mind, 
 appropriately precedent to the subsequent 
 explosion in July 1914. 
 
 But assume that in the intercivic struggle, 
 the ihain factor of survival is th€ city's effici- 
 ency in integrating present experiences with 
 past knowledge, and using the product for 
 ther shaping of the future. If this be sd, then 
 it becomes of more than theoretical impor- 
 tance for "each city to inquire as to the ade- 
 quacy of its means fqr the performance of 
 such mental and moral services. In common 
 phrase (though insufficiently realized)* the 
 problem is that of Higher Education. Taking 
 the phrase in its largest sense, what is the 
 
i6o THEi COMING POLITY 
 
 essential civic organ of higher education? 
 Is it not a University, but this as no pale 
 reflex of some fancied perfection of a 
 " national " archetype, but a living and 
 militant institution., that serves its city and 
 region in the quite definite way required ? 
 It must be a university that- embodies the 
 regional life arid tradition, incorporates into 
 this life and tradition the, vital experience of 
 all its; most actively creative sons and daugh- 
 ters of the passing generation, and offers to 
 I each individual of the oncoming generation, 
 J without distinction of sex or class, the resul- 
 tant wisdom? In proportion as it does these 
 services for its city and region, a university 
 aids their survival, or by its failure handicaps 
 them in the struggle with other cities and 
 regions, domestic and foreign. Without such 
 an organ of spiritual energizing, or with 
 one of mingled archaic and degenerate pat- 
 tern and correspondingly diminished survival 
 value, the biggest of towns is no city. It is 
 but^ town, a mere combination of mart and 
 vanity fair, enjoying, it may be, an evanes- 
 cent prosperity by drawing to itself the people 
 of its countryside for business of duU unif onh- 
 
STATE AND CITY i6i 
 
 ity, broken by Bank Holiday spells of orgiastic 
 revelry. To reduce to such degradation a 
 city of ancient culture, or to maintain at 
 that low leyel of social life a modern hive of 
 industry, is a sure way to turn the spiritual 
 outlook of the unfortunate citizens else- 
 where, and to the profit of some other city^ 
 thus invited to become a more and more 
 centralizing one. 
 
 Consider the reaction of the modern central- 
 ized State towards the question of civic or 
 : regional universities. In England not^ one 
 institution of that type appeared before the 
 mid<Me of the nine^teenth century. In France, 
 Napoleon I completed the centralizing work 
 of Louis XlV by creating a great " national " 
 institution, the University of France, which 
 meant in practice the (deteriorated) Univer- 
 sity of Paris. It is only in our own day that 
 the regional movement in France ha^ checked, 
 indeed to some extent arrested, this current 
 of academic Centralization. In Germany the 
 process of administrative centralization from 
 Berljn ran concurrently with an increasingly 
 systematic subordination of the old regional 
 universities to the new Berlin university"^ 
 
 M 
 
i62 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 specially created to be the spiritual organ 
 of the Prussian monarchy; and where, as 
 in the case of Goettingeh, the customary 
 means of draining a\<fay the best blood to 
 Berlin failed, other devices were tried, such 
 as gossiping disparagement of the local 
 deerrees. 
 
 It may be objected that England should be 
 excluded from the foregoing generalization,, 
 if only on the ground that the capital city 
 had, until the nineteenth century, no univer- 
 sity of its own. That; to be sure, is true, but 
 only in a formal and narrow sense. Viewed 
 in a larger way, Oxford and London are twin 
 cities with respective functions, which long 
 ago reached a certain perfection of adjus't- 
 ment. In the- mutual division of labour, 
 one city specialized on temporal powerrand 
 the other developed a congruent spiritual 
 power. The pride of Oxford- is, its school qf 
 Litterae Humaniores. By combining litera- 
 ture and philosophy, history^ and politics-, it 
 opened a ra.nge of culture from vvMch nothing 
 was excluded except science. And that up- 
 I start in the world of learning, b^ing, as the 
 classicists agree, of little cultural worth; and 
 
V STATE AND' CITY 163 
 
 of value mainly for its industrial applications, i 
 could appropriately be left to the schools of] 
 commerfcial and manufacturing cities. 
 
 Thus h}\nice adjustment did, and does/ this 
 renowned curriculum of Litterae, Humaniores 
 educate for the art of Government. To take 
 aii -illustration which shows its mode of work- i 
 ing. A relatively complete theory of govern- 
 ment is to be found in Aristotle's Politics. As 
 it stands in the original, it is in truth a theory 
 not of state administration but of civic life. 
 Suppose, however, that we decide to take the 
 ^ centralized state to be our modern equivalent 
 of the ancient Hellenic city, then, def5dhg mere 
 literary accuracy, we shall render the Greek 
 word for "city "by " State," and go on to 
 use it, without qualification, in lecture-room, 
 in textual translations, in commentaries and 
 in political discussion. 
 
 By these assumptions and due dialectical 
 substantiation of them, and by teaching them 
 as valid truths to youths preparing to be 
 masters in public schools and graminar schools 
 throughout the country, or to be leader- 
 writers to the provincial and the metropolitan 
 Press, perhaps, above all by thus training 
 
i64 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 the novitiate of the modern preaching Friars, 
 the numerous and mighty order of Barristers, 
 Oxford did spiritual service for London. 
 Through its own modernized organs of spiri- 
 tual: power — ^its schools and its press- — each 
 provincial city thus ' received authoritative 
 inculcation of the lowlinessjDf civic hfe and 
 goyepuaignt— as_o| mere " gas ahd sewage " ;. 
 and these in little Pedlihgton — and the lofti- 
 ness of national life and state government, 
 the latter being no affair of cities, but of that 
 higher entity, the State, which in practice"' 
 meant London. In final result the industrial 
 cities were left, for all save the simplest 
 mechanical purposes, as innocent of science 
 as Oxford itself. And trained as they were, 
 at first or second hand, in the culture of 
 humane letters, it was natural, that neither^ 
 provincial editors nor Members of Parliament 
 should think of demanding the introduction 
 of science into "the schools of industrial cities, 
 till amateur smatterings had already entered; 
 and tainted the very name of science. As 
 for the notion of a civic or regional university, 
 it would have seemed a contradiction in 
 terms to the mind cultivated in that London- 
 
STATE AND CITY 165 
 
 Oxford tradition, which from the decay of 
 mediseval faith till the nineteenth century was 
 the most active and in its way most effective 
 spiritual power in England. 
 
 Thus the Industrial Revolution came upon 
 the cities like a thief in the > night, who, 
 pi^smpted by the sound instinct of his craft, 
 tackles the unwary householder in the early 
 hours of morn, when, awake or asleep, he 
 is at the diurnal ebb of the^ physiological 
 tide. Not ,only were the authorities un- 
 prepared foi^ the implied moral and economic 
 changes. The contemporary spiritual regime 
 was such as to preclude any adequate under- 
 standing of the tendencies of the situation, still 
 less of handling them in the service of the 
 cities and their regions. Unheralded and un- 
 guided, the rustics poured themselves and their 
 passive spirit into towns, which accordingly 
 bent to the hammer blows of circumstance. 
 First came the Factory Age which moulded 
 the towns into monotonous chreariness of 
 mean streets; and, next. the; Railway Age 
 which distorted them into shapeless repulsive 
 forms, disfiguring thecountry-side by luxuriant 
 growth of monstrous tentacles. 
 
i66 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 In the particular region wherein our flying 
 survey has been so cursorily and incidentally 
 made, the towns of Reading and Swindon may 
 be noted as minor illustrations which empha- 
 size respectively the former and the latter 
 process of urban growth. But Swindon's loss 
 and Reading's shame were, in a measure, 
 •London's gain. For if the disoriented citizen 
 is shorn of opportunities for " Ufe more 
 abundant " at home, is he not the more in- 
 clined to seek it in the alluring splendours of 
 the capital ? Ol: alternatively, for want of 
 spiritual organs that combine moral evocation 
 with intellectual attainment, as a university 
 at its best can and should do, the decivilized 
 town fills the void by developing debased 
 substitutes, which supply a bastard stimulus to 
 the eager spirit of youth upon its city streets,'- 
 
 To sum up the interpretative observations 
 of our rapid march down the Thames Valley 
 from the Cotswolds to Reading. In Chipping 
 Campden with LePlay, we saw the peasant 
 turning citizen. In buildings both public 
 
 1 For a remarkable study of this degenerate side of 
 dty life see Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the 
 City Streets (Macmillan, 1910). 
 
STATE AND CITY 167 
 
 and private he worthily enshrined craft lore 
 and regional tradition. These memories and 
 the corresponding aspirations he compounded 
 with no inconsiderable element of the general 
 civilization of his day. That is the impres- 
 sion as you observe the plan of the town and 
 enjoy the beauty and dignity of private houses 
 and public edifices. Coming to Oxford, we 
 saw the completion and perfection of what 
 was Jjiegun by the upland builders. A jewel 
 finely wrought on the garment of nature, Ox-j 
 ford is the very embodiment of tlie civic spirit 
 in aesthetic and retrospective mood. Memories 
 regional^and national, caught and preserved 
 age by age, and blended each with the charac- 
 teristic phase of its contemporary civiliza- 
 tion, compose into a unity which make the city 
 a pageant of history. Pausing there with, 
 Comte, we realize, perhaps more vividly than 
 elsewhere is possible in England, what it is 
 that differentiates civilized man from his rude 
 progenitors. It is the culture heritage and 
 the potency of its spiritual influence. 
 
 In contrast to Oxford, which makes its 
 Qwn environment, the railway town of Swin- 
 don is recalled as a complete expression of 
 
i68- THE COMING POLITY . ' 
 
 material determination. It faithfully reflects- 
 that phase of the Industrial Revolution which 
 brought it_ into being, accepting alike the 
 defects and the qualities impressed upon it, 
 as though a city were^a lump of plasticine. 
 Finally we took a passing glimpse- at Reading, 
 also largely determined by the characteristics 
 of the machine age, but inheriting a tradition 
 of culture and struggling nowadays to renew 
 and develop it, by adventuring" once more 
 towards some mastery of its fate. 
 
 Passing Reading, a long day's forced march 
 brings us to the end of our journey, and we 
 ; reach at length the great city itself ^^ Revers- 
 ing the customary order of travel, as by 
 railway, which. starts from the capital, we ap- 
 proach it in a mood not necessarily critical, 
 yet naturalistic rather than devotional, and so 
 we are less prepossessed by: that mystic awe, 
 that pervasive legend, which surrounds every 
 great metropolis as does a halo the saint. 
 
 The prevalent legend of the metropolis 
 tends to present each imperial capital as 
 
 ^ In a forthconjing volume of the series, Westminster, 
 Temporal and Spiritual, we shall treat also of London. 
 
STATE AND CITY 169 
 
 unique, as profoundly differentiated from all 
 other urban growths,-.and standing apart from 
 "tKe Provinces" (no longer of much other 
 significance beyond their own boundaries, and 
 represented essentially for taxation purposes) 
 and far above " the country " (mainly coni- 
 sidered as a source of milk supply, or' at 
 best of varied holi(iay). Its ascendancy is 
 expounded by economist and statistician; 
 it is maintained above all by State Politics 
 and Government ; by Administration and by 
 Finance. It is expressed by Society and by 
 the Press; and its resulting supereminence 
 is accordingly accepted for better or worse 
 throughout nation and empire. 
 
 Approaching the metropolis from the re- 
 gional standpoint (which as we have seen 
 is not only rural but civic also, and therefore 
 historical), we are prepared to understand and 
 appreciate the legend of the imperial capital, 
 the manner of its growth and the vogue of 
 its being, without letting it overpower us. 
 Whatever we have seen of good and evil, of 
 mastery and acceptance, of tradition and 
 initiative in the villages, the towns and the 
 cities of the Thames region, we find repeated, 
 
170 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 multiplied, compounded and recrystallized 
 in London. In the most thoroughgoing and 
 representative way it is the regional capital. 
 But similarly it is a truly national capital. 
 We might have approached it along the main 
 arterjes of connexion with other regional 
 capitals, ancient and modern, as Norwich and 
 Lincoln, Nottingham and Derby, Shrewsbury 
 and Worcester, Birmingham and Northamp- 
 ton, Salisbury and Winchester (once its rival 
 for the seat of King and Parliament). We 
 might thus have seen how London has ab- 
 sorbed something vital and essential from all 
 these cities and their regions, and so has h&- 
 come the genuinely representative, city of the 
 great plain of England, the true heart, if not 
 the brain or the hand, of the empire. Start- 
 ing further afield, we might have approached 
 through the three well-marked natural avenues 
 from north and west which geographers call 
 respectively the Vale of York, the Midland 
 Gap and the Bristol Gate, In this way we 
 might have seen how deep and far spread in 
 the life and tradition of the metropolis are 
 influences frpm Scotland and the north, from 
 Ireland, Wales and the west ; and observing 
 
STATE AND CITY 171 
 
 this past and present inflow from th6 confines 
 of England and the British Isles, we could 
 not but admit how truly London is a national 
 as well as a regional capital. 
 
 Or, again, approaching London from the 
 channel and the sea, we should not fail to 
 observe that the Thames estuary is part of an 
 inland sea into which other great rivers, like 
 the Scheldt and the Seine, also empty, and 
 how consequently the cities of all three river 
 basins have been driven to struggle for mas- 
 tery of the maritime outlet and dominion of 
 the oceans and of the world beyond. The 
 mind wovdd be carried back to the centuries 
 of fierce rivalry between London and Paris, 
 now happily terminated by adjustments 
 which leave both cities with ample claim to 
 be Imperial Capitals. But when all is said 
 as to the manifoldness of their representative 
 character and of the serAdces they have ren- 
 dered and continue to render, the imperial 
 capitals have still an accounting to make to 
 their respective regions.^ To the auditing of 
 
 1 For a continuation of this theme, see Chapter XI 
 (" War Capitals "), in the companion volume Ideas at 
 War. 
 
172 THE COMING POLITY ' 
 
 that account the formulae of LePlay„ are 
 admirably adapted and may be reinforced by 
 the use of Comte'^. Those of Darwin have 
 also a bearing, as we have endeavoured to 
 show. We have indeed, outlined a more 
 naturalistic interpretation of the " state "^ 
 idea, than those commonly discussed. But 
 in making that suggestion, we would not have 
 it thought we are advancing a comprehensive 
 explanation of the origin and function of 
 the State. To suppose that " the^ State " is 
 nothing but a fictitious masquerade of metro- 
 politan capitals in rivalry with provincial 
 cities would be a palpable exaggeration. Our 
 naturalistic interpretation is that of, a main 
 selective factor but in a problem surpassingly 
 complex. , 
 
 We did indeed suggest at the opening of 
 this chapter that as the nation has an exist- 
 ence in the spiritual order, so, the state has' 
 a corresponding temporal materiality. But 
 nations vary from the loose cohesion of scat- 
 tered Jewry to the compact unity of the 
 Dutch; and similarly for States, they range in 
 substance and kind from the civic simplicity 
 of Andorra to the immeasurable heterogeneity 
 
STATE AND CITY 173 
 
 af the British Empire. And there has been 
 under the Anglo-Germanic tradition of " poU- 
 tical philosophy " and, especially; as developed 
 at -Oxford, a tendency for investigators 
 and thinkers to conceal these divergences of 
 reaUty by the abstractions of metaphysical 
 speculation; a tendency, in short, to.hypo- 
 statize the State, and virtually deify it, to 
 ignore and forget the city, and so spiritually 
 to nullify and materially degrade it. Those 
 who may be unaware of the extent to which 
 the accepted philosophy of. "the State" is 
 interwoven with dialectical fiction may be 
 referred to a recent discussion at the Aris- 
 totelian Society (1916). The contention of 
 Mr. Delisle Bums that the current political 
 theory is " fantastic " in its ignoring of reali- 
 ties was endorsed by some and seriously chal- 
 lenged by none of the assembled philosophers. 
 To re-express the manifold problems, theo- 
 retical and practical, of- statecraft, of nation- 
 alism, of empire, in the more concrete terms 
 of civic and regional life and the federation of 
 their respective communities, is, we submit, 
 the primary need of a reconstituted political 
 science. ^ 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 
 
 The applied phitosophy we have so far 
 been pursuing may be called that of the 
 combined outlook at once regional and his- 
 toric. For the most part in open-air observa- 
 tion and travel we have been finding the 
 examples of our interpfetations by help 
 of the LePlay-Comte method. Returning 
 to the speculative; confinement of the s]tudy, 
 we propose now a critical discussioh of method 
 itself. True, there are many for whom all 
 such abstract questions are devoid of interest, 
 and to be shunned like contagion. Let us 
 suggest, tor their comfort,' that this and the 
 succeeding chapter may, without violent 
 disturbance of continuity, be skipped; 'after 
 the end of the book, these chapters may be 
 returned to, or omitted altogether, if the 
 
 reader be still so inclined ! 
 
 174 , 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOl!) 175 
 
 Recently, under the awakening influence of 
 war, a manifesto urging the national import- 
 ance of science was issued; by thirty-six repre- 
 sentative scientific men:. There was no am- 
 biguiliy as to what they meant by science. 
 They enumerated mechanics, physics, bio- 
 logy, geography and geology. There was no 
 mention of anthropology, psychology or socio- 
 , logy ; to say nothing of ecbndniics, ethics 
 and aesthetics. How are we to explain this 
 deliberate — almost ostentatious — exclusion of 
 the humanist sciences from this sacred circle ? 
 It is doubtless in part an instinctive hostility 
 of t|ie old to the new. These physicists and 
 naturalists are the first comers in thi^ new 
 world of science who' would keep the later 
 arriving humanists from acquiring a citizen- 
 ship in a realm where they already show 
 signs of large and ambitious clainis. But 
 it is more than this. There is behind the 
 ostracism a perception by the natufahsts of 
 profound falling short on the part of their 
 humanist half-brothers. The latter have so 
 far failed to develop what is one of the vital 
 elements of scientific method. 
 
 The naturalist sciences have each of them 
 
176 THE COJtllNG POLITY ,. 
 
 their own unit of investigation. The unit is 
 a device contrived 'by the mind of man to 
 bring order and clearness into the seeming 
 chaos of facts presented by nature. Mechanics: 
 has its foot-poutid of energy; physics its 
 unit of -ether; chemistry its atom and mole- 
 cule; biology its concepts of organism and 
 of " species/'; geology its stratum and 
 section; geography its concepts of North, 
 South, East and West, with corresponding 
 standards of latitude and longitude. These 
 units are ideal creations, conceived as a 
 reality of perfection towards which nature 
 tends and strives. The unit of the scientific 
 man is like the little angel which each mother 
 sees in her babe, or the perfection the lover 
 sees in his mistress. The vision is no optical 
 illusion, but a discernment of the flowing 
 and direction of the stream, of reality... 
 
 Conspicuous on the great tree of science 
 (indeed in a way eldest of all), the humanist 
 branches have failed to develop adequately, 
 as yet, in methodic progress. The exponents 
 of anthropology, psychology and sociology, 
 of economics, ethics and • aesthetics, r have 
 rested content without any single group 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 177 
 
 Eigreeing even upon its own working unit of 
 investigation. 
 
 Amongst Ithe varied and competing units 
 which have emerged in this field, there is 
 one to which, in a former chapter, we called 
 attention under the title of the (linked) 
 'Valley-section, with its distinctive occupa- 
 tional types. Now this unit having gro\yn 
 up outside the pale of the fashionable Ger- 
 manic tradition and within the unfashionable 
 French tradition,^ -and so outside British 
 education and even literature altogether, has 
 scarcely received even passing attention. Its 
 capacity to illuminate representative problems 
 in some of the humanist sciences we have 
 already shown by illustration. But now we 
 proceed to argue more explicitly that in con- 
 junction with other, formulae developed within 
 the same tradition, this concept of the linked 
 valley-section constitutes an approximate and 
 ' effective working unit for the whole circle of 
 the humanist group of sciences. 
 
 Let us approach this problem of social 
 method On its historical side. As Comte had 
 his precursors mainly in Montesquieu and 
 Condorcet in the renovation of historic inter- 
 
178 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 pretation, so LePIay renovated and resumed 
 the economic investigations of an older French 
 
 • 
 
 tradition. His forerunners were the Physio- 
 crats. These made the first scientific begin- 
 nings of economic observation and thought. 
 They applied scientific method to an- investi- 
 gation of the practical questions of statecraft. 
 Above all they .sought an answer to the 
 question which war always forces to the front 
 — ^how to maximize the national outpiit. In 
 the strife for European dominion, Louis XIV 
 and Louis XV wasted the substance of the 
 people by wars well-nigh as devastating as 
 that of their spiritual descendant, Kaiser 
 WUhelm II, although, having less knowledge 
 of chemistry and mechanics at their disposal, 
 they were slower and less skilful at the devil's 
 game. 
 
 Thus their essential peasant milieu on the 
 one hand, and the devastations of war on 
 the other, were sufficient to direct the in- 
 quiries of the Physiocrats to the conditions 
 of rural Tife, evenif they had not been living 
 in a monarchy of the pre-Industrial Age. 
 The motto of Quesnii's famous treatiserr- 
 " Pauvre Pay sans, pauvre Royaume, pauvre 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 179 
 
 Royavime, pauvre Roi " — expressed at once 
 the historic era, the point of origin, and the 
 practical conclusion of the physiocratic 
 doctrine. From this £arly association of eco- 
 nomics with physical and geographical con- 
 ditions Adam Smith departed. And equally 
 naturally-— as a British observer standing in 
 the very midst of the Industrial Revolution — 
 he switched the discussion on to forms and 
 processes of trade and manufacture. His 
 continuators and successors, with their paucity 
 of factual observations and their prodigahty 
 of premature generalization, gradually, by 
 successive refinements of logic, evolved high 
 abstractions, and these into a veritable new 
 Pantheon of world-directive Deities, now 
 " Supply " and " Demand," or again " Capi- 
 tal ' ' and ' ' Labour. ' ' These in turn volatilized 
 into mystical entities for German dialecticians. 
 By the repercussion of these, at least two 
 generations of English and American eco- 
 nomists, trained at first or second hand in 
 Teutonic method during its prolonged aca- 
 demic vogue, have bowed the knee obediently 
 to this or that dialectical Baal. 
 
 In France this abstract and urban " Pohtical 
 
i8o THE COMING POLITY 
 
 Economy" had, of cdurse, its exponents arid 
 its followers, but it has never taken enduriBg 
 root. On the contrary, the more traditional 
 type of concrete and rustic economics flowed 
 on below the surface. The emergence of Le 
 Play was evidence of this. True to the 
 impulse of his Physiocratic precursors, and 
 to the instinct of his peasant milieti, herenewid; 
 the search, for a factual basis of economic 
 observation. He also sought fresh inspira- 
 tion for economic doctrine in his life of per- 
 petual travel and inspection of industries and 
 homes. Thus he established vivifying con- 
 tacts with the nascent sciences of geography 
 and anthropology. 
 
 LePlay was then no mere "social eco- 
 nomist,'' as it has been the fashion to regard 
 him in England and America. He was a 
 philosopher resolved to penetrate to the yery^ 
 toots of social life. He was also impelled/ 
 like the Physiocrats, by practical motives-. 
 A student on a sick bed in Paris during the ^ 
 Revolution of 183O, he listened with pain arid 
 shock to the firing of the soldiers and the 
 resulting cries of the terrified people and 
 their wounded. He straightway vowed devo- 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD iSi- 
 
 tion to the life task of discovering the social 
 arid eeonomic factors that lie behind political 
 ills. His quest was for the principles of a 
 reconstituted politics. Never did saint of qld 
 more faithfully carry out his vowT Having 
 first fuUjr- grasped the idea that the unit of 
 social life, and therefore also of social investiT 
 ^tion, is the working class family, he centred 
 his busy lifetime of travel and research upon 
 the comparative study of working-class 
 families in ijiost of the countries of, Europe. 
 From these Monographies des Ouvriers 
 EuropSens came the Family Budgets which 
 Mr. Charles Booth and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree 
 have popularized among us, though well-nigh 
 a, couple ol generations after his day. 
 1^ LePlay carried his investigations even into 
 Asia. It was, indeed, gn the Asiatic steppe 
 arnid the simple, primitive life of pastoral 
 nomads, that his far-pressed research was 
 rewarded by the clue that gave meaning 
 and order to the mass of factual observations 
 he had accumulated in modern lands of more 
 complex social formation. His famous for- 
 mula. Lieu, Travail, Famille — Place^, Wor^, 
 Family^-vfdJs the generalization of thp sequence 
 
i82 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 he realized upon the Asiatic stei)pe— Grass, 
 Sheep, Shepherds— and these with their com- - 
 munitary families and their corresponding 
 patriarchal ways of life. 
 
 The word " Folk " is a convenient term, to 
 cover at once the family, the group of families, 
 and the^. pervasive spirit of social life that 
 moulds ttiem into a community. We there- 
 fore substitute the word " Folk " for " Family " 
 in the LePlay forinula and prefer to speak of 
 
 Place' -> Work -^ Folk. 
 
 Now there are several .things to be noted 
 about the formula of LePlay. The first is 
 that it inserts a middle term — Work — ^be- 
 tween environment on the. one side and social 
 life and institutions on the other. By this 
 advance was filled the fatal gap left open by 
 the investigators and exponents of the deter- 
 minist school, from Montesquieu to Buckle' 
 and' onwards. Is it claimed that this de- 
 ficiency was made good for that school by^ 
 Karl Marx, with his economic interpretation 
 of history ? That might have been so if Marx 
 had started not as a Hegelian, but as a 
 geographer and naturalist, as himseM a pro- 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 183 
 
 ductive worker and organizer like LePlay, 
 not as a thinker in the study, a reader in the 
 British Museum. But the dialectical im- 
 pulse drove him into abstractions in which 
 both "environment" and "work" became 
 so rarified of geographic and technic content 
 as to be practically useless, for concrete 
 investigation.. For, there is one invariable test 
 in all such matters : Can the data and the 
 results be graphically set down, cctticretely 
 mapped? It was the working out of his in- 
 vestigations on the map of Lpjidon that have 
 made Charles Booth's volumes of indisputable 
 and permanent scientific worth. It was the 
 wotking but of his researches on the map of 
 Europe that set the seal of a scientific classic 
 upon the monographs and treatises of LePlay. 
 But let us be clear as to what it is that is 
 mapped. The observer maps the facts of 
 these sequences — Grass — Sheep— Shepherd ; 
 Forest — Game — Hunter ; Arable — Corn — 
 Peasant; and so on for each of the occupa- 
 tional types. Several results follow from this 
 rigorous insistence on mapping. One is that 
 the observer is pinned' down to a particular 
 type of hunter, a particular type of shepherd. 
 
i84 THE COMING POLITY - 
 
 and^o on. He is saved from the besetting ^^ 
 temptation of general talk, arid yet he 
 comes in time to have generalizations as vvell 
 as particulars about hunters or shepherds. 
 The requirements of that concrete mono^ 
 graphic study Ivhich is the first: essential 
 of scientific method are thus fulfilled. An- 
 other resultant of survey method, the mapping 
 practice, is, that in thus setting down his 
 facts along" with his classifications and com- 
 parative studies, the observer is compelled 
 to make sure that his classifications are of 
 like with like, and that his comparisons are 
 in keeping with one another. His generaliza-" 
 tions are thus open to each new observer's 
 criticism and verification^ and this is the 
 second requisite of scientific method. 
 
 In these ways the observer gradually builds 
 up in his mind not only the picture of nature 
 with the geographer, but with the humanist 
 also, as a theatre in which man plays; his 
 part. There is an orderly progress ;, and from 
 fact to image, and from image to symbol, 
 there, is, or should be, no break; and similarly 
 - for the return from symbol to fact. Thus 
 the social sciencei. begin to form their first 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 185 
 
 commencements of "conceptual shorthand," 
 and from this they_may go on to represent 
 and co-ordinate for man's thought and 
 benefit, not only the world without but even 
 the world within. ^ ,. 
 
 ]But neither the world without nor the 
 world within is fixed and definable in the old 
 ways of logicians and classifiers. They are, 
 both of them, dynamic and changeful, in 
 perpetual transformation from present appear- 
 ances towards something different. To seize 
 and represent the mood, the- spirit, . the 
 tendency of this twofold Proteus, objective 
 aad subjective by turns, i& the centralaim 
 of social science, as of art. The units of the 
 physical and natural sciences have this dynamic 
 quality and also the graphic presentment. 
 The lack of such visualizing symbolism, at 
 once idealistic and realistic, has been, as we 
 have already said, the_ standing weakness, of 
 the humanist sciences. Not only have these 
 been content to muddle along with met^- 
 physijsal substitutes, m,ade in Germany, but 
 there has never been any general concurrence 
 upon any one amongst the rival entities. If 
 anywhere are to be found clear and practical 
 
i86 V THE COkiNG POLITY 
 
 beginnings of a better unitary system, the 
 student of method is therefore invited to turn 
 to this French tradition in, quest (jf it. 
 
 For those who arc not students of method, 
 it may help towai;ds an understanding of the 
 problem, to consider the chess-board ; and 
 what, to the player, it stands for. With the 
 pieces all in their initial places, the chess- 
 board is to the player no inert piece of matt(!r, 
 but a symbol which expresses the essentials 
 of every problem. It contains hidden within 
 itself all that infinitude of moves which 
 makes the fascination of the game. Relloct 
 how this symbolism comes to life and works 
 when the game is on. It provides the player 
 with the means of doing three; things; and, 
 moreover, of doing them with perfection of 
 performance proportional to his capacity for 
 using the symbolism. For the player as his 
 skill advances becomes increasingly enabled 
 to remember what has liappened since the 
 opening of the game, to yisualizeits present 
 situation, and, within limits, to anticipate 
 future moves, and balance the advantages 
 and drawbacks of each. 
 
 Now, returning to the matter in hand, recall 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 187 
 
 the diagram of the linked valley-section, 
 given on page 84. Picture the appearance 
 of the valley as seen, for example, from an 
 aeroplane. On the broad hill-tops, b'are rock 
 or moss-grown surface alternating with scrub, 
 heath and bracken, the whole affording scanty 
 food and cover for game, of which the grand 
 source is in the deciduous forest below, 
 sheltering a rich variety of animal Ufe; next 
 is the belt of upland pasture with its wander- 
 ing flocks; below this the agricultural belt 
 ranging from the poor hill-side croft onwards 
 through the tich farms of the plains, to the 
 market gardens on the outskirts of the great 
 city at the river niouth. Finally, at the 
 estuary is the region of the seafaring folk. 
 
 Here are four characteristic areas, and the 
 addition of the coniferous forest and mining* 
 belts on the western slope altogether make up, 
 as it were, a six-square chequer board. On 
 their respective squares stand the sextet of 
 occupational types, each ready for its part 
 in the interplay of the regional drama. The 
 rules of the game are infinitely complex. But 
 the outline of the plot may be followed and 
 even understood, if certain major* assumptions 
 
i88 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 be made. The first is that feach occupational 
 type upon its native square, has ifs character 
 determined and consequently its role con- 
 ditioned" according to the formula" Place — ■ 
 Work — Folk. The next is, that mutations 
 of character, and changes in habit of mind, 
 are likewise capable of interpretation in terms 
 of the same triad. Making these provisional 
 assumptions we have a working scheme of 
 study and notation which can be revised 
 and amended, as we progress from observa- 
 tion through classificatiori ,and hypothesis to 
 generahzatiori, and conversely. 
 
 Thus from the endeavour to devise a 
 conceptual shorthand for field investigation 
 there begins to grow up a logical apparatus. 
 There is no such exact thing in nature as 
 our diagrammatic valley, containing all the 
 types and in their right place. But as an 
 ideal unit it is valuable just in proportion as 
 it enables one actual valley with its quantum 
 of regional life to be compared with ginother, 
 and conformity to the ideal standard or de- 
 parture from it, observed and defined.' Simi- 
 larly for the occupational types and their 
 assumed mode of life and manner of interplay. 
 
LEPLAY AND HIS METHOD 189 
 
 These regional types, are, it may be inciden-* 
 tally noted, a concrete version of the " econo- 
 mic man " that served the classical political 
 economists for a unit of study: 
 
 Does the new formula justify itself by its 
 yield of observations, comparisons, classifica^ 
 -tions and generalizations? This, of course, 
 is a question which calls for answer by the 
 workers who have used the methodic appara- 
 tus, and by critics (if any) who have assessed 
 the harvest gathered. And its answer would 
 soon lead us into a larger. and more ela;borate 
 volume than this; though in the next chapter 
 we shall have something to say under this 
 head. What we are here concerned with 
 is the fact that such a graphic association 
 of descriptive and logical dotations exists, 
 and works; that it has been developed 
 with help from this too neglected French 
 tradition; and that it claims to bridge, at 
 any rate, provisionally, since workably, the 
 chasm which yawns conspicuous in the rival 
 tradition, which has hitherto dominated all 
 official schools of science : that is the separation 
 of the environmental sciences of nature on the 
 one hand, from the humanities on the other. 
 
\ 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TOWARDS " THE GREAT RENEWAL " 
 
 We have thus entered upon developme,nts 
 
 of the social method of Le Play and of his 
 
 continuators of "La Science Sociale" ; zxidi 
 
 we may go on to plead for its elaboration 
 
 for other purposes than social invesjdgation, 
 
 and for its application in a wider field. First 
 
 we will test the formula, as an instrument 
 
 of scientific logic an,d philosophy in their 
 
 unending work of order and clarification. 
 
 That such a notation possesses power of 
 
 introducing order, , where at present little' or 
 
 none exists, a simple illustration will show. 
 
 Consider the spectacle of confusi6n presented 
 
 by the anthropologists, the economists and 
 
 the sociologists of the current scientific (that 
 
 is the Germanic) persuasion. They are all 
 
 at sij^es and sevens, as to the delimitation 
 
 of their respective fields and manner of 
 
 cultivating them. They evince no tendency 
 
 to mutual adjustment even in face of the 
 
 190 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 191 
 
 social geographer, who is nowadays actively 
 invading the territory of all three. 
 
 On the other hand note- how each of these 
 sciences falls naturally into its place in 
 the common scheme of research envisaged 
 in the present, argument. Survey the facts, 
 the record and thp processes of human evolu^ 
 tion from the standpoint of Place, and your 
 research is Social Geography ; similarly from 
 the standpoint of Work, and of Folk ; it is 
 now -respectively Economics and Anthropo- 
 logy. Sociology thus naturally appears as 
 we co-ordinate these three specialized lines 
 of research, frofn their conventional isolation 
 into their normal triad of Life, as the study 
 of Place, Work and Folk taken together. 
 
 But where in this schenie, it may be asked, 
 is the sphere and function of the more sub- 
 jective, sciences, within the humanist group ? 
 Most cultivators of ethics, of psychology and 
 of aesthetics, foUpw acadernic traditions and 
 so are if possible even more confused as to 
 method and correlation than are their col- 
 league's of the objective group. But they 
 may fairly ask us: Can your present and 
 proffered outlook, apparently so external, 
 
192 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 so regional, and .naturalistic, so industrial 
 and technical, so anthropological and de-^ 
 scriptive, offer any orderly emplacement also 
 for ethics, for psychology and aesthetics? 
 True, in first surveying our chosen region 
 froin pur aeroplane, we observed mainly 
 rustic valley landscapes, but less its towns 
 and cities. Yet how cities accumulate, store 
 and select regional memories , and regional 
 aspirations, and thus act as agents of social 
 transmission, thereby supplementing the de- 
 ficiencies of organic inheritance, we saw in 
 a previous chapter. We saw also how the 
 distinction between^ rural life and civic life 
 is but a matter of proportion — that is, of 
 relative passivity or activity tq environment 
 and tradition. The city is the hinge on, which 
 man turns from creature to creator. 
 
 This rustic life is interpretable primarily 
 in, terms of place, work and ' folk in tliat 
 order. But for, the interpretation of that^ 
 which constitutes the essence of civic life, 
 we must reverse the order of the f orm-ula> ~ 
 It wilL then read— 
 
 , Folk -> Work -» Place. 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 193 
 
 These terms now acquire modification, 
 Gorresponding to the actual transformations 
 of men and things in cities* Taking civic 
 hfe not by contemporary sample, but at its 
 historic best, we see in its transmutations a 
 higher potential all round. The Folk becomes 
 a Polity as it is anirnated by moral piirpose. 
 Work is no^ longer determined by place, but 
 by selection of means adjusted to more 
 spiritual ends. Thus Occupation becomes 
 Vocation, and Work takes on the character 
 of Culture-activity> Place is. correspondingly 
 • transformed, recreated as Art. These high 
 phases of civic lif e , are the true culmina- 
 tion and flowering of rustic life ; and thus 
 our formula passes into a. higher version — 
 in which Folk, Work, Place are transmuted, 
 as — . 
 
 Polity -> Culture -» Art. 
 
 We are now in a position to locate the 
 sciences of the subjective group. The original 
 formula was in the first place objective, then 
 objective-subjective. Tn this new version, 
 the forinula is obviously of an interest and 
 impulse primarily subjective, then becomes 
 
194 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 subjective-objective, since impulses arise 
 in the ihner world Of personality, but thence' 
 proceed to the transfiguration of the outer 
 world,, shaping it to purposive effect. The 
 identification of each of the subjective sciences 
 — ethics, psychology, sesthetics — ^with the cor-/ 
 responding aspects of this process is mani- 
 fest. Survey the stream, of inner life from ' , 
 the standpoint of moral purpose (t'.e. of 
 Folk reshaped to Polity), and the resulting^ 
 specialism is Ethics; from the standpoint 
 of mental working {i.e. of Culture-activity), 
 k is (Spcial) Psychology ; from the stand- 
 point of environment transformed to beauty, 
 it is ^Esthetics. And out of the endeavour 
 to co-ordinate these three specialisms there, 
 arises Sociology anew, and now in its more 
 subjective aspect, just as our more objective 
 sociology arose from the co-ordination of 
 geography, economics and anthropology. 
 
 In furthet illustration of its efficacy and 
 clearness, note how the double formula auto- 
 matically translates itself into terms of 
 mental process. Parallelizing now our full 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 195 
 
 social formula with the corresponding psycho- 
 logical one, we have — - 
 
 Place-* Work -> Folk /l POLITY -> Culture -» Art 
 Sense -:* Intelligence -&■ Feelifig I IDEAL -&• Idea -^ Image 
 
 Here then the full range of psychology- is 
 displayed in a way that relates its subject- 
 matter to that of sociology; and also, what 
 is more important, both alike to the concrete 
 facts of everyday life. The advantage is 
 twofold. Psychology through its correlation 
 with sociology finds its npeded unit in the 
 vaUey-section. Simulta,neously it secures its 
 data in the mental life of the rustic types 
 ;and of their civic -variants. These types 
 have long been recognized, alike by literature 
 and popular thought, as the raw material 
 of ^personality. All that -rich, and varied 
 flowering of personality which transforms 
 types into individuals thus secures recognition 
 in the field of science. Personality in flesh 
 and blood can thereby contribute to, and at 
 the same ,time receive from, psychological 
 science. Tn other words psychology is brought 
 down from the academic cloister to the 
 market-place and the home, and to its further 
 
196 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 gain the market-place and the home ascend 
 to the" cloister. 
 
 With this simplifying and clarifying, the 
 same fertilizing interaction is next seen t<> be 
 possible between the life and labour of the 
 people, and the whole group of humanistic 
 sciences. To incorporate Woman and th^ 
 People into the scientific culture of the age 
 was the supreme ide^ of Comte. Ujpon the 
 possibility of that educational achievement ' 
 he believed that the health and orderly 
 progress of society depended. Sharing this 
 ideal, the student of LePlay niust_ peculiarly 
 push on towards realizing its necessary com- 
 plement. The health and orderly progress 
 of the sciences may next be shown also to 
 depend not a little on their incorporation 
 into the life and culture of Woman and the 
 People. _ Given these two conditions, of cur- 
 rent and counter-current, in the elemental 
 realities of life, labour and science ; are we 
 not again coming in sight of the Instauraiib 
 Magna, that Great Renewal, which Bacon 
 foresaw, in the advent of modern science ? 
 
 The renewal involves on the one side an 
 uplift and ennoblement of popular life and 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 197 
 
 thought, arid on the other a new birth for 
 the humanist sciences. And that the latter 
 are awakening from the torpor of their 
 academic obsfesfeion with metaphysical en- 
 tities/with premature abstractions, and other 
 dead matter, there are many signs. Witness 
 the psychology of William James, Stanley 
 Hall and many more, ther advance of art en- 
 deavour, and the progress of its appreciative 
 criticism,; above all the living (because social 
 and'civic) ethics which have been appearing 
 on all sides. 
 
 __ But from the isolated (and therefore in" 
 human) academic closet, even from its naany 
 ^ssecting-rooms and charnel-houses, have 
 come too much of the niaterial and method 
 of sciences as yet but humanist in name. 
 From these dead or poisoned sources have 
 issued the " Rac^ " of the philologists, the 
 " Capital "and " Labour " of the economists ; 
 just as definitely as the skulls and skeletons, 
 which haye fossilized anthropology. ^ So the 
 
 ^ Fof a vivid example of living anthropology and its 
 illuminating value for current issues, see A, G. G.'s 
 analysis and presentment of "The Great God Gun," 
 Daily rfews, November 11, 1916, , 
 
igS THE COMING POLITY ' 
 
 exhumatibn of their literary equivalents, of 
 "documents "and " archives/" has been not " 
 nierely of service but also of disservice for 
 history. Indeed it is not only Lord Haldane 
 but the great body of academic and official 
 scientists (and of the hunianist groups, far 
 more than the naturalistic), who have had 
 their " spiritual home " in Germany, though _ 
 unlike him, they most of them lack the 
 sincerity and courage to- see and to confess 
 it. The hope for the coming generation is 
 not merely that its men of humanistic learning 
 and science will escape from this Germanic^ 
 thraldom, but that they, and the Germans 
 too, will find new freedom, activity and life, 
 through receiving and developing the socio- 
 logical traditions of France. And for the 
 Germanic comniunities, that may happily 
 mean a new and greater Reception, a more 
 fertile and lasting union of the Latin and the 
 Teutonic spirit. ' 
 
 With such renovation, the shadowy figures 
 of hunter, shepherd and peasant,' of miner, 
 forester and fisher, that have hitherto flitted 
 darkly- in th6 background of history and 
 economics or been torn from their nativ^ soil 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 199 
 
 to furnish curiosities and anecdotes for anthro- 
 pologists — ^indeed, from their very tombs to 
 yield their skulls and weapons to the archgeo- 
 logists-t-again become for science what they 
 are in f a,ct, the elernental types of civilized as 
 well as of primitive society.. Elemental man 
 will thus again be seen as no mere arrestment 
 in savagery or lingering survival in civiliza- 
 tion. He will become realized as the very • 
 stuff of socigLl life, renewing from generation 
 to generation the essentials of humanity. 
 Without^ his aptitudes and traditions, without 
 his memories and aspirations, rural culture 
 would cease, cities wither, nations stagnate 
 and decay. 
 
 Maeterlinck has "well said that if there is 
 one fallacy more than another which th^ war 
 has exploded, it is that the modeifn peoples 
 have civilized and cultivated themselves ojit 
 of the antique virtues. In evidence are 
 cited prodigies of valour and miracles of 
 enterprise displayed at the front by towns- 
 _ men, isducated and uneducated alike. The 
 truth is, that given-the conditions of renewal, 
 the latent hunter in - every man comes 
 proniptly to , birth again. But the same 
 
200 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 principle of evocation, the same re-education 
 with it, holds also for the other elemental 
 types, each in its own degree. Here there 
 are truths, awaiting application when out 
 statesnien turn fromrWardom to Peacedom, 
 from Kriegspiel to Friedenspiel. The Boy 
 Scout moyement is but an earnest of untold 
 educational possibilities, as its principle of 
 ■ rustic renewal becomes extended and applied 
 to the whole range of the primitive or nature 
 occupations. And that consummation seems 
 less remote, when we recall that in entire 
 independencfe of sociological studies, French 
 or other, more than one school of educationists 
 has been busy with beginnings of a real 
 training of the young by aiding them suc- 
 cessively to appreciate and to master the 
 charSLcteristic conditions of each form oi 
 primitive life.' ~ 
 
 , The genius of Kipling gave a convincing 
 application of the principle, in Captains- 
 Courageous. Who can read that story with- 
 out realizing the fishing fleet as an unrivalled - 
 school of conduct jnot only for the" young 
 hotheads of the leisure class, but for all 
 classes ? .Similarly a season's apprenticeship 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 201 
 
 with the shepherd on the Downs, with the 
 peasant in field and stockyard, with the 
 forester and the miner or quarryman, is 
 capable of evoking not a little of the qualities 
 that come from the occupational struggle 
 with these environmente. What we want 
 for our|3oys,in place of the existing elementary 
 education, is an elemental one, with picked 
 craftsmen for schoolmasters.^ Here we sub- 
 mit is^ an after-war economy, which would 
 simultaneously provide a school of the 
 military virtues, under headmastership not of 
 the drill-sergeant, but of the hunter, not less 
 skilful and courageous because "converted." 
 The cure for militarism is neither more 
 militarism (as the Prussicators as;sunie) nor 
 more pacifism (as their critics too often 
 assume), but a humanism springing directly 
 from naturalism. In this direction stirely 
 lies a first step towards the Great Renewal. 
 
 ^ For a remarkable vision of co-ordinated general 
 and-craft education, carried out into fascinating -detail, 
 see a paper on "The Value and Importance of Handi- 
 craft in Education," by Henry Wilson, in Report of the 
 Conference on New Ideals in Education (1916), obtain- 
 able from the Secretary, 24 , Royal Avenue, Chelsea, 
 S,W. ; _ / 
 
202 THE COMING POLITY . - 
 
 To recapitulate : Our original formula 
 (Place, Work, Folk) of LePlay must be read 
 two ways. Jt may be read forwards with 
 the materialists, the d^terminists, who trace 
 the influence of environment, on economic 
 conditions and of these on social institutions. 
 But we must also read the formula in reverse 
 order with thiiikers of the more spiritual 
 schools, who see the ideals of life reacting 
 on labour and on environment ; ' transmuting 
 the former to Vocation and the latter, to 
 Beauty. Let us again set out our formula 
 for this duplicate use-^as it were on both 
 sides of the shield : 
 
 Place -> Work -> Folk | Polity -> Culture -> Art. . 
 
 Thus stated the formula brings together 
 into one working system many rival schools 
 supposedly irreconcilable. But the great ad- 
 vance it Signifies goes even further. ' Its frame- 
 v<^ork of Sociology is in precise congruence 
 with the corresponding scheme and notation 
 of Biology." It also, suggests the parallelism 
 of both these sciences witji Psychology. Such 
 claims, ambitious though they sound, may 
 almost be verified by inspection when we set 
 out the correspondence as follows — 
 

 
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 tuO 
 
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 T-H 
 
 PS' 
 
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 0} 
 
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 CtJ 
 
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 ^ 
 
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 r— t ■- 
 
 
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 203 
 
204 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 This triply sixfold scheme now invites 
 application to the whole field of the humanist 
 sciences, and this not only for the orderly 
 arrangement and interpretation of their own 
 data, but also in their co-ordination with 
 biology. So is afforded 7a clearer- and com- 
 pleter presentment of all forms of Life in 
 Evolution, from that of simplest nature to 
 humanity at its most complex or its best-. A 
 beginning of systematic endeavour to sub- 
 stantiate this has been made elsewhere.^ 
 
 In' the earlier chapters of the present 
 volume we tried to show the Comte and Le- 
 Play formulae at work, with little or no 
 reference to their methodic aspects. In the' 
 present chapter we have outlined in briefest 
 survey some later developments which the 
 LePlay forrnulae^ have undergone at the 
 hands of naturalists who are also logicians. 
 Their labours have necessarily been in the 
 shade at a time 'when the sun of academic 
 approbation shone upon a scheme of educaT- 
 tion that treated studies of life and logic as 
 
 1 See Civics as Af plied Sociology, already- cited, p. 56. 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL ' 205 
 
 unrelated specialisms. That confusion of 
 thought is now beginning to be seen as the ■ 
 educational device of a society habituated 
 to modern fortune-hunting by the trick of 
 making man and machines interchangeable. 
 To a community regulated by such ideals 
 of success, a logic of life that was vital vvould 
 have been nothing but a hindrance. What 
 it wanted for spiritual comfort atid mental 
 justification was a logic of life that was> 
 mechanistic. It has long enough got what 
 it wanted tinder our Germanic regime of 
 specialisms, eacH^nd all isolated in thought, 
 and at most, empirically linked for " prac- 
 tical" purposes, in industry and politics. 
 The French tradition, so long obscured in, a 
 mechanical and State-ridden age, is of the 
 opposite tendency. It cares ""first for unity 
 of thought in terms of life, and hence it 
 appreciates, and even prefers, diversity in 
 politics and industry. With the escape of 
 the western universities from their Ger- 
 manic thraldom,, an immense clearing up of 
 philosophical ddhris will begin. We have tried 
 to show how adapted to this task and to 
 the corresponding renewal . are these guiding 
 
2o6 THE COMING I^OLITY ^ 
 
 threads from LePlay and Comte, of which 
 our formulae are but developments. 
 
 ^ In literature and philosophy, myth and 
 religiony th^re have ever been presented two 
 predominant theories of life. The one view 
 sees life ^ bowed before inexorable fate, sub- 
 missive to impassive Gods ; the other shows 
 hfe overthrowing Titans, achieving heroic 
 labours. 
 
 Religious sects have been wont to erect ' 
 one or the other view iilto dogma; and stand 
 immutable thereon. Philosophers have gene- 
 ralized one view as Determinism, the Other 
 as Liberteria,nism ; and have disputed inter- 
 minably as to which is the one and only 
 true doctrine. But, as we have seen, each 
 view falls, simply and inevitably into its 
 place in our duplicate formula— on the left 
 hand is the determination of life by circum- 
 stance, and on the right the rcr domination 
 of circumstance by life. Again, observe how 
 writers Of romance and their works arrange 
 themselves as predominantly on one side 
 or the other. Witness Scott or Fielding, with 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 207 
 
 the novel prinxarily of circumstance on the 
 left, and Richardson or Jane Austen, with 
 the novel of character gn the other, in 
 childhood we rea^ impartially .Robinson and 
 Pilgrim hy turns, for life was then in active 
 progress. Only with the fixation of maturity 
 do we settle down to an insistence on one 
 view, an under- valuation of the other, and so 
 dispute as to. which is true, on the absurd 
 assumption of mutual exclusiveness. Thus 
 educationists have tend,ed\ to over-emphasize 
 the importanqe of ^ nurture, as too -^many 
 eugenists now do those of nature. Modern 
 "evolution theories , have for the most part 
 but renewed the old quarrel in their particular 
 terms, and have disputed between " Luck or 
 Cunning," one harshly insisting on " the 
 AU-Suf&ciency of Natural Selection," another 
 on subjective uplifts left too indefinite. But 
 /Our formula shows all these contrasted schools 
 as but respectively emphasizing and elaborat- 
 ing the more objective and the more subjec- 
 tive sides of life, individual and social. Jt 
 recognizes as " a legitimate materialism," a 
 standpoint from which the parallelism of 
 vital and social, even of material and mental, 
 
2o8 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 processes, not only may, but must, be stated 
 in deteraiinist language. Yet the reciprocal 
 conception, the idealistic view and philosophy 
 is equally demanded and recognized; indeed, 
 no less explicitly set forth by the complemeri- 
 tal formula, thcit of a " legitimate transcen- 
 dentalism." As we progress in the every-day 
 world, by steps with alternate feet, so with 
 this higher progress. It is through the every- 
 day world too, and this seen with fresh and 
 freshening eyes of naturalistic realism ; yet 
 also with fresh insight and freshening hope, 
 even faith as -well, of idealistic renewal. 
 And it is after all by these elements that 
 biologist and sociologist alike must measure 
 the unending ascent of evolution. 
 
 Do classifications of ideas, such as the above, 
 still seem to be of purely academic interest, 
 and of correspondingly little practical value? 
 But classifications, when not merely logical, 
 but vital also, bear fruit. in resulting clari- 
 fica;tions.^ Sectarianism is rampant in every 
 department of life and thought ; and it 
 flourishes on the current mental isolation with 
 
'THE GREAT RENEWAL' 209 
 
 its resulting Babel of confusion, its arbitrary 
 " distinctions, its false antitheses. But now, 
 a wider co-operation of men of goodwill, 
 of all diverse groups of thought and action, a 
 larger working together, is beginning, pi 
 which the nation's unification through the 
 war, the splendid solidarity of the Allies, 
 are but earnests. Such unison in action must 
 be associated with growing unity in thought, 
 and corresponding clarity of purpose. To- 
 wards this coming Great Renewal, three 
 parallel movements are indispensable. The 
 renewal of life, the renewal of labour, and 
 the renewal oithouglit, must run concurrently 
 and in correlation. The remaking of the 
 nations calls for all the resource of science 
 and- art, and these demand their reshaping 
 as philosbphy, even their re-idealization at 
 once by poetry and by religion. Our for- 
 mulation of life has thus its fullest advance 
 before it : tha,t of co-ordinating these high- 
 est forms of life and this towards creative 
 purpose. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE COMING UNIVERSITY MILITANT 
 
 With the previous chapter we Jjrought to 
 an end our long journey through the outer _~ 
 Avorld of reahty and the inner world of higher 
 reality called ideality. To retrace the main 
 stages. We began with history, in ordfer to 
 ensure our contacts with the living past and 
 in th6 hope of selecting its better survivals 
 and continuing its nobler tendencies. Next 
 we made a jourhey on foot along the high 
 places in order to see the, world with our own 
 eyes and discover what Man is doing in it 
 and with it. This exploration took us into 
 the field of rustic labour, Vith its supreme 
 ideal of the Good Shepherd and its perennia.1 > 
 temptation, which is reversion to.the preda- 
 tory life of- the hunt. Next we followed to 
 town the peasant turning citizen and builder. 
 We made a perambulation of cities, and saw 
 these as not only the treasure houses of civiliza- 
 
 ' 210 
 
^ UNIVERSITY MILITANT 211 
 
 tion, but also as its essential creative organs. 
 How cities work for the enhancement and 
 progress of life, yet also for its repression and 
 debasement, we saw. Finally, we made an 
 incursion drito the realm" of logic and philo- 
 sophy. There we saw good ground for sup- 
 posing that a logic which is also a calculus .of 
 life may be developed by following the clues, 
 of our previous wanderings. 
 
 Such a calculus of life is needed for that 
 co-ordination of knowledge and orchestration 
 of spiritual resources which will differentiate 
 the coming order from the passing 'chaos. 
 The transition towards a more vital era was 
 proceeding even before the war, but con- 
 fusedly and with infinite friction. How wiU 
 it proceed after the war ? Will the strain and 
 struggle of conflicting, interests prolong the 
 transition and defer the genuinely preparatory 
 phase, so that still more generations be con- 
 demned to wander in the wilderness? Or, 
 on the other hand, can we hope to usher 
 in promptly the preparatory period and so 
 encourage our successors of the next genera- 
 tion with the prospect ,. of more positive 
 achievement ? " ; — - 
 
212 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 It is surely safe to assume at' least a con- 
 tinuance of that moral fermfent which is the 
 fruit of the war. Arid as - this ^orks, 
 a thousand changes will ensue which cknnot 
 be foreseen. But by making a predictive 
 effort, it is possible to create a current of 
 interest, with corresponding concentratidh 
 of energies. And thus • the movement of 
 thought and feeling may be Influenced in a 
 given direction, or deflected from a contrary 
 tendency. Such is the exercise we adv^ 
 propose. '- - ^ 
 
 4J^ound some nucleus of spiritual influence, 
 the adherents of the coming polity will gather. 
 An institutioiial germ will thus appear, which 
 lander favouring _ circumstances and with 
 determined purpose may grow to vigorous 
 maturityi Without attempting to forecast 
 its mature development, let us try to catch 
 some glimpses of its initial phase. 
 
 The startpoint of our predictive analysis 
 is, of course, that of the principles expressed 
 or, implied in the present volume. More 
 specifically the probleni is one of transition 
 from the competitive individualism of pre-war 
 days to the larger unison hoped for in Sequel 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 213 
 
 tq the war. How, in f^ct, to iriaintain the 
 co-operation, the strenuousness, the self- 
 abnegation of the war into after-war time; 
 and to direct these energies towards the tasks 
 of a more efficient and nobler public life than 
 heretofore. The ideal of each " doing his 
 or her bit " arose under impulse of a conimpn 
 national aim. The ideal has been, in no 
 small measure, realized, because the war by 
 its redemptive qualities compeUed us to think 
 of the national energies no longer in fragments 
 but as a whole. Cannot this conception 
 of Social Synergy be maintained into the 
 after-war reconstruction? The core of the 
 problem is to arovtse a personal sense of defi- 
 nite responsibilities including and transcend- 
 ing each one'sown life aM work. 
 
 The nation will doubtless rise to the occa- 
 sion in proportion as a clear yet moving vision 
 of a better future is revealed, and tlie mea^is 
 towards its gradual realization grasped as a 
 matter of goodwill and a task of practical 
 organization. The readjustment of existing 
 groups, institutiojis and interests to these 
 needs and responsibilities cannot be expected 
 to occur spontaneously. There is recjuirec;} 
 
214 THE COMING POLITY : 
 
 some type of social organ specifically adjusted^ 
 to aid the new birth. There are already 
 tendencies pointing to an adaptation Of both 
 university and city in this direction. In a 
 forthcoming volume ^ we shall examine these 
 tendencies and try to indicate how they may 
 be accelerated and co-ordinated.. Here we 
 briefly and somewhat cursorily put forward 
 the concept of the " University Militant," as 
 the sequel and practical application of ideas 
 already dispussed in the foregoing chapters. 
 
 As d. germ it exists in --not a few places 
 and begins to function; but the name 
 university militant is suggested by a book 
 under that title by Mr. Charles Ferguson 
 (published by Mitchell Kennerly, New York), 
 the author also of a book called The 
 Affirmative Intellect. In these two books 
 is. developed the idea of diffusing the spirit 
 of the university, as a leaven to f grment 
 pervasively through the everyday world of 
 work and affairs. Not only the sanction of 
 the past but the tendencies of the present are 
 interpreted and invoked by Mr., Ferguson, 
 
 ^University- and City: a Study in Personality and 
 Citizenship. ' ^ ■ ' . . 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 213 
 
 to fortify the ideal of thus transforming 
 Business and Politics -from a sordid struggle 
 for survival into a. civic and regional direc- 
 tion of energies to the maintenance and 
 ennoblement of life. 
 
 ' Mere freedom from the teinptations of 
 wealth is no protection against the limiting 
 influences- of the cloistered life. The 
 university, if it is to be truly militant, must 
 be affirmative, selective, predictive. It must 
 submit its doctrines to the test, and not only 
 of reasoned criticism but of creative adven- 
 ture in the practical world. It nxust put 
 its faith in life, impassioned and purposive. 
 The calm of the speculative life must needs 
 find a place in the university mUitant; but 
 as that of the seed, whose period of germina- 
 tion is followed in due season by leafage, 
 flower and fruit. 
 
 Let not this be misunderstood. Univer- 
 sities of the'past and present have been con- 
 cerned more with knowledge and its increase 
 than with its application to life and social 
 weal. The university militant must not re- 
 verse that tradition^ but seek to stimulate 
 
2i6 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 it& fertility of outcome, since these times 
 call for action: and for action directed by 
 kuowledge, and inspired by the spirit of the 
 university. That spirit at its best is not 
 simply of detachment, nor even of experiment, 
 but also of corporate idealism. 
 
 The market-place and the forum need 
 naore of this spirit, and the jiniversity like- 
 wise. An intimate co-operation of all three 
 with one another, and with the Church, in 
 the tasks and problems of each, is surely the 
 needed, way to raise the potential of all four.. 
 
 To repair the havoc of the war, and to use 
 its stimulus of idealism towards the renewal 
 of life in true Peace, constitutes — ^it cannot 
 be too pften reiterated — the prime oppor- 
 tunity of the opening day, Business and 
 Politics, Education and Religion — these four 
 quarters of the social^ world— have now an 
 unparalleled opportunity of simultaneously 
 re-making our shattered civilization, and of 
 reforming themselves. Let them but seize 
 the proffered chance and fearlessly handle it 
 with all the resource available; for. only thu§ 
 may it befall that the generation which has 
 suffered the great catastrophe may alsg 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 217 
 
 begin effectually to achieve — and in a far 
 wider and fuller sense — the Great Renewal 
 foresieen by Bacon, and so long deferred. 
 
 Indeed, ^hfis not this JRenewal already 
 begun? Are there not signs on all sides of 
 reawakening? -Reconstruction is becoming 
 a leading' topic of the day ii; English journals. 
 In France, characteristically, the talk is more 
 of Re-education. In the war-ruined areas, 
 those who are trying to set the process of 
 civilization going again, have as their first 
 care the Renewal of social life. Recon* 
 struction. Re-education, Renewal — are not 
 these to be the watchwords of coming states- 
 manship-^a policy of the " three R's," new 
 style! The "new education" of MSihich we 
 were beginning to hear before the war, was 
 and is aiming ^t replacing the traditional 
 three R's of the closed schoolropm, by an open 
 course of three H's^ — ^an Education of Heart, 
 Head and Hand. What is Renewal^ if not 
 primarily a rejuvenation of men's Hearts? 
 Thereafter Re-education, with its clearing up 
 and -refurnishing of Heads, so that with all 
 this. Reconstruction may prosper in doubly 
 invigorated Hands, 
 
21 8 THE COMING POLITY- 
 
 Instead of the 'single solutioris commonly 
 favoured, there are to any and every prob- 
 lem — as we have repeatedly urged— many 
 , necessary lines of approach of which the 
 economic, the mental and the " moral are 
 essential ones. Yet, as abpVe, we must 
 reverse this particular order of precedence, 
 which has been that of the tradition we are 
 escaping, and hence look first to moral ad- 
 vance, then to mental, and thus to economic. 
 Or, best of all — ^let the complete triad go on 
 together, and with alternating rhythni as well. 
 
 How should the coming university militant 
 orient itself towards the changes in our social 
 structure needed, in more than the obvious 
 areas of • reconstruction after war? It must 
 appeal to all ages to re-educate themselves. 
 It will appeal to all to participate in the re- 
 making of homes and villages, cities and 
 countries devastated by the war, or dilapi- 
 dated from earlier causes: Towards the re- 
 education of individuals, the reconstruction 
 of places, and the renewal oi spci'al life, the 
 university militant must give its help,/ and 
 this alike in social studies and social action. 
 And these,- as far as may be, together. When 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 219 
 
 the Sociological Society and the Institute of 
 Spcial Service were both being founded, at 
 the same time, about a dozen years ago, 
 representatives of each group . discussed the 
 possibilities of co-operation, even as far as a 
 common library- and hall for meeting. But 
 the theoricians were afraid of the practicians, 
 and perhaps still more conversely :* so each 
 went its own way, to 'struggle^ henceforth 
 alone. But is not the time riper now to re- 
 unite siich endeavours in the twinned studies 
 and laboratories of the university militant ? 
 Meantime, let any inquirer refer himself 
 to the Social Science Department of the 
 nearest university. If such a Department 
 does not exist, the attention of those able to 
 remedy the defect should be called to the 
 example of universities hke London and 
 Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow, which 
 are cteatirig such schools, or aiding in the 
 establishment of extra-mural ones. Ameri- 
 can universities are more -frequently thus 
 ^equipped : but, in point of fact, the imme- 
 ^diately practicable resources available for 
 re-education, reconstruction and renewal 
 are .as yet to be found rilainly outside the 
 
220 _ THE COMING POLITY 
 
 universities. They are largely to lie sought; 
 in detached and unofficial organizations, in 
 books and documents not always on acadeaciic- 
 shelves, and also in the unrecorded experience 
 of living pioneers' Many a city librarian can 
 help with information about social, civic and 
 educational movements and the corresponding 
 literature. _ 
 
 The university militant must not fall be^ 
 hind in research, hot it must make this 
 research not for knowledge 'merely, but' 
 for the sake of action, ^ocial ac;fcion' thus 
 designed and inspired is as yet too rare, 
 though limited as often by our feebleness of^ 
 will as- by our lack of knowledge. Taken at 
 their best, recent initiatives such' as Town- 
 planning (City-planning is the better name 
 used in America), Chjld-welfarp, Occupational 
 Education, Conservation of Resources, may 
 be cited as examples of activities progressing 
 in interaction with advancing knowledge : 
 each of these is a large and complete move-- 
 mentj pursuing not only its own immediate 
 ends, but bringing together inquiries and 
 endeavours hitherto much isolated, often 
 even in different professions. 
 
UNIVEHSITY MILITANT 221 
 
 ^s he embarks ori these movements of 
 co-drdiriation, or enters these nascent civic 
 laboratories, the student-practitioner comes 
 to grips with the deep issues of iiis Ufe. How 
 to discern and, Select what is best in the whole 
 armoury of culture-resources ? How to unify 
 this into a vision which shall guide and in- 
 spire him as his personal ideal ? How to 
 apply it as his social aim and policy ? Here 
 are vital questions for him; and here are 
 problems which each -must ultimately solve* 
 for himself, but with help that in: these days 
 is sadly lacking. 
 
 But our student-practitioner is still far from 
 the end of his strenuous pilgrimage : in the , 
 midst of his quest the modern sphinx re- 
 appears, with her ever-repeated riddle. And 
 for failure; to find a working solution, the 
 penalty is, as ' always, decay and extinption 
 of the spirit. (Edipus, as Sophocles saw 
 and showed, only succeeded in answering 
 life's conundrum by purging his soul of its 
 evil inheritance. 
 
 The prosperity of the commonwealth de- 
 pends, it is true, on its citizens receiving 
 their Social Heritage of Good, and riot 
 
222 - THE COMING POLITY 
 
 destroyed but increased in transmission. Yet 
 protection against the Social Burden of Evil, 
 and transmutation of its virus, is a prior 
 requisite, as the oldest religions testify, and 
 the latest of the sciences confirms. Hence, 
 before (or at least coincident with) matters 
 of welfare, education and betterment, comes 
 the personal struggle with evil, the social 
 mission of ^purification. Here manifestly is 
 needed the counsel and co-operation of: all 
 othat is best in the many branches of the 
 Church Militant, with its immemorial tradition 
 of spiritual healing. Without some such l 
 idealistic and moral purification, the labours 
 of those who would rebuild society are ever 
 in vain. We should be repeating the secular- 
 istic blunders of the mere anti-clerical revolu- 
 tionist/in France, and indeed of British' and 
 American nineteenth-century industriahsm 
 and politics, but with their climax reversed-. ; 
 Instead of the Emancipated Individual (anar- 
 chic because self-centred), we might be faced 
 with- his twin-monster, the Servile State. - 
 Of these two idols, the worshippers are 
 neither insighifican^ nor few. Happily there 
 are old and traditional ways, ever capable of 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 223 
 
 renewal, by which such idols may be over- 
 thrown and :their demons exorcised. First, 
 ,by evocation of the deeper individuality, 
 ever latent in youth, and patent in truly 
 developed maturity and age. To awaken 
 this essential personality to creative activity^ 
 to purge it of dross, and '^toi enlarge its sym- 
 pathies, to dp all this and more, are the 
 purposes of religion and education at/ their 
 associated best. This association has existed 
 in the past, and it must be renewed again. 
 Its fruit, will be recognized in the liberation 
 of the soul to true freedom. And there is a 
 sure test and certain measure of this higher 
 personal freedom. It is capacity for thought 
 that is also and at the same time instinct with 
 social imagery ; and for self-expression and ful- 
 filment in deed that is also arid at the same 
 time social service and achievement. Thus 
 enriched with social vision, clarified too by 
 prevision, we may escape both Scylla and 
 Charybdis, and frcan the present strife be- 
 tween anarchy and repression, come to citizen- 
 ship and culture, i^ mutually helpful progress. 
 Towards this better world we desire, and 
 would create, the approaches . are beconijng 
 
224 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 charted. To move along them all and 
 as far as may be at the same time and in 
 orderly fashibn (like sappers in the parallel 
 trenches of the old-fashioned siege) should 
 surely be the aim of sound social generalship. 
 How to take part in this, every man for hitn.- 
 self, yet each for all, is the clamant problem 
 of practical ethics. It is thus central among 
 the aims which the university militant should 
 state and keep steadfastly before itself. 
 
 The more searchingly we test bur actions 
 and aspirfitions by such questionings^ the 
 more shall we feel the need of deliberately 
 designed Social experiment, in the best sense 
 of tentative and germinal endeavour. An 
 expression of the efforts and idealisms of 
 individuals and groups, and the bringing of 
 these increasingly together, may be effected 
 not only by discussion of problems, but 
 by participation ih tasks. The university 
 militant would thus begin to take form in the 
 meeting-grounds and-clearing-houses of such 
 ideas and initiatives, and of others, as yet too 
 isolated. Ideas would thus be helped towards 
 synthesis, and initiatives become increasingly 
 cb-operant. Given the impulse of collective 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 225 
 
 activity^ the growing vision of a comnion goal, 
 further .developments would naturally follow ; 
 even in time a full ordiestration of culture 
 resources, and of their application , to practical 
 affairs on an ever-expanding scale. 
 
 Consider, for instance, the need for a 
 systematic study of all that new social tissue 
 generated by the centralizing tendencies of 
 war. -From the concentrated war government 
 there have ramified threads of control that 
 touch every side of life public and private, 
 external and intimate. Suppose this net- 
 work of social organization were studied, 
 neither in the spirit of contemporary politics, 
 nor in the fervour of reforming impulse, but 
 in the dispassionate and disciphned way 
 of research. Its record of performunceand 
 failure in war-time, its ever-changing struc- 
 ture and function, would all be observed and 
 interpreted as the vastest of social experiments. 
 Its potentialities for good and for evil in after- 
 war reconstruction, its adaptabiUty to the 
 former, its divertibility from the latter, would 
 be estimated, and valued. From such studies 
 should emerge the vision of a national objec- 
 tive and a plan of national reconstruction. 
 Q 
 
226 THE COMING PpLITY •: 
 
 Assume for^instance that the British Associar - 
 tion with co-operation from the SoGiological 
 Society and the Town Planning Institute^; 
 were to take the lead in assembling, for this 
 research, ^ representatives • from the rele vant > 
 societies, scientific and practical. The con- 
 gress so convoked would differ from the 
 Reconstruction Committee^ in official opera- 
 tion, as the coming university militant will 
 differ from academic pourts and councils as 
 they are to-day. ' 
 
 The university militant Will in its essence 
 stand for the association of thought and ac- 
 tion, in that crucial and continuing experiment"' 
 we call life. Its motto may not be Vivendo 
 discimus, but that will be the principle 
 of its action. Towards.. the needed reunion 
 of thought with action and of both with life, 
 there is happUy no lack of beginnings, and 
 some of them ,are genuinely experimental, 
 in the sense of carefully planned design. The 
 more these can be brought into unison, th^ 
 nearer will be the conscious formation of 
 the university militant. By what sign shall 
 we recognize the a,pproach of this? How will 
 its coming birth be manifested? 
 
. UNIVERSITY MILITANT 227 
 
 / The mediaeval proverb, that " Three make a 
 College,"- does not iell how many colleges it 
 takes to; make a university. However that 
 may be, ifis safe to predict that even when 
 it comes to fruition, the university militant 
 will become no chartered creation of official- 
 dom, but remain as a co-operation of ideas 
 and of initiatives of the more galilean type 
 indica.ted in the proverb. Indeed, without 
 irreverence, may we not adapt a high watch- 
 word' of the Church Militant, and say that 
 wherever two or three are gathered together 
 in the name of PaUas,' there is the university ? 
 . Towards co-operation in ideas and in 
 action, may not this concept of the university 
 militant become of service? May we not 
 imapne it beginning here and there to furnish 
 a common tie among students and investiga- 
 tors, a concrete bond among social workers, 
 and to bring their contributions to thought 
 and action more definitely together ? Papers, 
 pg.mphlets, books of synthetic spirit or con- 
 structive tendency might thus aid each other's 
 diffusion and in the right quarters. Lectures 
 and demonstrations, discussions and con- 
 gresses, exhibitions, etc., might also thus 
 
228 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 become linked into fuller (but always free) 
 coroperation. University Extension and kin- 
 dred agencies might also aid and be aided: 
 towards a. fuller co-ordination of activities, 
 and this nt>t only social and intellectual but 
 even material. (For why not a clearing-house 
 ofdecture syllabuses, and bibliographies for 
 study, even of books for reading, lantern 
 slides for lecturing, and so on?) Summer 
 schoolSj too, are peculiarly gathering places for 
 the university militant. 
 
 Yet this needed movement, though it 
 wiU have to be frankly and widely popular, 
 and take part in all activities such as Uni- 
 versity Extension and the rest, must not fail 
 \o concentrate upon the fullest university 
 level also, and indeed upon this above all. 
 The very best of popularizing is done by the 
 original thinker and worker — as witness 
 Huxley in his day, and many, up to M. 
 Bergson even, in ours. "The streana of: 
 facts," a wise old professor of our youth was 
 wont to say, " will be found to run in the 
 channel of the deepest speculation " ; we 
 shall only deal effectively with either educatioa: 
 or reconstruction in concurrent investigation 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 22g 
 
 of the riddles of personality and of social evolu- 
 tion, and as we attain. tke fuller mastery of 
 the sciences a& well as of their applications. 
 Who, then, in University or in City, is for 
 the university militant ? And where and 
 how and when shall its banner be raised? 
 Its theses prepared and discussed? Above 
 aU, its aspirations expressed in reconstructive 
 endeavour? The plain citizen will doubtless 
 ask, where and how can the university 
 mihtant find habitat and a home in his city?. 
 The answers to that question should be many 
 and diverse, varying with the personality of 
 each city and the character and tradition of 
 its region. Already may be discerned many 
 types of the civic response to this need. In 
 American cities of the midtUe-west, from 
 Wisconsin to Kansas, militant initiatives 
 have arisen within the universities them- 
 selves. The same may be said of English 
 universities like Liverpool, and still more 
 notably, Aberystwyth, where researches in 
 the natural and the humanistic sciences are 
 concurrent and interactive and are worked, 
 out in practical applications to rural develop- 
 ment and to education. 
 
230 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 Of extra-academic initiatives, we will in- 
 stance a few examples, chosen from those of 
 which the accidents of life have given us 
 personal knowledge. Thete are others of 
 which we know by hearsay. And there must 
 be many of which we know nothing. Place 
 aux dames. Long befqre the great Italian 
 educationist had won poj^ularity ami)ngst 
 us. Miss Margaret McMillan was playing the 
 part of an English Montessori and more. 
 Wherever Miss McMillan gathers round her 
 a band of workers, yesterday in Bradford, 
 tx)-day in Deptford, there the standard of 
 the university militant, is raised; for their 
 activities combine psychological research with 
 educational experiment and this again with 
 civic advancement. The gi;and problem of 
 Miss McMillan's research is to work out on 
 the plane of modern science the ancient 
 aspiration of adapting' the city to child life. 
 
 Another example may be cited from the- 
 activities of that group at once citizens and 
 students, long associated With Paul Des- 
 jardins. Combining ^t, learning and philo- 
 sophy they are veritable neo-Benedictines, 
 oscillating between the, Latin Quarter of 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 231 
 
 Paris and a Breton Abbey. Of the Edinburgh 
 School of Sociology, composed also of men 
 and woipen who are both students and 
 citizens, with their civic laboratory or Out- 
 , look Tower, we have already spoken and will 
 only add here, that if every city had its 
 Outlook Tower, that would naturally become 
 the ^ postal address of the local university 
 militant. Again there is the Workers' Educa- 
 tional Association, of whose ' innumerable 
 branches, some engage in no mere passive 
 studies, but are active in the research of 
 knowledge for social application. The same 
 is true also of the Round Table Group, whose 
 ideal it is to transform the British Empire 
 into the British Commonwealth. And this, 
 they seek to achieve in the spirit of the 
 univgr^ity militant, -because they unite the 
 problems of political science "with the tasks of 
 practical politics and leaven the national and 
 imperial impulse with a touch of humanist 
 enthusiasm. Precisely complementary to the 
 activities of the Round Table Group is the 
 work of Mr. C. H. Grinling, Mr. Edward 
 McGegan and their colleagues in Woolwich. 
 With infinite patience they have devoted 
 
232 THE COMING POXITY 
 
 long years to the intensive culture of their 
 own local community. The ideal they are' 
 gradually reaHzing is that of a Labour College 
 which finds at once its studies and their j 
 practical applications in the education^ 
 problems and the civic tasks of a metropolitsm - 
 borough and its relations to the wider world. 
 All these and' many more are buds on the 
 growing shoot of the university mtlitant. 
 
 But of more general interest than any single 
 initiative is the transformation which the 
 University Social Settlement movement is 
 undergoing. This movement completed the 
 cycle of its first generation at about the 
 time of the outbreak of the war. Surveying 
 it from the standpoint of 1914, a not un- 
 friendly German critic pronounced the move- 
 ment a " fiasco of humanitarian Liberalism." 
 What he saw, in coming to this harsh verdict, 
 was the smallness of results achieved amid 
 the welter of East Eiid confusion in London ; 
 and the great industrial cities where the 
 Settlements have pursued their _ labours. 
 What he failed to see was the spirit of inquiry 
 and experiment which has long been growing 
 up within the movement^ transforming it 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 233 
 
 iFom a too facile acceptance of the existing 
 basis of social conditions into an active 
 solvent of them and soon maybe into an 
 energetic agent of re-crystSllization. The 
 great survey of Mr. Charles Booth was much 
 of it carried out in detail by residents and 
 
 , associates of Toynbee Hall. The practical 
 application of the infonhation gathered, was 
 a problem left on the la.p of the Gods. But 
 the idea of Survey for Service is estabhsh- 
 ing itself amongst the Settlements. As the 
 resulting habit and practice of uniting Diag- 
 nosis with Treatment extends and develops 
 
 -throughout the Settlements, if wiU no longer 
 be possible io accuse them of being " hunting- 
 grounds for budding bureaucrats,", because 
 they will increasingly become training-grounds 
 for ci-vdc statesmen. And in the emergent- 
 Polity, the Regional Survey will take its 
 place and achieve its fulfilment in a re- 
 shaping of environment more in accord 
 with the finer ideals. As the conception of 
 Utopia was -ihe product of academic imagina- 
 
 . tion dissociated from scientific knowledge and 
 local welfare, so the combination of these ^ 
 will give rise to a constructive concept for 
 
234 THE COMING 'POLITY 
 
 which we shall argue, in the next chapter, 
 viz. that of Eutopia. And as Utopia is no- : 
 where, so eutopia may be everywhere that 
 children grow and flowers blossom. ^ 
 
 But where do children grow, •j.e. as nature 
 and a real civilization would have them, "in 
 favour with] God and Man"? That growth 
 begins of course, in the Home, provided the 
 parents can there concentrate .adequate re- 
 sources. And to the needed domestic equip- 
 ment, the researches and experirnents of 
 Miss McMillan and similar workers are making 
 cardinal contributions. Beyond the home, a 
 fitting and cqmprehensive introduGtion to 
 the wider world is furnished by the Boy 
 Scout movement, provided that be extende4 
 to the whole range of nature occupations. 
 
 The Boy Scout period runs from about 
 eleven to sixteen. But there- is now the 
 Junior Organization of Wolf Xubs, which 
 admits boys' of eight years. Here, therefore,, 
 if we balance the Scout programme with the 
 Regional Survey is the elemental school, 
 capable of carrying the boy forward in his 
 human apprenticeship from childhood up to 
 the critical and formative period of youth. 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 235 
 
 B^ond the School of Scouts is manifestly 
 needed an educational institution of kindred 
 type. Its essential aim vvi-ould be" the organi- 
 zation of appropriate openings and oppof-' 
 tunities for the inquiring instincts, and the 
 impulsive faculties of later youth and early 
 manhood. We submit that the university 
 militant is adaptable to ■ this purpose. In 
 due sequel to the Scout's School of Nature, 
 would follow in the ascent of the educational 
 ladder, the Civic College of Humanities. The 
 latter would have its contemplative and its ' 
 active phase corresponding to the two aspects 
 of the Scout's education, but in reverse 
 order, the more subjective stage coniing first in 
 harmony with the natural growth of adoles- 
 cence. " Going to college " would thus con- 
 tinue the traditional pustom of entering the 
 citizen's world through the cloister gate, 
 but in a more vital and concrete sense. The 
 young student would have behind him the 
 objective life, of mine and forest, of hunting 
 camp and sheep pasture^ of farm and garden, _ 
 pf seamanship and fishery. But he has not 
 only played the game of the nature-occu- 
 pations up and doWn the "valley-section." 
 
236 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 He has also had the object! ve«sul)iective 
 experience of the corresponding "school,"' 
 with its Rural Survey of the Region and its 
 multiform life. He has shared, too, in the 
 rural art and culture, which flourishes where 
 the rustic folk have not suffered -prolonged 
 repression. On entering college the youth 
 develops the subjective life of the cloister. 
 Therein he inteigfates into an affirmative 
 perspnaiity the scouting and school ex- 
 periences and memories, by combining thein 
 with his own selection from the culture heri- 
 tage af. literature and science, philosophy 
 alnd religion. To give due concreteness and 
 unity to college studies, the Civic Survey is 
 available, as was the more rural aspect of the 
 Regional Survey for school studies. Thus, 
 the fragments of our school programme and the 
 specialisms of our university curricula acquire 
 meaning and reality as approaches towards 
 a definite objective. The student's under- 
 standing of his own Region, past, present, 
 and possible, in its relation to Nature and to 
 Civilization is this objective. ., He thus comes 
 to regard himself and his fellow-members , 
 of the regional community as alternatively 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT > 237 
 
 Mirror of, and Reagent to the cosmos and 
 humanity. 
 
 Next follows the subjective-objective life 
 of active citizenship. And this it is which' 
 crowns and. completes the educational cycle/ 
 To the Play of nature-occupations succeeded 
 the Repose of the cloistered college; and 
 to this, the sequel and complement is the 
 Great Game of Civics. In the first peribd 
 the boy acquired some mastery of the environ- 
 mental tools. He also entered and absorbed 
 the Ufe of the Folk. In the second, the youth 
 explored the mysteries of his inner life, 
 adjusted its disturbances and gained self- 
 mastery.^ Finally, as Master of Arts, he applies 
 his knowledge, his skill, his new-found social 
 impulse, to the finer tasks of civic life. In 
 short, he has discovered his Vocation in the. 
 creative world of Pohty, Culture, Art. His 
 career Ues henceforth in the expression and 
 fulfilment of his maturing personality in the 
 maintenance and development of his city 
 
 ^ In a subsequent volume of the series {Science and^ 
 Sanctify : a Study of Spiritual Renewal) will be studied 
 some of the historic resources developed in religious 
 practice addressed to the problems of adolescence and 
 rejuvenescence. 
 
238 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 and region. Thus city and citizen develop 
 together in aecqrd with the grand law of human 
 evolution, that Mali and his Environment 
 evolve or deteriorate together. ^ 
 
 Is it objected that all this is too much/' in 
 the air " to be of ptactical value? That is 
 probably the criticism with which most 
 " piractical " men met the Boy Scout project 
 when first mooted. But in less than a decade 
 it has built up a membership of nearly three- 
 quarters of a million. When war broke out, 
 the Scouts proved to be a reserve army of 
 no mean order. All the public services have 
 drawn on that reserve. The Admiralty has' 
 taken two thousand for coastguard service 
 and seven hundred "for signalling and other 
 work in the Grand Fleet. In a number of 
 towns, the fire brigades are manned entirely 
 by Boy Scouts. In one city alone no fewer 
 than three hundred are used for supplemen- 
 tary police duty. The same tale could be 
 told of auxiliary service in all departments 
 of public life. 
 
 Let us assume the idea of the university 
 militant, and the due preparation and train?^ 
 ing for it as, in principle, accepted, the 
 
:' UNIVERSITY MILITANT 239 
 
 ^practical problem then becomes one of adap-'' 
 tation' That it is possible to go far. in adapts 
 ing even the official elementary school of, 
 common type to a reahstic and open-air educa- 
 tion many^ initiatives prove ; and above all 
 that of the Mixenden School in Yorkshire, 
 which under its present headmaster, Mr. 
 Arrowsiriith, has become a cuttiijg edge of 
 progress.^ So the question of adapting the 
 existing resources of Higher Education to the 
 idea of the university 'mihtant may not be 
 so difficult as at first sight it seems. Thus 
 the School of Mines' Museum, the "Central *' 
 College of Technology, the School of Forestry, 
 only heed to be removed respectively from 
 Piccadilly, South Kensington and Oxford : the 
 first to South Wales ; the second to Sheffield 
 or Leeds, Birmingham or Newcastle; the 
 third to the Scottish Highlands, to become 
 all, of them Regional and therefore vitalized to 
 a higher pptential of militancy. Again, there 
 are many and excellent schools of ^ Biology , 
 and Psychology, Economics and^ Ethics, to 
 be found inside the universities and sometimes 
 stiU more excellent ones outside. Isolated 
 1 See " New Ideals of Education " already cited p. 2011 
 
240 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 into mdre or less water-tight compartments 
 within their own university, these schools 
 only need to be brought into closer relation 
 with each other and with the local tasks and 
 problems of, health and education, of poverty 
 and welfare : and thus would be taken a long 
 stride towards the university militant. Con- 
 ceive also what a stimulus to the dan vital 
 of city and region, if everywhere the schools 
 of Art and of Music would address themselves 
 more directly to the development of local, 
 drama, pageantry, masque, and generally 
 to the adornment, good ordering and enhance- 
 ment of regional and civic life. That, perhaps, 
 is the shortest, as it is certainly the most- 
 cheerful, way; to the university militant."" 
 
 It will be recalled that, in the selected 
 examples, we presented the idea of the 
 university militant, as manifesting its crude 
 contemporary beginnings more in adult than 
 in youthful activities. That is but a passing 
 symptom of present limitations. For most 
 having suffered the paralysis and the illusions 
 Qf" education " without enjoying its realities, 
 
UNIVERSITY MILITANT 241 
 
 have been constrained to seek these in later 
 Ufe by shifts of cultural salvage. Let it < 
 not be thought, however, that in the coming I 
 polity, the mature and. the aged are to be 1 
 excluded from the joys of educational j 
 militancy. On the contrary, the university • 
 militant may look forward to uniting in one | 
 confraternity, the elite of youths, of adults ; 
 arid of the aged in its owri city and region. ^ 
 Indeed its very essence and_ spirit will derive 
 from the- evoeatory interaction of youth 
 with age; When the coming university draws 
 freely from those springs of adolescence 
 and from these sources of rejuvenescence, 
 it will yield its community an enrichment 
 of spirit, an enhancement -of life, and. a 
 liberation of energies," such as we of these 
 long-repressed generations cannot estimate 
 or even imagine. 
 
 It may well be asked where in all this 
 project of higher education is the part of 
 woman? That is primarily a question for 
 women themselves to answer. But manifestly 
 there is no phase in the life cycle of man 
 
242 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 from infancy onwards when his dependence,, 
 on woman is not profound and pervasive. 
 As the cycle unfolds itself the dependence 
 becomes more spiritual but none the less 
 real. The high pinnacles of life are to be 
 climbed only through mutual stimulus and in- 
 teraction of the sexes. Suppose, for instance, 
 that the university militant were deliber- 
 ately to apply its organs of research to -- 
 inventing and aj^plying f moral equivalents 
 of war." An abiding ennoblement of mas- 
 culine passion wquld result, if the eager 
 dispositions of Youth, the creative energies of 
 Maturity and the political ambitions of Age, 
 were harnessed to social purposes under 
 guidance of woman's impulse and ideals. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION — REGIONAL 
 EUTOPIAS 
 
 The drama of the world is ever in progress. 
 When we say^that this drama " takes place," 
 we are speaking from the regional outlook, 
 though we have become unconscious- of the 
 fact, since the expression is nowadays so 
 worn as to have lost its literal and proper 
 meaning. As to the where and the how of 
 the " taking place," or coming to birth of 
 events, it is the purpose of the newspaper 
 to inform us. The journalist from day to 
 day and week' to week locates for us the 
 ^main theatre of the world-drama by his 
 choice and interpretation of " news." He 
 surveys the stream of purrent events, and 
 according to his standard of Values makes, 
 his " selections." ^That is the phrasing of 
 the sporting column and tlie racecourse. 
 Generalized, it inay fairly be applied to the 
 
 243 
 
244 . THE COMING POLITY. 
 
 whole field of news service: Thus by jour- 
 nalistic selection, and the educational system 
 which supports it, are detemiined our spec- 
 tacle of the world-phantasmagoria, our view, 
 of contemporary social evolution. 
 
 But. does not the j ournalist's survey in- 
 sufficiently recognize that the Great Play is 
 "taking place" in some shape or form all 
 the time and everywhere that human com- 
 munities live and work ? Sometimes, as in 
 war, famine and pestilence, the drama works 
 out as the Destruction of Cities, a Tragedy 
 of Regional Life. But normally it shows 
 itself in all those activities which, region by 
 region, go towards the making of peace]' and 
 a home for man on his planet. In these 
 manifold and varied activities lie the elements 
 of the Regional Drama, We may observe 
 them and, as we ascend and' descend the 
 linked river valley, name them by type of 
 occupation. Each kind of vv^ork takes place 
 where its natural conditions exist, where its 
 «tuff of operation is found. The natural 
 conditions commonly determine a normal 
 sequence of occupations, although, of course, 
 not all necessarily present, nor, if present, 
 
J SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 245 
 
 always in the same order. As we have seen, 
 the order is commonly as follows : the miner 
 .with his extraction and traiisport of minerals ; 
 the fotester with his exploitation (by and by 
 care) of the forest ; the hunter with his pursuit 
 (and preservation) of game ; the peasant with 
 his crops, his rearing of stock, and his seasonal 
 cultivation of field and garden ; and finally, 
 the fisher and seafarer, with all the simple 
 or commercial adventures of the sea. Within 
 this complex of fustic and maritime labours, 
 with their innumerable urban devdopments, 
 complements and counterparts, lie the human 
 interests that give to them meaning and 
 purpose. These are, first of all, the mating 
 of men, and women, the making of homes 
 and the tending of children; with the rise 
 and fall of families, accordijggly, and these 
 of characteristic types. From these family 
 types there arise the essentials of the charac- 
 teristic institutions ; and thus the student 
 passes step by step from the simpler study 
 of man face to face with nature, to the 
 sociology of larger and more complex group- 
 ings. He now follows the making and the 
 lapsing of .these, social groups, and from this 
 
246 THE COMING- POLITY 
 
 to theiHiaking, the building and maintenance 
 of cities, in all the sunshine and shadow of 
 their ups and downs, their interactions, com- 
 petitions and struggles ; in -shorty their com- 
 plexities- of health and disease, of war and 
 peace. Such is the stream of eVents, each 
 and all charged with its elements of drama, 
 and contintiou^ly visible through this change- 
 ful, yet orderly, kaleidoscope of the regional 
 and civic outlook. i 
 
 The student may next inquire if, amid this 
 ceaseless flow of-'happenings, for better and 
 for worse, the news that is rea^y significant 
 is seized, collected and presented. Does not 
 that which is vital and essential toe often 
 escape attention? For to the Press, as, one 
 of its ap61ogists remarked ther other day, a 
 single infuriat^ who -^throws his chair out 
 of the window is of far more interest than 
 three millions who use their chairs -in the 
 ordinary way. 
 
 lias not the time come for seeking out 
 methods of survey more exacting, and put- 
 ting into use standards of interpretation at 
 once more cognisant and more penetrative of 
 the normal life than those commonly applied 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 247 
 
 in press, platform and pulpit, or recognized 
 in school and college? Is not this present 
 crisis (nothing less than that of western 
 civilization,) pressing us tdwa-rds a Re-Survey 
 of the world, region by region, city by city? 
 and to the corresponding searching out of 
 more real values and more real standards 
 by which to appraise them ? Thereby we 
 should still satisfy all our legitimate scientific 
 curiosities, indeed far more fully than ever; 
 but also the better prepare oiirselyes for 
 the needed Reconstruction. And must not 
 the rustic, the vital, the ethical — ^in short, the 
 regional outlook, as we use that term — 
 increasingly supplement the recent and 
 ,pres6nt too purely urban outlook, with its 
 J mechanical, venal and legalistic ^oint of 
 view, which is, and so long has been, alone 
 predominant in our politics, in our education, 
 and even in our science ?, 
 - The beginning of this change comes as we 
 re-educate ourselves to discern ever5nvhere 
 and at all times, rene\^ing from generation 
 to generation, the local and regional scenes 
 which contribute to the world-drama, that 
 reflect it and merge into it. Intertwining in 
 
248 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 these larger issues is the life-story ^f each 
 and. every individual, which, Hke that- of each 
 soldier in the war, is ever poignantly alter- 
 na,ting between the "parts of actor and spec- 
 tator. To the wider view, the drama^ un- 
 folds as national, or " racial," as federal, even 
 as human; yet to the narrower but intenser it 
 is also domestic and local, regional and civic. 
 Assuredly each is integral to the series. All 
 alike, these outlooks and their corresponding 
 endeavours have, therefore, to be valued. 
 What are the tests? It will be agreed that 
 in each contributory r61e there must be that 
 which is intrinsically worthy; that which is 
 defihitely constructive and serviceable in the 
 Here and Now, and yet looks to the Beyond 
 both in space and in time. 
 
 To arouse, to express and develop the 
 sense of community in all these directions 
 is surely a vitdl problem for the education 
 of the individual. And correspondingly for 
 statesmanship.. For what is this if not- the 
 task of creating opportunities for communi- 
 tary life and expression at their fullest and" 
 best (yet with and through due freedom of 
 individual development), at every level; not 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 249 
 
 only throughout the whole range of the 
 commonwealth, but in its' relation to the 
 other commonwealths beyondrits own bounds. 
 But^hdther the educational problem nor the 
 poUtical task can be adequately dealt with, 
 until to the People has been shown a fuller 
 Vision, that of their own life in all its ever- 
 widening relations, its expanding possibilities. 
 
 .j/r ■ ■ ■ . ■ ■ _ 
 
 In this vision, the Personal and the Regional, 
 the National and the Human, must be recon- 
 ciled in common purpose, and combined in 
 jnilitant effort. But how may such a vision 
 be expected to arise ? Whence are to come 
 the ideals from which vision and purpose may 
 clearly emerge ? 
 
 The hard-crusted societies of the belligerent 
 nations have, under the hammer-strokes of 
 war, become plijable. Old bonds have been 
 loosened, old restraints removed. New im- 
 pulses have been liberatedi new outlooks 
 opened. In this ferment of war-time and 
 after-war preparation, the way out of tradi- 
 tional deadlocks will be discerned. It is even 
 now being pointed to, and this at once by 
 
250 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 reflection and by experiinerit. . May it not 
 next be boldly yet carefully planned, by' 
 application of long- known or appearing laws^ 
 of natural and social evolution? So jnay be 
 discovered or devised better ways of life. 
 Not fancifully Utopian, but rooted in evolu- 
 tionary tendencies; and therefore realizable,- 
 if we plan for them with foresight for our 
 own and the coming generations, and as 
 the forester plants for growth beyond his 
 own lifetime. Utopian proposals, however 
 promising, are without definite place, and 
 therefore, are futile and fanciful ; but Ihose 
 that find place, («'. e. are regional,) are also, 
 realizable ; and these plannings and plant- 
 ings, each in their right place for survival 
 and growj;h, we shall call Eutopian. Indeed/ 
 this deep and thorough distindtion was not 
 absent from the mind of Sir Thomas More,' 
 habitual word-maker, wit, and even punster, 
 as he was, like so many of^the intellectuals 
 of that age of transition in life, and of 
 corresponding elaboration in language. 
 
 Of such Eutopian ideals, therefore, let us 
 take stock. The first manifestly is this-^ 
 that the destruction of regional life and 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 251 
 
 beauty which, since the Industrial Revolu- 
 tion, has characterized peace hardly less than 
 war should cease, and should everywhere 
 give *place -Eb spaciously planned develop- 
 
 ^ment; "and this in "countryside and village, 
 in town and city. But the other, and com- 
 
 :*',ptemental, ideal for Eutopia looks to the 
 development of personality within each indi- 
 vidual. For eutopia is an environment en- 
 suring the survival not merely of the fittest 
 but of the best. It aims to evoke the best that 
 is latent in spirit, mind and body ; to restrain 
 lower impulses and^:ranSmute them to higher 
 ones, and -to give these expression and fulfil- 
 ment in life again, elective, beautiful and 
 noble, as among the Greeks, at their best, 
 of old. It Emphasizes the collective respon- 
 sibility of opening to all, without distinction 
 of sex or class, not only opportuhities of 
 UveHhood, but careers of service and of 
 honour. But beyond this due and full recog- 
 nition of the claims of individualism, the 
 Eufbpian ideal is concerned with the well- 
 being of communities in their regions, cities 
 and nations; with the friendly coming 
 together of national- groups, and sol on 
 
352 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 increasingly, up to the growing establishment 
 of the Human Commonwealth. 
 
 But these are not so many separate and 
 distinct, ideal systems, as their respective 
 projectors, cultivators and adherents have 
 been too apt to assume. That way mere 
 Utopias lie. Of every scientific Eutopia 
 there are three aspects — Personal, Regional, 
 Human; but these are simultaneous and 
 co-ordinate: in fact, the three dimensions of 
 Eutopia ; while Utopia is nowhere, without 
 them all. They are the orientation planes 
 of the'substantial tower which science, despite 
 all lapses and failures, is slowly building for 
 the outlooks of the eutopian vision. It is, 
 therefore, no chimera, but a necessary and 
 legitimate task of science, to search put and 
 define these outlooks as they open from the 
 real into the ideal, and from the ideal back 
 to the real. From these magic casements 
 the view, is, indeed, over perilous seas, yet 
 not forlorn; since they' reveal the voyages 
 of the Past, with all its Odysseys, and open 
 to the prospect ' of new and higher quests, - 
 of richer argosies to come. In plainer phrase, 
 -Science is not only retrospective, but pro- 
 
\ SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 353 
 
 spective ; its hypotheses are ever seeking 
 flyesrification in experience, and these their ap- 
 plications towards foresight. Its discoveries 
 thus materialize into social inventions, and 
 each pressing towards future use and increase. 
 In short, it seeks not only to disclose the 
 Past, but to expose the Future, and in 
 ^creasing measure direct its course. Long 
 ago the astronomer learned to predict the 
 eclipse; and more and mt)re since Darwin 
 does the agriculturist, the gardener, the 
 breeder, first define the type of wheat or 
 fruit, of domestic bird or^ beast he requires, 
 and then in a few years produces it. To-day 
 the man who unites scientific habit and con- 
 structive impulse is be^nning to plan cities, 
 and to plant their gardens; so 4:o-morrow 
 shall he not renew an enriched citizenship? 
 ,And mirroring therein the image of a nobler 
 self, he and his offspring will approach its 
 realization. For since the human species is 
 the most modifiable of all, its eVer-renewing 
 ideaUsms, its Eutopian hopes, are seen to be 
 grounded in the very constitution of human 
 nature. 
 . This quest of outlooks towards the kingdom 
 
254 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 of ideals, realizable in this our life on earth, 
 arose anew iirihe travail and ecstasy of the 
 (j-reat Revolution, "and with these, the begin- 
 nings of modern social science. The fact that 
 this eutopian tradition is mainly of French 
 initiative may explain, in part at least, its 
 long, neglect in the English-speaking world. 
 For is not that neglect a survival of the 
 instinctive boycott of all things French, from 
 wine to pictures, that accompanied and fol- 
 lowed the colonial wars of the eighteenth" 
 century and the Napoleonic wars of the 
 •Revolution? Other factors were of course 
 concerned, as indeed we haVe repeatedly 
 insisted throijghQut this volume. But what- , 
 ever be the explanation, it remains true that 
 indifference tinged with contempt has too 
 long been exhibited towards the post-revolu- 
 tionary thought of France, by our English 
 and Aiherican schools of social scienc^. If 
 these had simultaneously been f ertUe in origin- 
 ality of native thought, the aversion from 
 France would have been less conspicuous, 
 and would in its own way have been fruitful. 
 But so far from that being the case, the Engr 
 lish and American schools, in every instance 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 255 
 
 where official and academic, have looked to 
 Germany, Thence they derived, for the 
 recent and present, but now passing genera- 
 tion, a too easy and too plenary ins'piration 
 in philosophy, in history, in race-theory and 
 much else ; and therewith they have imported 
 : the wherewithal to modernize outworn clas- 
 ' sical and renaissance speculations on "the 
 nature of the individual,"^ and the '■" func- 
 tions of the State" into that spurious, be- 
 cause non-sociological " Political Philosophy " 
 which is now -falling into deserved discredit, 
 along with its material domination over a 
 long-docile Europe.^' 
 
 - ^ Since the -above was written, there has appeared 
 a notable book. Community : a Sociotogipal Study, by 
 : Professor Mclver, late of Aberdeen, now of Toronto. 
 By Community, Professor Mclver means' the communal 
 hfe of groups, like faijiily, tribe, city, nation, humanity, 
 but not state,, church, and- empire ; for communitary 
 life, and indiyfdual life within it are co-extensive in 
 range. The social Pfoteus that takes shape in each 
 communitary group, Professor Mclver declares to be 
 the one and only subject matter of sociology ; and that 
 it is only by abstraction of specialized aspects that the 
 subscierices of economics, politics, ethics, etc., exists 
 Here, then, is signal evidence that thg academic infer- 
 tihties of the isolated social sciences are nearing their 
 end and also is closing the long-established reign of that 
 
,256 _ THE COMING POLITY 
 
 In France itsejf the two main streams of 
 social thought- have, as we noted at the out- 
 set of this volume,, run strangely separate 
 courses. The more speculative and abstract 
 school of Condorcet and, Comte, and the 
 geographical and observational school of 
 LePlay and his continuators, seem, even^in 
 the land of their birth;, to have exercised as 
 little influence on each other as two rivers 
 on oppolite sides of a water-parting. And 
 yet, if the unity of science be real, its^applica- 
 tion to life irievitable, never have two scien- 
 tific systems been more clamant for blending; 
 and this not only that each may supplement 
 the other's deficiencies, but also' that it may 
 reconcile its own apparent inconsistencies. 
 For the first of these systems of interpreta- 
 tion, though born of the Revolution, yet did 
 not put history out of court, but used it as 
 its foundation stone; and it came to build 
 thereon a temple of the twofold patriciates, 
 temporal and" spiritual, though not without 
 many and beautiful shrines for the people. 
 
 dialectical Box and Cox, the " Individual anH the State." 
 It is noteworthy that Professor Mclver is a student of 
 La Science SociaU. , 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 257 
 
 The other system, ihat of LePlay, was born 
 H^M^the Catholic ReactioiT; vet in its spirit 
 of interpretation it was more " scientific " 
 (in the concrete and material sense) than the 
 system of Comte ; and more deeply demo- 
 cratic also, since tracing back all patriciates 
 to their simplest origins, and correspondingly 
 looking forward to their perpetual renewal 
 from the same sources. 
 
 ' Thus has come about an unfortunate con- 
 juncture in the history of science. Misled by 
 •German "social philosophy" and deceived by 
 the- prestige of English " pohtical thought," 
 the sociologists of the later nineteenth century 
 made their Great_ Refusal. If, instead, they 
 had reJQiced in ajuller intellectual recep- 
 tivity, and accepted this twofold inheritance 
 that France offered, though she herself had 
 failed to. unite it, what might hot this have; 
 meant and done for the modern world, com- 
 passless, rudderless as it has proved to be? 
 Some wisdom of interpreta.tion and forecast' 
 might even thus have been made available 
 in time to save the flower of European youth 
 
.258 THE XOMINGiPOLITY 
 
 from rushing to their .dpoin in the red anarchy 
 of war. ' _ 
 
 The sociologists have thus as yet been of 
 but little account in the world. Their main 
 bodies in France, as we have seenV were and 
 are divided; and in "other countries they 
 became side-tracked; and.-^^till too little 
 conscious of 4heir whereabouts, they for thfe 
 most part remain to this day. Many are 
 reflecting, persistently and subtly, on abstract 
 questions of method and unity. Others are 
 working assiduously at lesser problems, but 
 all as specialisms; and these, therefore, sub- 
 divide and multiply without co-relation. The 
 central problem of social and political science 
 (we nail it up here as definite thesis, and as 
 challfenge) they have not even posed. They 
 have ignored it. Yet assuredly that central 
 problem was marked out by unmistakable 
 indications and defined by the historic develop- 
 ment ofvthe sciences. It may be stated once 
 more, and as a threefold task. There was, 
 first, the fundamental task of co-ordinating, 
 as a geographic and historic utiity, these two 
 master schools of social-illumination aforesaid, 
 and of further developing their joint product, 
 
" SUMMARY ANp CONCLUSION 259 
 
 of aristo-democratic doctrine. There was, 
 secondly, the task of adjustment; t?y incor- 
 Jjoratin^ the masses of new knowledge labori- 
 ously gathered and conscientiouS^ly catalogued 
 largely by German or Germanic specialists, 
 upon whom so far there is no blame to cast, 
 but -praise to bestow. Finally, there was 
 the supreme task of re-interpreting and re- 
 stating the doctrine in terms of evolutionary 
 concepts; and these as not merely or mainly 
 confined to those of th6 Darwinian School, 
 but with full utilization and developiment of 
 later and finer elements. And" amongst such 
 later develo|)ments we would single out, as 
 of special significance for social and political 
 science, that evolutionary philosophy of life 
 which, especially thanks to the triumphant 
 leadership of Bergson, is at length so clearly, 
 substituting for the old polemics oi Creation 
 versus Evolution and vice versa, the reconcUihg 
 concept of Creative Evolution. An eirenicon 
 of social lilfe, this impulse and doctrine of 
 Bergson has a Corresponding synthetic value 
 for social thought. 
 
 The, needed work of ce^tral development 
 and unification in social science and its political 
 
26o THE COMING POLITY 
 
 applications, though it has as yet so signalljjf' 
 and tragically failed to engage the main body 
 of sociological inquirers, iias nevertheless 
 received a degree of attention, as it were at 
 the margin of the movement . Here and there, 
 in spite of the prevailing vogue, such needed 
 synthetic researches and endeavours have 
 been going on, however ihiperfectly and ob- 
 scurely. Even to-day their influences arid 
 resultants may be seen; here as some re- 
 statement of doctrine tmfashionable in the 
 schools, or there as stimulus and guidance' 
 qi some practical movemeht hitherto left 
 unconsidered in the world of- affairs. 
 
 To collect and re-express these unfashiour 
 able but synthetic doctrines, to give indica- 
 tions of those unconsidered but reconstruc- 
 tive movements, would be an opportune 
 service. The task is being undertaken by a 
 group of writers and workers with aid ifona 
 various relevant societies. To the series of 
 pubUcations thus initiated and planniR, the 
 present volume has been prepared by way of 
 general introduction. 
 
 Put in the most ambitious way, the prac^ 
 tical objective of this Series is nothing less 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 261 
 
 " -- -' ^ . 
 
 than to draft and plan some of the main 
 
 approaches towards Eutopia. And if in 
 ^i^esenting such plans the regional access 
 seeni over-emphasized, that is because it is 
 fundamental and concrete, intelUgi]ble and 
 _: practical, and above aU conveniently initial; 
 and also because in the passing order of ideas . 
 it has been most negl^ted, and in action too 
 mach deteriorated or perverted. We are 
 passing out of an age for which culture was 
 defined, in the long-famous phrase of Matthew 
 Arnold, as " knowing the best that has been 
 said and done in the world." Such knowing 
 is obviously, in lar-ge part, but. a meditation 
 among the tombs; and such culture is but 
 a tending of their cemetery lawns, when not 
 a whitening of sepulchres. The active and 
 living culture we are learning to desire must 
 no longer thus die away from its hteral mean- 
 ing, its regional and rustic origins, in pro- 
 ductive tillage of field and'garden ; in care 6f 
 fold and forest. Like its simple rustic proto- 
 type, a full and genuine regional culture, at 
 once rural -and civic, aims, indeed, at know- 
 ing the best ; bjit this for fresh $owings ; and 
 at doing the best towards coming harvest. 
 
262 THE COMING POLITY 
 
 Thus active, thus constructive, is the culture 
 needed for home and city, for province and^ 
 country, for empire and world. In this trans- 
 formation from, mere knowing, to knowing 
 and doing, lies the regional outlook towards 
 'Entopia.. Vivendo discimus ; in rheasure as 
 we liX^e and learn by turns, and again both 
 together, this Eutopia becomes increasingly 
 realiza,ble, in place and time> region by region. 
 So, in spitfe of all failures and setbacks, may 
 each generation approach nearer to attain-" 
 ment of the City of God. 
 
NOTE ON LEPLAY 
 
 1806. Born at Honfleur in Normandy. Educated first 
 at home by a priest, then at a local school, 
 and later as a mining engineer at the Ecole 
 JPolytechnique in Paris. ' 
 
 1832. Co-editdr of'the \4«MaZes <ies Mt«es. 
 
 1835. Head of the -Goveniment Committee on mining 
 statistics. ' ■ - 
 
 1840. Professor of Metallurgy and sub-director of the 
 
 School of Mines, ' 
 
 Engaged also in mining engineering, and at one 
 
 time directed a group of mines in the Ourals 
 
 . with 45,000. men luider him. 
 
 1851, Sent by the French Government to repoft on ihe^ 
 metallurgical products at the Great Exhibition 
 in London. 
 
 1855. Entrusted with the arrangement and classifica- 
 tion of products at the first Paris Exhibition. 
 Published Les' (Euvriers Europiens (2nd ed., 
 6 vols., 1877-9). In preparation for this great 
 work "LePlay had spent in foreign travel and 
 observation, during more than a score of years, 
 the annual holiday of five to six months which 
 his ofiicial duties allowed! He visited nearly 
 every coimtry in Europe (England seven 
 times), and extended his travels into Asia. 
 He thus studied and monographed over three 
 hundred working-class families representative 
 of characteristic .industries and localities 
 263 
 
264 NOTE ON LEPLAY ' 
 
 throughout Europe. Frorn all these " Mono- 
 graphies socialeS," thirty-six of the most 
 complete were selected for publication in the 
 (Euvriers Europdens. 
 
 1856; Founded the International Society for Practical 
 Studies in Social Economy, with branches in 
 almost all the countries of Europe. The most 
 active of these were (up to 1914) the ^elgianjv 
 groups. The studies of th& Society include ' 
 the publication every three months of a family 
 monograph in its series Les (Euvriers des Deux 
 Mondes. - - 
 
 1867. Senator. / , 
 
 1881. Founded La Reforme Sociate as a fortnightly 
 
 publication of joint scientific and practical^ 
 interest. This publication is also the organ 
 of the Union of Social Peace, a federation of 
 small local clubs founded in- 1872 to study- 
 social questions according to the methods of 
 natural science. ' 
 
 1882. Died. 
 
 After the death of LePlay a group of his colleagues 
 and disciples, headed by Henri ,de TourviUe arid 
 E. Demolins, founded La Science Sociale as an organ 
 of scientific studies detached from practical interests. 
 In this publication have appeared, in addition' to 
 interpretative studies in general sociology, a large 
 ntimber of monographs systematically descriptive, not 
 only of working-class families, but also of regional 
 comriiviriities in all parts of the world. 
 
 PKINTED IN GKEAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY i SONS, LIMITBD, 
 BKUMSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST.', S.B., AND BUttCAV, 9UIPFOI.K. 
 
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