FOOTNOTE:

FOOTNOTE:[44]Green.Principles of Political Obligation, p. 111.Cf.Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 243.

[44]Green.Principles of Political Obligation, p. 111.Cf.Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 243.

The case seems clear. Passive resistance is rebellion, and it is entirely inconsistent with loyalty to any form of government. In relation to democratic government it is, moreover, on the part of members of the democracy, treachery of a peculiarly heinous type, since it is a betrayal of the sovereign community by those within its own ranks. If the sovereign community does (as it easily may) by the vote of its majority make enactments which seem to any one of its subjects to be morally wrong, that subject has two legitimate courses open to him. He may either obey under protest, and meantime use all lawful influence at his disposal to convince the majority of the error of their ways, and convert them to his way of thinking; or he may withdraw from the community and its territories altogether, and go to some other part of the wide world where the obnoxious enactment is not in force. What he maynotdo, is to remain within the community, enjoy all the advantages of its ordered life, exercise its franchises, receive the protection of its forces, claim the securities of its courts and the liberties of its constitution, and at the same time refuse to render it obedience.

If in his misguided perversity he adoptsthis last-named course, the duty of the State is plain. It is to call him to submission, or to withdraw its protection from him. The person who will not recognize the State's sovereignty, has no claim upon the services of the State. The first essential of a government is that it should govern. It should, of course, exercise the utmost care in issuing commands to avoid as far as possible the giving of offence to tender consciences; but when once its deliberate commands are issued, and so long as they remain unrepealed, it should enforce them with calm but inexorable determination. Nothing is more fatal to the very foundations of political society, than the spectacle of a government that can be defied with impunity.[45]That demoralizing spectacle has been seen far too often during recent years, and at the moment when the war broke out it had led us to the verge of national disaster. The war has brought us into closer touch with realities than we had been for many a long year before, and it has taughtus how ruinous it is in fatuous complacency to "wait and see" whither disorder, disloyalty, and disobedience will conduct us. If, however, there are still in our midst ministers who tremble before rebellion, and do not know how to act in the presence of organized passive resistance, let me commend to them the worthy example of Edward I, who in 1296 was faced by a general refusal on the part of the clergy to pay taxes. He simply excluded them from the protection of the laws, and closed his courts to their pleas. A few weeks of well-merited outlawry brought to an end their ill-advised experiment in passive resistance.

FOOTNOTE:[45]Maine (Popular Government, p. 64) emphasizes this point. "If," he says, "any government should be tempted to neglect, even for a moment, its function of compelling obedience to law—if a Democracy, for example, were to allow a portion of the multitude of which it consists to set some law at defiance which it happens to dislike—it would be guilty of a crime which hardly any other virtue could redeem, and which century upon century might fail to repair."

[45]Maine (Popular Government, p. 64) emphasizes this point. "If," he says, "any government should be tempted to neglect, even for a moment, its function of compelling obedience to law—if a Democracy, for example, were to allow a portion of the multitude of which it consists to set some law at defiance which it happens to dislike—it would be guilty of a crime which hardly any other virtue could redeem, and which century upon century might fail to repair."

Few of those who lived through the critical ten days that culminated in the outbreak of the Great War in August, 1914, will ever forget the conflict of emotions which the events of that dramatic period called forth. If I may speak of myself—though I think that I am merely one of a large class—I was torn by the contending convictions, first, that every consideration of honour and policy made it necessary for Britain to go to the aid of Serbia, Belgium, France, and Russia in their struggle against the wanton attack of the Central Empires; but, secondly, that war is a relic of barbarism, wholly incompatible with civilization, and entirely antagonistic to the Christian ideal. On the one hand I realized the magnitude of the German menace to the Commonwealth of Europe; recognized that the Teutonic race had long plotted conquest,and that it was out for world-dominion; perceived the significance of its monstrous demands on Serbia, and its shameless violations of its treaty obligations to Luxemburg and Belgium; saw that the triumph of the imperial militants would involve the disruption of the concert of the nations, the abrogation of International Law (laboriously instituted through three centuries of painful effort) and the collapse of the democratic order; and felt, finally, that upon British intervention depended the very existence of the British Empire with all that it means of good to one-fifth part of the human race. Over against this group of convictions I was confronted on the other hand by a vision of the cosmopolitan and pacific Kingdom of God as proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount, and exemplified by Christ and His disciples in Palestine, long ago—a Kingdom whose law is love; whose fundamental principles are inexhaustible goodwill, meekness, gentleness, brotherly-kindness and charity; whose administration works along the gracious lines of sacrifice, unselfish devotion, and untiring beneficence. Obviously, within the limits of such a Kingdom war is inconceivable. Under such a regime, if it were universally established, the one service which could neverbe demanded would be military service. How can the consecrated servant of the Prince of Peace in any circumstances become a man of war?

The reconciliation of the contradiction is, I think, not impossible. It is to be effected, it seems to me, by recognizing that unflinching resistance to evil is the supreme duty of the present, while the realization of the ideal, pacific, and world-wide Kingdom of God is the goal of the future; and, further, that the attainment of the goal depends upon the performance of the duty. At the moment our high task is to defend our homes, our rights, our liberties, our institutions, our standards of justice, our hopes for humanity, against the diabolical aggressor. In a happier day and a freer world we may hope that, as one of the results of our present struggle and sacrifice, beneath the sway of restored and vindicated law, a larger scope may be given for the spread of the divine realm of love. The vindication of law must precede the proclamation of peace. The goodwill that shall put an end to strife must be based on triumphant justice and sovereign righteousness. As yet we see not law supreme, or justice and righteousness in the ascendant. So long as violence is rampant, and evilstalks abroad, we must be prepared to fight even to the death. It is vain—it is worse than vain; it is treasonable—to cry "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, and when the conditions of peace do not exist.

The distinctive feature of the religion of the Bible is its indissoluble connection with righteousness. Other primitive cults have been either domestic, or economic, or political. Thus the Lares and Penates safeguarded the pious Latin family irrespective of its ethical character; the Greek deities, such as Dionysus and Aphrodite, were frankly immoral, but if propitiated they gave plenty and prosperity; the great gods of Rome were political personages who had no regard for private virtues, and their proper worship was performed by State officials whose functions strictly fell within the department of foreign affairs. But the religion of the Chosen People, under both the Old and the New Covenant, was, and still is, a faith whose keynote is divine law. The standard which has led the hosts of Jehovah to victory throughout the ages has been the lofty ethical code which it has displayed and maintained. The Bible begins with the story of man's fall fromrighteousness, and it ends with a vision of his restoration to ideal holiness. The prime purpose of the religion of the Bible is the conquest of sin, the defeat of the devil, the redemption of humanity, the recovery of the lost paradise, and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Milton made no mistake when he chose this as the central theme of his two immortal epics. Everything else is secondary.

Now the means which the Bible describes and recognizes for the attainment of its supreme end are broadly two, viz., the persuasion of love, and the compulsion of force. In the case of all those who can be reached thereby the gentler means are employed. With what infinite patience were the Children of Israel led throughout their chequered career; with what divine compassion were the faltering disciples guided along the way of salvation! But where gentler means fail or are inapplicable, sterner measures are unhesitatingly sanctioned. The Bible knows nothing of the pernicious Manichæan objection to the use of physical force to attain moral ends. In the beginning the rebellious angels were overthrown in battle by Michael and his hosts. The consummation of all things is to be reached as the result of the fieldof Armageddon. The Old Testament history is a long record of wars undertaken at the divine command, and to the Children of Israel Jehovah was peculiarly the God of Battles. Nor does the New Testament, with all its insistence on the power of love, ever condemn the Old Testament theology as false, ever repudiate force as a moral agent, ever denounce war as necessarily evil. On the contrary, it celebrates the achievements of the heroes of Israel who "waxed valiant in fight"; it announces irremediable destruction to the impenitent and unyielding wicked; it recognizes to the fullest degree the civil authorities who wield the sword of justice, and make themselves a terror to evil-doers; it proclaims that those who take the sword shall perish by the sword; it admits centurions and soldiers to the company of the elect without suggesting that they should forsake their military duties; it tells how on one notable occasion Christ Himself used force to cleanse the temple, and so for ever sanctified its use.

The Church as a whole during the long and varied course of her history has been true tothe general Biblical principle that evil should, where possible, be overcome by gentle means which give the evildoer room for repentance, but that it should be stamped out by the force of inexorable justice where gentle means have failed. No one can contend, I fear, that the Church has always been wise or Christly in her application of this sound Scriptural doctrine. She has, it must be admitted, sometimes encouraged premature resort to force, and has given her blessing to countless wanton wars. She has at other times treated as evils to be suppressed by violent means offences which have been mere deviations from her own arbitrary standards, and not violations of the eternal laws of truth and right. Nevertheless, however imperfect her practice, all her great teachers from Athanasius to Aquinas, and from Aquinas to the present day, have rightly recognized the legitimacy of the employment of force for moral purposes in the last resort, have admitted the compatibility of Christianity with military service, and have confessed that, evil as war is, there are evils still greater, and that the duty of every Christian man may be to fight lest the cause of righteousness and justice should suffer defeat. If the Church had taught otherwise—if she had beencaptured by the Gnostic heresy of non-resistance—Mediæval Christendom and Western Civilization would inevitably have been destroyed by the assaults of Huns and Saracens, Magyars and Tartars, Vikings and Turks; while within the borders of Christendom itself law and order would have perished at the hands of wicked and violent men. Similarly in modern times common Christian opinion has agreed that there are causes worth fighting for and worth dying for. The English Puritans, for instance, including the early Quakers, considered that political freedom and religious liberty were ideals that justified and indeed demanded armed resistance to tyranny. During the last three centuries there have been few who, on religious grounds, have condemned the revolt of Christian peoples against Turkish misrule. In the American Civil War many professed pacificists felt that for the abolition of slavery they must need take arms. In our own recent history men like Havelock, Gordon, and Roberts have regarded as sacred trusts the tasks of saving women and children from massacre, of suppressing fanatical and cruel tyranny, of preventing intolerable wrong. The Church with confident consistency has rightly sanctioned and sanctified their heroic enterprises. Whilecondemning wars of ambition, conquest, or revenge, she has taught that those who take arms to defend from murderous violence the weak and helpless, to maintain the priceless heritage of freedom, and to vindicate the majesty of law, may with humble assurance and firm faith pray for and expect the benediction of the Lord of Hosts. The Christian doctrine of war is admirably summarized by Burke in the words:—"The blood of man is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind; the rest is vanity; the rest is crime."[46]

FOOTNOTE:[46]Burke.Regicide Peace, vi, 145.

[46]Burke.Regicide Peace, vi, 145.

Force, in short, has a proper and necessary place in the ethical sphere. It is an indispensable instrument of the will to righteousness. The good man and the good government resolve, in the spirit of the Lord, that certain abominations shall not take place. They express their will in a law. That law remains futile, it is a mockery and a fraud, unless they are prepared to enforce it by all the means in their power, even if need be by the shedding of blood. Much, no doubt, can and will be done to secure obedience by education, by persuasion, and by appeal. Everyeffort will be made to prevent the evildoer, and to convert him to the good way. But the fact has to be faced that there are in the world insensate scoundrels and hardened malefactors wholly beyond the reach of education, persuasion, and appeal; men who have deliberately chosen evil to be their good, and have made a binding compact with the powers of darkness. With them force is the only possible argument. Unless it is applied, there is nothing to prevent them from dominating the earth, defying all law, and establishing the kingdom of the devil. At the back of all effective law there is, in fact, physical force. Behind the police stands the army. The magistrate would be wholly ineffective without the soldier. The criminal population would laugh civilian restraints to scorn, if it did not know that out of sight, but never far away, are the bayonets and the guns of the ultimate defenders of the peace. The salvation of the criminal is not everything: the salvation of Society is more. Society would perish in a day if the basis of force were removed from beneath the fabric of law. One of the falsest of false generalizations is that which says that "force is no remedy." It is in many cases the only remedy. In other cases it is better than a remedy; it is asovereign preventive of wrong. Force is the very essence of government. By its means countless evils have been suppressed in the past, such as highway-robbery, private war, duelling, piracy, slave-trading. Only through fear of it is their recrudescence obviated. If a man sees wrongs being perpetrated which he has strength to prevent—if, for instance, he sees a child being tortured, a woman being outraged, a helpless fellow-man being set upon and murdered—if he sees these things and does not intervene with all his might, then he is not a pacificist but a traitor to humanity, not a man but a contemptible or infatuated worm. Similarly if a State stands on one side inactive while small nations are wantonly stamped out of existence, while treaties are violated, while International Law is defied, while unprecedented barbarities are perpetrated, it sinks to the level of an accomplice in crime, and proves itself worthy of the perdition which awaits those who make "the great refusal."

The days of universal and enduring peace, for whose dawning we all ardently look, will not be ushered in by any diminution of the forces wielded by the powers of goodness in the world, but rather by their immense increase. Just as in our own country theKing's Peace became the secure possession of every Englishman only when the King's might became irresistible, so in the larger sphere of the Society of Nations the world's peace will be firmly established only when it is maintained by the united forces of all the federated Peoples of goodwill.

We, then, at the present moment are in the throes of a conflict from which we had no honourable means of escape. Not to have taken our place by the side of our Allies would have been to break our word, to violate our faith, to betray the righteous cause. We are doing, at the cost of awful sacrifice, our high duty; we have before us the noblest of purposes; we are fighting with hands that are clean, with consciences that are clear, and with hearts that are inspired by the courage of conviction. It is our fervent hope and our faithful belief that if, in spite of our wicked lack of preparation and our subsequent incredible follies, Heaven grants us a good victory, we shall use it to further the advance of humanity towards the goal of the Kingdom of God.

What that kingdom is we are shown in that matchless mosaic of utterances attributed to Christ, known as the Sermon on the Mount. It is the kingdom of righteousness, justice, love, and peace. When, however, we study the details of the polity of that kingdom, as they are set forth in the evangelical picture, we perceive (as the Church Universal has always perceived and taught) that they are capable of realization only in a Christian society cut off from the world, or in a world become dominantly Christian. To give to all who ask, to lend indiscriminately without expecting any return, would in society as at present constituted not only speedily reduce ourselves to destitution; it would also pauperize and demoralize those into whose hands our squandered wealth should pass. To take no thought for the morrow, and to refuse to lay up treasure on earth, would under existing economic conditions simply mean that we should become useless burdens upon a thrifty and prudent community. To ignore the legal and judicial institutions of our country by neither judging nor going to law in cases where wrong has been inflicted would be to foster the perpetration of crime in a world whose very propensity towards crime has necessitated the establishment of the courts. Similarlyto decline to resist evil, where evil is rampant and aggressive, would be to play the part of a traitor and to surrender the world to the devil. The precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, however liberally they may be interpreted, are, in short, the negation of civil government; that is to say, they assume the existence of a community of sanctified persons among whom civil government is unnecessary. The irreducible minimum of civil government—as even the administrative nihilists of the school of Herbert Spencer admit—involves three things, viz., defence of life, protection of property, and enforcement of contract. With these three things the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount are, as they stand, incompatible.

All this is very obvious, and the consecrated common-sense of the Church in every age has clearly perceived it. The political science of the Apostles and the Early Fathers, and still more expressly that of their successors, recognized the authority of kings, the jurisdiction of courts, the justice of taxation, the rights of property, the majesty of human law, the protective function of soldiers, and the necessity of military service. All these were accepted as inevitable in society in its present state of imperfect development; althoughit was proclaimed that none of them would be required in the ideal Kingdom of God.

In the Sermon on the Mount itself, however, the truth as to the relativity of Christian institutions is obscured by the faith of the compiler that, when he wrote, the second advent of Christ was at hand, and that the Kingdom of Heaven was immediately to be established. For him there was no terrestrial future worthy of consideration; the reign of the Messiah had already begun; the consummation of all things was impending. Hence he did not feel it necessary, or indeed possible, to distinguish between the ideal of the perfect day and the practical policy of the actual moment. His citizenship already was in Heaven: to him present and future were one. The eschatological hopes of the evangelist were of course speedily dispelled, partly by mere lapse of time, partly by the growing wisdom and experience of the Church. The Church learned that its early expectation of the speedy and triumphant return of its Lord was ill-founded, and that its task was to convert the world to righteousness, not to preside over its immediate dissolution. Hence it accommodated its doctrines and its institutions to the changed outlook.

This fact causes no difficulty to those whobelieve in the progressiveness of revelation. Such as admit that New Testament ethics show an advance on those of the Old, will hardly contend that in politics any New Testament writer said the last word. What Tolstoy and his literalist school call the corruption and secularization of the Church was to no small degree a simple recognition of the facts that the Earth continued to exist, and that the Roman Empire and not the New Jerusalem was the dominant power therein. But though the Church as a whole was guided safely through the crisis of disillusionment, it nevertheless remains unfortunate that the compiler of the Sermon on the Mount should have made the false assumption. For the picture which he presents of the perfect man and the ideal society is so fascinating and magnificent that it is not marvellous that saints and visionaries, in a long and pathetic succession, should have repeated his error, should have ignored the distinction between present and future, should have assumed the actual existence of the Divine Kingdom towards which, as a matter of fact, mankind has still a weary and protracted pilgrimage to make; should have proclaimed the celestial anarchy, and should as a result have been overwhelmed in tragic or ludicrous disaster.

Those who have asserted the present applicability of the full detailed programme of the Sermon on the Mount, and have endeavoured to carry it into immediate effect, have been scanty in numbers, and obscure. A few early Christian communities, soon extinct; a few hermits isolated from their fellows; a few monks in secluded cloisters; a few friars repudiated by their own orders; a few small antinomian Protestant sects springing up and vanishing with gourd-like rapidity; a few groups of Slavonic dreamers forming the innocent extreme of the Nihilist fraternity—such have been the leading professors of Gospel Anarchy. One can, even while condemning them, respect them for their purity of purpose, their lofty idealism, their sincerity, and their consistency in following their false premiss to its logical conclusion.

Much more numerous, but far less worthy of regard, are those who have picked and chosen among the precepts of the Lord, have accepted what seemed good to them and have explained away the rest. It would be easy, did space allow, to present a motley succession of fanatics and heretics from apostolic days to the present who have developed fantastic theories and have maintained them by meansof passages drawn from the Sermon on the Mount.

No damned error, but some sober browWill bless it, and approve it with a text.

No damned error, but some sober brow

Will bless it, and approve it with a text.

Only one group, however, now concerns us, and that is the group of anti-militarists who, for the most part arbitrarily ignoring or repudiating the other commands of their authority, fasten on those precepts that seem to inculcate the doctrine of non-resistance, and on the strength of these erect the visionary superstructure of pacificism. They form a strange and suspicious company. Among their early representatives stand prominent the able advocate, but furious schismatic, Tertullian; the amiable scholar, but heretically Gnostic, Origen; the accomplished stylist, but bigoted and ignorant special-pleader, Lactantius. It would not be a harsh judgment to say that most of the early pacificists had some twist of mind or character that disturbed the perfect balance of their sanity.

The later sects who have included pacificism in fleeting religious systems of varying degrees of impossibility and absurdity are still more open to suspicion on mental and moral grounds. The Cathari, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and the "Family of Love," not only developedmonstrous doctrines: they also boasted of an antinomian freedom from legal restraint which led some of their devotees into such wild excesses of conduct as made their destruction inevitable. The Franciscan Tertiaries, who never wholly abjured war, became involved in the conflict between the Empire and the Papacy, and departed from their ideal. The more recent Nazarenes in Hungary and Doukhobors in Russia and Canada have shown themselves, by their refusal to recognize and obey any form of government, a hopeless nuisance to any community that is unfortunate enough to be afflicted by their presence. It surely must give the present-day pacificists pause, if anything can do so, to find themselves mixed up with such a throng. If men are to be judged by their company, they can hardly hope to escape certification.

It is true that the Society of Friends has a more respectable history. But the Society of Friends has for the most part consisted of sensible persons who have accepted the common Christian interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, and so have been pacificists of an unusually moderate type—by no means unconditional non-resisters. Just as they do not give indiscriminately, or lend (especially such of them as are prosperous bankers)expecting no return, or refrain from judging, or going to law, or laying up treasure on earth, or taking thought for the morrow, so they do not interpret literally the command "resist not evil." They accept the constitution of the country, the government of which is based on force; they pay taxes for the maintenance of the army and the navy, and admit their necessity; they support the police, and call it in if their persons or property are threatened; many of them, to their infinite credit, actually join the fighting forces when they feel that great moral issues are at stake. George Fox himself, the founder of the Society, was an extremely belligerent and even truculent individual. He supported the militant Cromwellian regime, and it was only after the collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth, which was based on the force of the New Model army, that he abjured all weapons of offence, except his tongue. Isaac Pennington, his contemporary and friend, was actually a chaplain in the New Model (which contained many Quakers), and to the very end he was engaged in stirring it up to repeat its early exploits against "Babylon." His writings contain the passage: "I speak not against any magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions, or makinguse of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their borders; for this the present state of things may and doth require."[47]A sounder and saner statement of good Christian teaching on the matter of police and military service one could not desire. With this admission in one's mind, one can view with unqualified admiration the efforts of the Friends to eliminate war, and to perfect the methods of peace in the intercourse of men. More than most Christian people have they laboured effectively to hasten the advent of the Kingdom of God. It is true that their attempts in Pennsylvania and elsewhere to establish a pacificist regime have failed—it was inevitable that they should fail—but this does not in any way lessen the debt which the world owes to them for their powerful and far-reaching influence in favour of love and gentleness and peace.

FOOTNOTE:[47]I quote from J. W. Graham,War from a Quaker Point of View, p. 71. See also my review of this book inHibbert Journal, No. 55.

[47]I quote from J. W. Graham,War from a Quaker Point of View, p. 71. See also my review of this book inHibbert Journal, No. 55.

The sum of the matter seems to be this. Government is necessary in this present evil world. Only by means of sovereign political authority, based upon physical as well as moral force, can there be effective"punishment of wickedness and vice" or "maintenance of true religion and virtue." This is clearly recognized in the Bible, which proclaims that "the powers that be are ordained of God," which enjoins obedience to kings and governors as a religious duty, and which sees in the sword of justice carried by the secular ruler a weapon directed against the same enemies as oppose the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is essential for the well-being and even for the existence of society, that crime should be suppressed. Hence, in addition to moralists and ministers who seek to educate and convert, there must be police and soldiers—in short, the full organized force of the community—ready to stamp out incorrigible villainy, if need be with blood and iron. Similarly, it is essential for the well-being and even for the existence of the polity of peoples—the growing society of nations—that aggression should be prevented, that treacherous intrigues should be frustrated, that treaty engagements should be enforced, that the reign of law should be confirmed. But, in order to realize this end, there is need not only of pacific missions and cosmopolitan congresses, but also of an armed might sufficient to prevent or to punish with irresistible certainty breaches of internationalconventions and violations of the World's peace. Hence, whether we have regard to internal good government, or the maintenance of international justice, the need of military force is imperative. Not only does there exist what the Russians quaintly call a "Christ-serving and worthy militancy," there are occasions, of which the present is one, when military service becomes the highest form of Christian duty. To hold aloof is not to display a superior form of Christianity; it is to be an apostate. As Solovyof has impressively shown in his notable conversations onWar and Christianity, pacificism under present conditions is that very sort of religious imposture with which is associated the abominable name of Antichrist.

Most of our recent political troubles are attributable to what Fortescue in the fifteenth century called "lack of governance." We are all of us painfully aware of the fact; but we are not all of us equally conscious that the feebleness and inefficiency of our supreme administration are to no small extent due to the absence among our people as a whole of any adequate idea of the position and function of the State. For if it is true generally that every nation has the sort of government that it deserves, it is specially true of a nation with democratic institutions. Weaknesses of intellect, infirmities of will, and faults of character in the sovereign representative assembly are but reproductions on a magnified scale of the same defects in the electorate. It is the failure of our people as a whole to realize the idea of the State that has resulted in the filling of the House of Commonswith men who stand, not for the Nation in its unity and the Empire in its integrity, but for all sorts of limited and conflicting sectional interests—parties, leagues, fellowships, unions, cliques, schools, churches, orders, classes, trusts, syndicates, and so on. No wonder that in times of national and imperial crisis such representatives prove totally unequal to the duty of strong, corporate, and patriotic administration.

The weakness of the idea of the State among the peoples of the British Isles is explicable on geographical and historical grounds. For the idea of the State—that is to say, the idea of society politically organized as an indivisible unit under a sovereign government—although it has other and deeper sources of vitality, is specially fostered by a sense of national danger, but tends to languish when complete immunity from external peril can be postulated. Never has the realization of "the commonwealth of this realm of England" been so strong as it was in the days when Spanish invasion threatened. The splendid patriotism of that great age is portrayed for all time in the immortal glory of Shakespeare's historical plays. Not far short, however, rose the patriotic realization of national unity during the crisis of the Napoleonic struggle. Wordsworth'smagnificentSonnets dedicatedto Liberty remain as the enduring memorial of the heights which British State-consciousness then attained:

In our halls is hungArmoury of the invincible knights of old:We must be free or die, who speak the tongueThat Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals holdWhich Milton held. In everything we are sprungOf Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

In our halls is hung

Armoury of the invincible knights of old:

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung

Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

But, except at rare intervals, Britain's insular position has given her people so soothing a sense of security that they have allowed the conception of the commonwealth to droop, and have tended to regard the State as, under normal conditions, a nuisance which should as far as possible be abated, as an intruder into the sphere of private enterprise which should be extruded, as an enemy to liberty which should be suppressed. It may readily be admitted that in days before the State had been democratized this hostile attitude was not without justification. In the early seventeenth century, for instance, the State meant the Stuart monarch—L'État c'est Moi—and the interests of the Stuart monarch were by no means those of any of the nations that he governed. In the early eighteenth century the State meant the Whigoligarchy, and its members only too easily came to regard the welfare of the Empire as identical with their own prosperity. In the early nineteenth century the State meant the landed and moneyed magnates of the Tory aristocracy, and they had an extremely inadequate apprehension of the needs and aspirations of the rapidly increasing millions over whom they exercised authority. Hence one can understand that opposition to the policy of Stuart king, or Whig nobility, or Tory plutocracy, readily took the form of antagonism to the State as such. Thus the political theory of Milton and the Puritans not only justified resistance to Charles I, it also proclaimed a doctrine of the natural rights of the individual fatal to all types of government. Similarly the political theory of Adam Smith and thelaissez-faireeconomists, together with that of their contemporaries, Bentham and the utilitarian philosophers, not only attacked the restrictive regulations of the Whig oligarchy, but showed on general principles the strongest dislike of what it called "State interference" in all circumstances. So, too, Herbert Spencer and the nineteenth century school of scientific individualists not only demonstrated (as they did with extraordinary pungency and success)the extreme folly and incompetence of the main government departments of their own day; they also sought to establish the eternal and inevitable antagonism of Man versus the State, and to limit universally the functions of government to the irreducible minimum.

This attitude of hostility, however, ceased to have its old justification with the advent of democracy. The Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884 have so enlarged the electorate as to convert government into something approaching self-government, and the State has become the organized form of democracy itself. Hence the individualism of Milton, Adam Smith, Bentham, and Spencer is an anachronism. It is not remarkable, then, that, following Parliamentary Reform, the idea of the State revived in Britain with new force and in a new form—no longer stimulated by the pressure of extreme peril, but excited by the new possibilities of corporate democratic activity. The young lions of the Fabian Society in their optimistic infancy were filled with the idea of the State, and advocated State action in wide spheres of industrial organization, municipal enterprise, and social reform. The Imperial Federation League gloried anew in the name of Britain, and strove to bring the four quarters of theearth within the circle of a self-conscious Empire. Later on, the Tariff Reform League demanded State-control and regulation of our world-wide commerce.

But the revival of the idea of the State, under the stimulus of Socialists, Imperialists, Protectionists, and others, was short lived. All these enthusiasts became disappointed and disgusted with democracy and with the State which it controls. Democracy did not move fast enough for them, nor always in the direction that they desired. Hence—and most markedly since the dawn of the twentieth century—a reaction against the State has set in. There has been, as we have already seen, an epidemic of passive resistance. Individualists of all sorts, together with Trade Unionists, Syndicalists, Clericals, Suffragists, No-Conscriptionists, Ulstermen, Nationalists, and other bodies, giving up the attempt to convert democracy and to secure their ends through the sovereign agency of the democratic State, are taking direct action, are proclaiming rival authorities to the State, and are threatening the very existence of the body politic. The outlook is ominous, and it needs to be steadily faced. The present moment, moreover, is peculiarly favourable for its consideration. For the sudden and unexpectedreturn of extreme national danger has once again quickened in our midst the idea of the State, has revived the spirit of patriotism, has restored the national unity, and has reenforced the principle of civic service. We can see under the revealing searchlight of the war the anarchy towards which we have been drifting during the past ten or more years.

The first rival of the State that calls for consideration is the Individual. His rights as against the government are still loudly proclaimed. "The chief message of 1915," says one of our leading individualists, Rev. Dr. Clifford, in a New Year's oration to his flock,[48]"is a clarion call to guard our personal and democratic liberties against the attacks of State absolutism." The idea of guarding "democratic liberties" against democracy itself is, of course, mere nonsense—one of those point-blank contradictions in terms which, though full of sound and fury, signify nothing. It is, however, unfortunately, typical of much of the loose thinking and vague talking indulged in by the leaders of those pestilent anti-patriotic unions and fellowships which infest and harass the country at thepresent moment. The idea of guarding "personal liberties" against democracy is not so palpably absurd; it does not involve a contradiction in terms. Moreover, it appears to have some relation to the admitted fact that the rule of a democracy may press very heavily upon some or all of its constituent members. Nevertheless, it is equally fallacious. It rests upon a false antithesis between the individual and the community to which he belongs. No such antithesis exists. "The individual," rightly says Mr. W. S. McKechnie, "apart from all relations to the community is a negation."[49]In similar strain, Mr. E. Barker contends that "a full and just conception of the individual abolishes the supposed opposition between the Man and the State."[50]Long ago Hegel exclaimed: "Our life is hid with our fellows in the common life of our people," and his true and fruitful conception forms the basis of the political philosophy of T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet. It is, also, the foundation of all that is good and enduring in present-day Socialism. The individual apart from society is a mere abstraction, like the "economic man" of the old economists.

What, then, are these so-called "personal liberties" which the individual is supposed to possess in virtue of his humanity and independently of any authority external to himself? If it is said that they are freedom of thought, freedom of emotion, and freedom of will, the criticism is that these are not "liberties" at all, but merely movements of the mind which no power whatsoever external to the individual can possibly control, and with which no political authority in the country would ever dream of attempting to interfere. If, however, it is said that they include further such things as freedom of speech, freedom of writing, freedom of public meeting, freedom to act generally as conscience dictates, the criticism is that such liberties as these are not "personal" merely, or even primarily: they are liberties that profoundly affect the community. Regarded from the communal point of view, in fact, they are not "personal liberties" at all, if by that term is meant individual rights. They are rights derived from the community; they are concessions to be granted or withheld according to the requirements of public policy; they are matters of regulation by the common will. Society does not, and cannot, recognize the existence, independent of its own consent,of any such so-called "personal liberties." It does not, and cannot, admit the possession by individuals of any rights, inherent and indefeasible, to do as they like in matters that concern the interests of the community generally. Still less can the State be expected to protect individuals in the exercise of activities which it regards as detrimental, or in the neglect of duties which it regards as essential, to the general well-being. It cannot restrain anyone's conscience; but it must control everyone's conduct. All this, of course, is the commonplace of political theory, and it is curious that at this late day one should have to repeat Burke's destructive criticism of metaphysic liberties, or Bentham's damning exposure of the "anarchic fallacy" of the Rights of Man, or Mr. D. L. Ritchie's quite recent dissipation of the errors underlying the idea of Natural Rights. But it is still more curious that many of the men who revive against the modern democratic State this long-laid ghost of eighteenth-century individualism call themselves Socialists, and invoke the State (when it suits them to do so) to embark on all manner of anti-individualistic enterprises. This anomaly, however, is merely one among many flagrant instances of that ignorance of precedent which reviveslong-buried heresies, that incapacity for thought which seems unaware of inconsistencies, or that shameless perversity which seeks out and proclaims any sort of general principle which happens to suit the exigencies of the moment.

A second rival to the State is Political Party. At the present juncture there are four important political parties in existence in the British Isles, viz., Liberal, Conservative, Nationalist, Labour, beside various incipient ones. The two old parties, Liberal and Conservative, stand for more or less clearly defined and sharply opposed general principles. Hallam has described them as the party of progress and the party of order respectively; and he (followed by Macaulay and other writers) has devoted a good deal of care to the elucidation of the fundamental differences between them. These old parties are by far the most vital and powerful political entities in the United Kingdom. They have deep-rooted traditions, efficient organizations, large funds secretly raised and administered, formulated programmes, and all the paraphernalia of habitations, catchwords, and badges calculated to excite loyalty and stimulate zeal. They secure in alternation the control of the State, and administer in the name of the nation as a whole the vast affairs of the BritishEmpire. It may be at once admitted that parties such as these are inevitable in any system of representative government. For so long as fundamental differences of opinion exist among electors, it is only by means of organizations based on the primary opposing principles that any working constitution can be framed. To attack party-government as such is vain and even absurd. Nevertheless, party has become the rival of the State; and its rivalry is all the more dangerous and insidious because it always professes to act in the interests of the State and on behalf of the nation as a whole. Its professions, however, have become false and hypocritical. In the name of the People it seeks its own gain. It has ceased to be a means to good democratic government, and has grown to be an end in itself. In its rivalry to other parties, in its struggle for power, in its scramble for the spoils of office, in its eagerness to secure votes, it has debased political ideals, it has corrupted citizenship, it has abandoned truth, it has proclaimed smooth lies, it has betrayed the State, it has almost destroyed the nation. Happy indeed will it be if this war, which is revealing to us the hideousness and deadliness of the party-spirit, enables us to reduce the old parties to their proper place of subordination to the State.

In addition to the two old parties, however, there are two comparatively new ones which occupy places of importance in the world of politics. These are the Nationalist and the Labour parties. Neither of these professes to make the interests of the State its prime concern. The one concentrates its energies upon a struggle to advance the cause of a single nation from among the four that constitute the United Kingdom; the other devotes itself to the affairs of a single social class. The existence of these powerful sectional organizations is a disastrous portent. They stand, not as the old parties do for divergent views concerning the interests of the State as a whole, but for mortal schism in the body politic. Never can there be a full return to healthy national life until means have been found for reabsorbing these and other incipient schismatic organizations into the unity of the Great Society.

A third rival to the State has recently come into prominence in the shape of a number of various non-political corporations which claim to possess an organic existence independent of, and co-ordinate with, the State, and thus deny the right of the State to intrude within the spheres of their operations. The most important are the Syndicalists, who proclaim the autonomy of the industrial union orguild, and the Ecclesiastics, who assert the autonomy of the denationalized church. Both agree in repudiating political control, and in abjuring the use of political instruments. They rely upon "direct action" of their own, the one employing the terrors of the general strike to overawe the community, the other the horrors of hell. Now it may be freely granted that one of the most notable advances in modern political theory has been the recognition of the fact that men naturally organize themselves into groups—families, clans, tribes; sects, societies, churches; guilds, trade unions, clubs, and so on—and that the State is rather a federation of groups than an association of isolated individuals. It may be granted, secondly, that some of these organizations are anterior to the State in point of time, and that they deal with matters that are not appropriate for direct State control. Finally, it may be granted that the State will be well advised to leave some or all of them in possession of large powers of self-administration. Nevertheless, when once the Great Society has come into existence, and has organized itself as the National State, they must, if anarchy is to be avoided, all take their places as constituent members of the community, and recognize that theyexercise such autonomous powers as they possess in virtue of the permission of the general will. The State, however prudently it may employ its powers, must be, and must be universally admitted to be, in all causes, civil or ecclesiastical, throughout all its dominions, in the last resort, supreme. In the interests of the common good it cannot tolerate any rivals.

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