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Typos — p. 38: whereever [= wherever]; p. 43: forebade [= forbade]; p. 49: Aristotles's [= Aristotle's]; p. 53: Wolkmann [= Woltmann]; p. 67: illtreatment [= ill-treatment]


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Chapter II
Conservatism and Realism

There is no such thing as a Conservative or a quality-loving class. Neither is there any stratiform division of opinion between the creeds represented by Conservatism and Aristocracy, and other creeds. Since both Aristocratic and Conservative doctrine overlap in their exaltation of stability and authority, and in their common principle regarding the need of qualitative values, they find their best adherents in every sphere of society — i.e., whereever the type occurs which instinctively measures the worth of a thing and a person according to their quality, and who appreciates the power of time in the production of anything precious.
        The artisan who is conscientious at his work, and who devotes as much time as possible to acquiring proficiency at it, the artist who, in his criticism, is severest towards himself, and who is never satisfied that he has completed his apprenticeship; the man of noble birth, who knows how to surround himself not only with truly noble people, but with truly noble things — people and things, that is to say, who bear the unmistakable hall mark of quality: such people are either actual or potential aristocrats, and nothing can rob them of this title. On the other hand, the Duke who has no sense of, and no antennæ for quality, who overlooks in himself and others a lack of the virtue and capacity which originally raised his class to its position of privilege, who does not know how to surround himself either with things or with people of quality, and who knows nothing of the necessity

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of time in the production of precious things, is, like the unconscientious artisan and the uncritical and self-complacent artist, a plebeian and ruffian by nature, whom nothing can elevate to the class of the born Conservative or Aristocrat.
        The violence that has been done to truth by attempting to fit social classes compactly into political parties, is probably the primary cause of the confusion now existing in the public mind regarding domestic politics in this country. And that is why it cannot be repeated too often that the Conservative and man of qualitative judgment — I do not mean the aristocratic ruler — is an example of a very definite type of mind and body, which occurs in all classes, and is by no means necessarily more common in the present House of Lords than in a coal-pit. 1
        Anthropologists speak of a "culture potential" in native races, by which they mean a certain people's capacity to evolve up to a certain plane of cultural organisation and not beyond it; and they often quote Liberia, the negro State of West Africa, as an example of their meaning. The negroes who were given Liberia, and who consisted very largely of the descendants of liberated slaves from America, had their culture imposed upon them from without by a benevolent Europæoid people, who gave them their constitution, cut and dried, their laws, and the pattern for the rest of their institutions. But the negro's "culture potential" soon made havoc of the ready-made white

        1 It is obvious that the present House of Lords is not constituted of aristocratic rulers in any sense; its recruits being chosen not on account of their possession of ruler qualities, or the acquirement of these qualities through generations of discipline in a lower rank of society; but simply on account of their success either in trade, commerce, law, journalism, party politics or the army and navy. But, even so, it is a much better and more efficient body of men than the Commons (see pp. 170–178).

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culture forced upon it, and now, according to the accounts of recent travellers, their senate, their house of representatives, their army, their police and all the rest of their non-negroid institutions, are but a grotesque and lamentable travesty of the white patterns which they once represented.
        The same phenomenon of a "culture potential" might be used to explain the fundamental divergence between the men who incline instinctively to qualitative, and the men who incline instinctively to quantitative values, and the social form which each evolves is as different as can be from the other. When a nation is divided between these two types, the compromise effected is frequently unsatisfactory and unstable; and as a complete fusion of the two social forms is never possible, there results the condition found in England to-day, which is one of constant and bitter internecine warfare.
        The body of people inclining to quantitative values, which will draw its recruits from every social class, will tend to disruption, instability and futile change, despite that instinctive conservatism of all men discussed in the previous chapter, because it will never perceive the necessary relation between time and quality. Its conservatism will be largely self-interest, purse-anxiety; and if it possesses nothing, its conservatism will be feeble, because no self-interest will incline it to a stable state of things. Thus, on the Conservative side, the members of this body will be unreliable and unprincipled, and on the non-conservative side, anarchical and subversive. Their culture potential will reach its limits in commercial wealth, and their expression in all things is likely to take an ugly and bulky form.
        The body of people inclining to qualitative values, which will also draw its recruits from every social

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class, will, on the other hand, tend to construction, stability and preservation, not only of things but also of family traits and strains; and in it the instinctive conservatism of all men will be reinforced by a deep understanding of the necessary relation between time and quality. Its conservatism will not be merely self-interest, it will consist of a wish to retain a stable environment, often against apparent self-interest, for the maturing of its seeds of quality. And where self interest enters as a factor, it will be but a confirmation of the primary impulse. Thus, on the merely Conservative side, the members of this body will be strong, principled, and constructive, and on the aristocratic side they will be patrons, selectors, and cultivators of lasting and beautiful things, whether in the personnel or the chattels of their nation. The culture potential of this body will reach its limits in perfection of social organisation, and in the beauty of the people and of their environmental conditions. Its expression will take the form of beauty.
        The dramatic material success of the former body, which is their chief interest in life, may and frequently does lead to their multiplication; and this is more likely to occur when the prevailing values favour their particular activities.
        On the other hand the relatively small concern about material success which characterises the latter body, a concern which is largely swamped by the primary impulse to quality and beauty, may, if the prevailing values do not protect them, lead to their subordination or extinction at the hands of the quantitativists. And then that part of the nation which supplies it with its most valuable qualities, and therefore its chief equipment for stability, tends to decline and disappear.
        Beauty contemplating her features in a mirror

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knows but one devil, which with all her might she wishes to cast out, and that is Change. To the skilful beautifying surgeon who offers to improve the line of her face by an operation, however slight, she promptly shows the door. And she is right.
        On the other hand, Ugliness, which cannot be altered, however slightly, but she will improve, provides the beautifying surgeons with seven-eighths of their incomes, and to these gentlemen her sanctuary has an ever open door.
        This simple parable should not be forgotten in measuring the worth, and the attitude of mind of the two bodies above described, in regard to change and so-called "amelioration". And when in the presence of a society in which much wealth is constantly being devoted to change, and in which beautifying surgeons abound and nourish, it is only prudent to suspect that rich quantitativists are at the head, and that their creation has been ugliness.
        The fact that this struggle between quantitative and qualitative values is no myth can be demonstrated from the records of the past; and I have even attempted in my Defence of Aristocracy to place my finger upon the precise period in English history, when in this country the balance finally turned in favour of the former; and the latter were left unprotected and abandoned to neglect and decline. 1
        Throughout the Middle Ages, we find in every sphere of English life that the pursuit of quality is the paramount preoccupation. Workmen and tradesmen combined in those days not as now in order to keep up the price of their labours, to resist the public and the purchasers of their wares, and to reduce efficiency to the standard of the slowest and most slovenly worker, but, in order to maintain a standard of quality

        1 See Chapter V: The Metamorphosis of the Englishman.

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in the work or goods they produced and purveyed. The gilds which were the outcome of these combinations, punished breaches of technical conscientiousness, or of fair-dealing with severity. Their regulations "aimed at securing good work", and, as an example of their efforts in this direction, they forebade night work as leading to work poor in quality 1 (this was also the rule in French frairies and trade associations). The gild system led to municipal control "with a view to securing a good quality of produce" 2 and when it broke down there was nothing to take its place tall its valuable functions were inadequately and partially revived in recent years by Adulteration Acts, etc.
        But the craft gildsmen of the Middle Ages insisted on maintaining quality "for the honour of their gild" and there can be no doubt that much of their system of regulations was "intended to check fraud and maintain the corporate good name of their craft". 3 So-called "searchers" were appointed by the gilds to discover and check fraud, bad quality, and dishonesty m the productions of their fellow gildsmen's work. Thus the London Lorimers in 1261 compiled "rules for the abating of guile and trickery" among the members of the gild practising their "mistery". In addition to other rules there was to be "no re furbishing of old horse-bits to sell as new", and "no night work". Among the cappers in 1269, it was forbidden to make caps except of wool, and old caps might not be sold for new. It was also forbidden to dye caps with black, because this colour would run in the rain. The cordwainers had to swear that when they made shoes they would mix "no manner of leather with other",

        1 From Gild to Factory, by Alfred Milnes, M.A., p. 39. See also Mary Bateson Mediæval England, p. 402.
        2 Milnes. Op. cit. p. 40.
        3 Ibid. p. 45.

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but "shall make them wholly of one leather", and so on.
        In the department of buying and selling for profit the giving of short weight or the selling of inferior drink or food for consumption, was severely punished, and inspectors were appointed to bring delinquents to judgment.
        "Woe to the vintner", writes J. S. Jusserand, 1 "who was detected meddling in any unfair way with his liquor; he might experience the chastisement inflicted upon John Penrose, who, for such an offence was sent to the pillory in 1364, had to drink publicly there his own stuff, to have what he could not drink poured over his head, and was besides sentenced to renounce his trade for ever."
        Speaking of this period, Mr. Coulton says 2: "The determination, too, steadily evinced by the civic authorities, that every trader should really sell what he professed to sell, and that the poor, whatever their other grievances, should be protected in their dealings against the artifices of adulteration, deficient measures, and short weight, commands our approval."
        This appreciation and insistence on quality, in the first place, among the workers in "misteries", and secondly among the vendors of commodities in the open market, was almost universal in Europe. "The dominant preoccupation," says Funck Brentano, in his History of the Middle Ages in France, 3 "common to the statutes of the most diverse corporations, is to assure the fairness of the manufacture and the excellence of the merchandise sold. Thus, so that there should be no deceit a number of crafts prescribed working on the street front, in sight of passers-by." 4

        1 English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, p. 235 (note). See also G. S. Coulton, Chaucer and His England, p. 91.
        2 Op. Cit. p. 128.
        3 English translation (W. Heinemann, 1922), p. 344.
        4 Ibid. p. 344.

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(This was also true of England.) "The statutes of the saddlers only authorise the entire completion of a saddle when it is to be sold, so that the client may see the solidity of the work before the ornamentation is proceeded with, the painting and varnishing which could hide defects." 1 The same rule occurs in other trades. In the statutes of the cooks we read: "No one should cook geese, beef, or mutton, if these meats are not of good quality and with good marrow. No one should keep for longer than three days cooked meats which are not salted. Sausages must not be made except from good pork." 2 The makers of tallow candles declare that "the false manufacture of tallow candles is too harmful to poor and rich, and too shameful", 3 and so on.
        The inevitable relation of time and quality, and vice versa, seems to have been known to the most ordinary people. And what does this knowledge amount to ? Is it not the recognition of the fact that everything that has quality requires time for its production, and nothing that exists can endure for any time without quality? Thus the apprentice system, which prevailed all over England, France, and Germany, became an indispensable part of this aristocracy of labour. The usual time insisted upon was seven years. 4 The idea of quality penetrated to the lowest strata of the population. The discipline which the constant concern about quality imposed, was everybody's discipline. Production and commerce was not thought of without it. And when it is remembered that these workers in the various crafts, like their predecessors in ancient Egypt, and like their fellow workers in modern India, tended to keep their trade or "mistery" in their families, and, moreover, to marry their sons and daughters, if

        1 Ibid. p. 345.
        2 Ibid.
        3 Ibid.
        4 Milnes. Op. cit. p. 47.

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possible, within their trade, it is obvious that in the system to which they belonged, there must have been a steady cultivation of character, capacity, and innate predisposition for a particular calling, of which we in modern England can have no conception. It amounted to an aristocracy of labour, an aristocracy from which the higher social strata in the country could constantly be reinforced and refreshed without thereby being debased. Men like Wolsey and Shakespeare were the outcome of it. And on the accumulation of individual strength and ability to which it led, England probably owes the whole of the greatness with which she completed the nineteenth century. By that time, it is true, the system had long been broken up, but it had produced such a store of quality that its effects lasted long after it had expired.
        The fact that the earliest gilds were religious gilds, points to their inspiration under the influence of the Church, and there can be no doubt that the power of the Holy Catholic Church, in itself an aristocratic institution with a strict hierarchy, although deprived of the advantages of blood descent, was largely responsible for the organisation of labour and trade, as it was for the greater part of the life of the Middle Ages. Despite its non-Pagan creed, it is a commonplace of historical criticism to say that it retained much of what was valuable in the classic world, and among the things it transmitted, was undoubtedly the insistence upon quality.
        The elementary principle that nothing lasting can be produced if those who produce it have no eye, no sense, for quality, was part of the classic tradition. It is certainly implicit in the way the classic craftsmen set about their work. Permanence, which was the aim of Greece and Rome, was achieved to the extent to which this principle was observed. And, although

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nowhere was it observed as strictly as in ancient Egypt, and no creations have been as permanent as Egyptian creations, yet the Greeks and the Romans so far continued the Egyptian tradition as to produce many permanent things.
        Nor is it beside our point, as Conservatives, to consider what this virtue of permanence depends on in the productions of the classic world, whether in thought or material things. For, if to conserve and to preserve depend upon the prevalence of qualitative values, and classic principles are known to have secured for the ancient world a high degree of relative permanence, there must be something to learn from an examination of the meaning of the word "classic". The very fact that we apply the word "classic" to a work that has survived many generations and promises to survive a large number more, demonstrates how closely the word "classic" is associated in our minds with permanence and that which survives the ages. It is therefore most important that Conservatives should be clear about what it means; for they are concerned, primarily with the problem of permanence.
        Now I suggest as a working definition of the classic — that which is real, in the sense that it is based on eternal and universal laws. That which survives, whether in thought or in material form, must be real, that is to say, it must depend on nothing transitory or fantastic. A thought peculiar only to one phase, or to one localised manifestation of human development, is not real in this sense. It appeals to the temporary mood only of a few people who pass away, probably never to return. Thus, in material productions, the building which depends, as the classic building does, wholly upon the eternal law of gravity, is real in the sense that the principle on which it is constructed is true for all time. It is what one might

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term permanently valid. The straight downward pull which keeps the Temple of Theseus still standing in Athens, cannot, as far as we know, be altered by time. This temple, which is still almost perfect, is constructed on a straightforward understanding of weight, stress and support. There is no play, no possibility of play. Dead weight is supported vertically by adequate props in this structure, and, short of a bombardment, like that which destroyed the Parthenon, nothing can move it. The reality of this building depends on its relation to an eternal law — a law, that is to say, that will always apply — gravitation. Given the durability of the stone used, and the temple becomes permanent.
        In the grandfather clock modern man has discovered a timepiece which, for relative permanence, must excel the bracket clock for all time. Why? Because the grandfather clock depends for its durability as a reliable timepiece on two eternal laws — those of gravitation and of the pendulum, which are utilised in the most direct manner possible, whereas the bracket clock, depends only on one eternal law — that of the pendulum. In the bracket clock the supplanting of the action of gravitation by a spring whose resilience is ephemeral, man has discovered something less permanent, less classic, less real than the grandfather clock. If the metals used in the latter could be made to survive wear, it would go on telling the right time for ever. The only help it requires is to have its weights readjusted once a week, whereas the bracket clock requires repeated help. It has to be wound up and it also requires the periodical renewal of its mainspring, which tends to lose its resilience. Moreover, during the gradual process of depreciation in the resilience of the mainspring, which is constant, it requires repeated correction.

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Thus the mainspring introduces an accidental or fantastic factor, -which makes the bracket clock relatively less permanent than the grandfather.
        In thought we can trace the same principle. The classic or realistic thought is that which survives because it is in harmony with some eternal law of the human mind. It cannot fail to appeal to each succeeding generation of humanity, because it is eternally valid. Æsop's fables are eternally valid. Some of Plato's and Aristotles's writings are eternally valid. The eighth book of The Republic contains probably the greatest number of eternal truths that have ever been packed into one political essay. It is realistic in the sense that it is capable of everlasting application. And the same might be said of much that Homer, Aristophanes, Horace and Tacitus said and wrote. Aristotle's Poetics contains a canon for dramatic poetry which can never be surpassed for the accuracy of its psychological analyses. It is realistic and permanent, and therefore classic; because, unless human nature changes beyond recognition, it will always be valid.
        Thus in anything that is classic we may expect to discover the reality that has secured its permanence, and that reality will be the eternal law which it exemplifies and applies. Classicism is thus realism — the profoundest realism (with quality of matter, expression, material and treatment always understood in its concrete examples). And since Conservatives are concerned about the problem of permanence, they must be both classicists and realists.
        But classicism is frequently spoken of as standing in opposition to Romanticism. What is meant by this antithesis?
        We need only examine the products of Romanticism in order to understand it. But, first of all, it is

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interesting to remember the origin of Romanticism. It was the creation of the Middle Ages. As a word its origin reveals its fantastic nature. It is derived from the old form of roman (romant) which was the earliest fictitious history or tale of Western Civilisation. The ideas it suggests are not to be separated from the age in which Romanticism was born. And what was that age? It was an age in which mankind was trying to achieve an impossible compromise, an impracticable feat — to reconcile the demands of ordinary human existence with the demands of a religious philosophy which, for all practical purposes, might have been addressed to a generation of disembodied spirits. The extreme "other worldliness" of early Christianity, its ascetic ideal, its rigid negativism, had suddenly become the aspiration of a world only just roused from barbarism. The rude instincts, the rugged stamina, and the keen appetites, of humanity, still very largely unsophisticated and untamed by civilisation, were expected to masquerade as the mild virtues of heavenly angels. In attempting to carry out this feat, the Roman world, during the first five centuries of our era, had gone almost mad. The Church herself had again and again been obliged to reinterpret her doctrine less ascetically, less rigorously, and to punish a too literal interpretation of her ideal by extremists, in order to make the task of the body of her adherents more easy, more compatible with their human and physical destiny. But, as the centuries went by, the radical conflict between the Christian ideal and the life of this world, was rather assuaged than eliminated. Indeed, certain sections of the Church began to lose credit owing to the inability of her very priesthood to fulfil the conditions of her teaching. And this tendency on the part of the lay world was on the point of leading to a general

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revolt, when a group of men who were members of the Church, turned the whole movement into what appeared to be a more liberal form of Christianity, and by this means prolonged the latter's life. The Reformation thus saved Christianity for a further long spell, because, while it enabled the Reformed priesthood to lead more human lives, and thus to dispense with the damaging and transparent make-believe which occasionally marred the old hierarchy, it also succeeded, by provoking a reaction, or counter-Reformation movement, in the original Church, to chasten the latter's clerical personnel, and to force them under the menace of severe competition, to set their house in order.
        But what had happened meanwhile to the European populations who had striven to reconcile the two conflicting demands — that of the Church and that of Life? What was the expression of the civilisation created by this conflict?
        In literature it produced the fantastic, the bizarre and wholly unreal world of Romance, in which the situations of the story or plot are as outlandish as the psychology is strained. This literature, which like many of the other artistic features of the period, took its origin in France, is admitted by its most friendly critics to be unparalleled for the wildness of its conceits. It consists of two elements — the lives of fantastically holy people, or the quasi-historical account of actual events, known as the chansons de geste. But the marvellous nature of the former colours even the treatment of the latter, and the result is such a mingling of fact with eccentric phantasy that M. Emile Faguet has claimed that the chanson de geste was ruined by the influence of the other style.
        Speaking of this literary output, Mr. Edward Dowden says: "Abstract ideas, ethical, theological, and

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those of amorous metaphysics were rendered through allegory into art. . . . The passion for the marvellous is everywhere present." 1
        And, referring to the authors of these works, Faguet writes: "These men are Ariostos touched with melancholy, ceaselessly preoccupied with the mysteries, haunted by dreams, seeing nature as a collection and succession of miracles." 2
        It should be remembered, however, in regard to this literature, that it was only a reflection of the impossible conflict between two lives — the life of the real world and the life indicated by the ideals of the Church. Its unreality, therefore — its Romanticism, consists in the fantastic flights to which the attempt to reconcile these two worlds necessarily led. But because it was superseded and died, we must not imagine that its influence, or the elements which gave rise to it, have disappeared from our midst; as Buckle says it was able "to enfeeble the understanding of a distant posterity". 3 Strained, unreal, fantastic psy-

        1 A History of French Literature (London, 1897), pp. 3–13. The author adds, "Against these high conceptions, and the over-strained sentiment connected with them, the positive intellect and the mocking temper of France reacted."
        2 A Literary History of France (1907), p. 28.
        3 In his History of Civilisation (Edit. 1871, Vol. I, pp. 269 271), Buckle, speaking of the period from the sixth to the tenth centuries, says: "The few who were able to read, confined their studies to works which encouraged and strengthened their superstition, such as the legends of the saints, and the homilies of the fathers. From these sources they drew those lying and impudent fables of which the theology of that time is principally composed. . . . These miserable stories were widely circulated and were valued as solid and important truths. . . . They willingly laid aside the great masterpieces of antiquity, and in their place substituted these wretched compilations, which corrupted taste, increased their credulity, strengthened their errors, and prolonged the ignorance of Europe . . . thus perpetuating the influence of each separate superstition, and enabling it to enfeeble the understanding of a distant posterity."

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chology is still a factor in our midst; it still colours the speculations of politicians and sociologists; and even in its modern garb this Romanticism can be recognised for what it is — that is to say, something unreal, the antithesis of Classicism or realism. We shall consider some of its modern derivatives in a moment.
        In the graphic arts, as I have shown elsewhere, 1 it is possible to trace all through the early and later Middle Ages, the influence of the same fantastic conflict. The body of man is transformed by degrees into the eccentric type that seemed compatible with the unworldly ideal of asceticism. We see the Gothic figure ever more and more tenuous, more emaciated, and more morbid as the years roll on. According to a Byzantine canon of the eleventh century, the human body is actually declared to be a monstrosity measuring nine heads. All trace of Polycleitus's sane and realistic canon has disappeared. The people look so elongated, spiritual and heaven-aspiring, that it seems as if they could not even stand up, while the ugliness of their tortured features causes the spectator to wonder what could have overtaken humanity after the days of the beautiful Athenians. Wolkmann and Woermann describe the early period of mediæval art as one in which the classical cast of figure and features gets "swallowed up in ugliness". 2
        This non-vital type bears its ephemeralness stamped on its every feature. It is impermanent because it is unreal. It is the expression of a fantastic conflict, an overstrained sentiment, a false psychology.
        It is, however, in the architecture of the period, that the equation Unreal-Romantic-Impermanent, finds its most convincing expression. For, in the

        1 Nietzsche and Art, pp. 176–183.
        2 History of Painting, Vol. I, p. 230.

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Gothic edifice, all the impossible and terrible self-torture imposed by a fantastic ideal, find their counterpart in brick or stone.
        "Now arches begin to tower aloft into heights undreamt of theretofore. Huge columns spring heavenwards, bearing up a roof that seems almost ethereal because it is so high. Spires are thrust right into the very hearts of clouds, and acres are covered by constructions which, mechanically speaking, are alive. Kicks from the vaulted arches against the hollowed-out walls below, necessitate counter-kicks; buttresses and flying buttresses strive and struggle against the crushing pressure of the stones or bricks of these fantastic architectural feats. All the parts of this mass of stone or baked clay are at loggerheads and at variance with one another, and their strife never ceases." 1
        This is all typical of the contest proceeding within the body of the mediæval ascetic, but architecturally it differs from the Greek or Egyptian temple not only in its lack of repose, but also in its lack of permanence. The engineer has to be called in to strut and brace with steel a structure that threatens to collapse. 2
        The association of impermanence with Romanticism, owing to the fact that the latter is not based on eternal laws, is a feature that clings to every aspect of non-classic or unrealistic thinking and construction, and the fundamental difference between the classic or real and the Romantic or unreal is therefore of immense importance to Conservatives, who are concerned with the problem of permanence. It should not be forgotten that Liberalism and

        1 Nietzsche and Art, p. 185.
        2 In Westminster Abbey, which is over a thousand years younger than the Temple of Theseus, the engineer's work is visible from. almost every quarter of the Church.

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Jacobinism, in a very great number of their principles, are not only romantic, but can also be traced in the history of thought to the influence of the Romantic mentality and art which we have just examined. It is by the unreality, the ultimate impracticability, of the fundamental principles of Liberalism and Jacobinism that we know them — by their over-strained sentiment, their false psychology, and above all by their ignorance of the eternal laws, which, as long as humanity lasts, are likely to govern human relationships.
        I shall now proceed to give a brief sketch of a few leading characteristics of the Conservative or classical ideology, and the Liberal or Romantic ideology, so that the two may be compared.
        The true Conservative must be above all a realist in thought and action. And, it must be admitted that in his best examples, he has been true to type. Following the Classic and Realistic tradition, he believes in the natural hierarchy of life, that order of rank which is of nature's making, and which cannot be squared with any unreal notions about human equality. Thus, he is a supporter of order, subordination, authority and discipline. He believes in time and its relation to quality, and vice versa. He does not build on the romantic idea that greatness of any sort is accidental or independent of causation. He organises society on lines in which time and quality can work their reciprocal effect, both in human beings and in things. He very naturally inclines to a belief in good lineage, heredity and in sound and pure stock, 1

        1 Cf. Disraeli (Coningsby): "All is race, there is no other truth." And in Lord George Bentinck (1882, p. 331) he says: "All is race. In the structure, the decay, and the development, of the various families of man, the vicissitudes of history find their main solution." Disraeli is mystical and unsound in his use of the word race, as I shall show in a later chapter. But at least his mind was concerned with the

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for the production of anything valuable, and has an instinctive aversion to popular control, because he cannot believe that everybody is endowed with the necessary judgment or taste to be able to decide what is his best interest.
        Thus in 1692, in spite of its strong support in the country, and the fact that it well knew the advantages which it might have gained against the Whigs by the measure, the Tory Party, which was not yet sufficiently opportunist to abandon its principles, declined a Redistribution and Reform Bill. By extending the suffrage, this Bill would undoubtedly have played into the hands of the Tory Party, because the popular vote was then chiefly Tory. But the Tories nobly acted up to their principles in defeating this Bill. For although they believed in protecting the people from oppression and exploitation, they very rightly did not entertain any fantastic notions about the people's ability for self-government. By this act of folly, says Mr. Maurice Woods, "the Tory Party prepared for itself a long domination by which the Whig corruption of the boroughs held it in impotence and subservience for the greater part of the eighteenth century". 1 And Mr. Woods declares that "it is difficult to speak with patience about it". But it was not an act of folly. It was an act dictated by principle, and we should, as Conservatives, applaud it. 2 The same applies to the Tory attitude towards problem of blood and stock — a statement which cannot be made of every political thinker on the Tory side.

        1 A History of the Tory Party (1924), p. 65.
        2 Later on, in 1770, the Tories again opposed the measures of reform put forward by Chatham, although it would have been to their momentary advantage to have accepted them. And when in 1785 the Younger Pitt failed with his Reform Bill, it must be remembered that in preparing it he acted more as his father's disciple than as an independent Tory.

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the second Triennial Act of 1694. As they knew that they had the popular backing, what could have seemed more natural than that the Tories should have courted a frequent appeal to the country? They knew they would not lose ground by it. And yet they were opposed to the Act; and very rightly so. It was tantamount to increasing democratic control, which they knew, just as Charles I knew, would not mean an extension of the liberties of the people. 1
        Again, in their attitude to the five who presented the Kentish Petition to Parliament in 1701, the Tories revealed not only the soundness of their attitude towards democratic control, but also the nature of their conception of government. It will be remembered that owing to the Tories' rooted dislike of English military expeditions to the Continent, certain sections of the country were rendered impatient at Louis' interference in the Netherlands and petitioned the House of Commons to support the King and to "turn their loyal addresses into Bills of Supply". This action the Tories greatly resented, and pleading that the constituencies had all discharged their duty when they had elected their members, and had no right to influence the House any further, sent the five who brought the petition to the Tower.
        The opposition of a great Conservative, like the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, to the Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867, and the Ballot Act of 1872, was thus not due to his dislike of the people, or to his inhumanity, for he was the most solicitous guardian of the people's welfare that has ever lived. It was due

        1 In his opposition to Chatham's proposals for reform in 1770, Burke, although a Whig, really expressed the Tory view, when he argued that the constitutional change would end in throwing power into the hands of the ignorant — a consequence which he saw would ultimately turn not to the advantage, but to the disadvantage of the masses.

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to his Tory conviction that, provided a gifted leader of the people understands his duties and responsibilities, he is more valuable to them as a champion of their cause, than as a chosen instrument of their wayward will. This does not mean that the Conservative does not believe in liberty, self-reliance and independence. An English Conservative, indeed, must believe in these possessions; for they are characteristic of the finest qualities of the race. But in state administration liberty without knowledge or wisdom may mean disaster. The utmost liberty of the subject in his private life with the utmost guidance of his will in national politics is the Conservative ideal. Thus the true Conservative politician conceives his political activity as a responsible function of patriarchalism. He does not think it wise to allow a child to play with what it cannot understand, particularly if its national permanence is at stake.
        He knows that futile change can result from unhappiness, and generally does result from unhappiness. Indeed, he is aware that "indignation is often the mainspring of political activity", 1 and thus insists on keeping the "people" happy. Charles I, who was probably the first great Tory, strove all through his reign to keep the people of England happy, and this aim has characterised the best Conservatives down to Disraeli, who, as we have seen, maintained that "Power has only one duty: to secure the social welfare of the People". 2 Charles I's opponents, on the other hand, who were the lineal ancestors of the Whigs and the modern Liberals and Radicals, never cared about the happiness of the people. They thought more of saving the people malgré eux than of securing their contentment.
        The Conservative believes in private property, but

        1 A. Ponsonby: Religion in Politics, p. 10.
        2 See p. 20 ante (note).

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he never wishes to divorce property from responsibility; on the contrary, the greater the property, the more he insists on its holder being aware of the duties it imposes. This is a principle that governs the whole of ancient Feudalism, and it descends through history down the Tory and Conservative line. Men like Strafford and later, Cobbet and Sadler, were believers in it, and when Thomas Drummond, Under Secretary for Ireland in 1839, declared that "property had its duties as well as its rights", he spoke as a true Conservative, although he was a member of a Whig Government. The Conservative, as we saw in the first chapter, must take care of the character of the people, but he also believes in preserving their health, because this, in a nourishing nation, is just as much an essential part of their identity, as their natural disposition. The Jews, the Hindus, the Egyptians, held the same belief. "A great statesman's first thought", Disraeli once said, "must be for the health of the people." 1
        Because he believes in character, health, good taste and pure stock, the Conservative must always be opposed to miscegenation, and the flooding of his country with foreigners. If the identity of the nation is to be preserved, its people must be protected against blood contamination. Thus, although Conservatives may be courteous and hospitable to the foreigner, they ought never to allow this attitude to extend to the toleration of marriages between the people of the country and the foreigner, or to the granting of too great facilities for foreign settlers.
        But, above all, the true Conservative entertains no highfalutin' notions about the alleged radical good-

        1 Wilfred Meynell (op. cit. p. 120). Cf. Aristotle, Politics, VII, 1330a. "In the first place health is to be consulted as the first thing necessary."

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ness of human nature. All his political schemes, whether they deal with home or foreign relations, are always therefore conceived on the assumption that guile, egotism, acquisitiveness, venality, lust of power, abuse of power, and duplicity, are likely to be manifested by the groups of humanity concerned; and consequently, he is not prone to imagine Utopias or ideal states, which, in order to be successful, must be supported and maintained by angels of virtue and self effacement. He knows, moreover, that no class in the community has a monopoly of goodness, and never imagines, therefore, that the elevation of a particular class above another, will necessarily establish the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. His reading of human nature abides by the realism of his judgments concerning other matters, and he refuses to move from the position of a realist in order to dally with sentimental notions like fraternity and universal love, however pleasantly these notions may stir the hearts of his less thoughtful constituents.
        As we proceed, we shall find to what other important principles the Conservative is committed. For the present, however, the above will suffice in order for us to make a comparison and to ask the question, why the belief in these principles should be essential to sound Conservatism. The answer is, because, they alone are found to work, they alone can be trusted to maintain and preserve the identity of a nation. It is not a matter of fancy, it is a matter of eternal law. Relax any one of these principles, alter the ideology of Conservatism, by however little, and the end, which is the preservation of the nation's identity through change, will be imperilled.
        The ideology of Liberalism and Jacobinism, on the other hand, is as free from realism as anything possibly could be. Impossible, impracticable ideals,

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are traditionally associated with it, and it fights Conservatism, not so much because it disbelieves in preserving the nation's identity throughout change, but because it imagines that this end can be achieved otherwise than by the observance of eternal laws. We have claimed that it takes its origin in Romanticism, i.e. the fantastic — hence the preposterous nature of its principles.
        Thus it reveals a repeated neglect of sound stock and lineage; nay, it has a rooted dislike of both, and constantly tries to destroy belief in their importance. It is always in favour of elective offices as opposed to hereditary offices, as if the capricious and erring judgment of a crowd, were more reliable than the certain and unalterable laws of nature. Everywhere it seizes on those instances in history when heredity seems to have failed in human families, without considering whether the conditions which alone enable the law of heredity to operate successfully, were or were not fulfilled in the instances it adduces. 1 It flings ridicule at the House of Lords as a convincing example of the failure of the hereditary principle, without revealing to those it would mislead that for over a century the selective and not the hereditary principle has chiefly operated in composing the body of the Upper House. It points to Commodus as a proof of the unreliability of heredity, without first ascertaining the gifts and antecedents of the wife of Marcus Aurelius, or the chances which nature was given, in the case of this only child, to effect the best possible combinations of his parents' qualities. 2 The

        1 For an exhaustive discussion of this question and a complete vindication of heredity, see my Defence of Aristocracy, Chapter VII.
        2 Buckle is a particularly bad offender in this respect. See his History of Civilisation in England (Edit. 1871, Vol. II, pp. 162–163). To inveigh against hereditary distinctions and to point to the failure of European aristocracies to maintain a high level of quality, without

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law of heredity is not refuted by defining it in a nonsensical way. Heredity does not guarantee that every child will be the exact repetition of its parents or the best combination of both its parents' qualities. But it does guarantee that, while every possible combination and permutation of stock qualities may be expected from it, a favourable combination of parents' qualities in one child, or in several children, is almost sure to occur if the range of possible combinations, that is to say, if the family, is sufficiently large. It is easy to refute primogeniture, but not so easy to refute heredity. 1 All we may rightly expect from heredity is this, that, just as a good racehorse is more likely to come from racehorse stock than from cab-horse stock, so a wise man is more likely to be born from wise parents than from foolish parents.
        By unwisely rejecting the hereditary principle, Whigs, Liberals and Jacobins have relied on the romantic principle that virtue and character come from nowhere, and have therefore promoted, and incited the world to, a degree of miscegenation, both between stocks, nationalities, and traditional cultivated types (such as functionally distinct families like artists, skilled tradesmen, scientists, commercial men and other professionals), which has dissipated all character and nearly all capacity in every Western nation.
        In the Liberal and Jacobin ideology it is a fundamental principle that every man is the best judge of his own interest, and that the cumulative effect of

allowing for the fact that these aristocracies did nothing to enable the law of heredity to preserve quality in their lines, is to reveal merely unscientific prejudice against the idea of aristocracy as such.
        1 Darwin, in 1862, wrote: "Primogeniture is dreadfully opposed to selection; suppose the first born bull were necessarily made by each farmer the begetter of his stock!" Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. II, p. 385.

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everybody's directing his energies to the securing of his own interest makes a nation happy and prosperous. But nothing could possibly be more fantastic than this assertion. 1 It is not even true of the individual in his private life, how then can its cumulative effect be favourable to the nation as a whole? And yet it is on the score of this principle that democracy is largely justified. It is assumed that since each man desires his own interest, mass interests must best be served by everybody having an opportunity to register his will in regard to national policy. Lord Hugh Cecil, in endorsing this idea, 2 ranges himself among the Romantic thinkers of the Whig tradition, and forgets the true Tory and Conservative tradition, which, being realistic, causes those who belong to it to deny that every man is the best judge of his own interests, and to deny still more emphatically that by any conjuring at the polls every man is made the best judge of his nation's interests. Thus Burke maintains quite logically that "the will of the many and their interests, must very often differ, and great will be the difference when they make an evil choice". 3
        In the Liberal and Jacobin ideology, the principle of the equality of mankind is axiomatic. It colours the whole mentality of their thinkers, from Locke 4

        1 See Jeremy Bentham, Theory of Legislation, Chapter XII: "As a general rule the greatest possible latitude should be left to individuals, in all cases in which they can injure none but themselves, for they are the best judges of their own interest." We agree with the first part of the statement, but take violent exception to the second and last part.
        2 Conservatism, p. 188.
        3 Reflections.
        4 The ingenuous manner in which Locke, arguing against Sir Robert Filmer, claims that men in Nature are equal, was only possible as a result of the ignorance of the time. "A state also of equity," says Locke, "wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to

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and Rousseau to the Right Honourable J. M. Robertson, and is equally fantastic with the rest of their principles. It is taken direct from the early Christian doctrines that created Romanticism; it has no basis in fact; it is contrary to nature, and it is useless as a principle, except for the purpose of creating social disorder. It is often claimed that the equality is not meant in the sense of human likeness, but in the sense of political right. Thus Locke further explains his notion of equality by saying it is "the equality which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another, which was the equality I there spoke of as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man". 1 But this also is a myth, because the realist knows that there are some men whose natures incline them to rule and others whose natures incline them to serve, and that when the latter do not enjoy a relation of subordination to some authority, the best that is in them is wasted, and their highest usefulness is lost. Besides, in practice, even this alleged equality only in political rights never ends there. It invariably transcends both in the popular and learned mind the limits of the electioneering poll, 2 and when Condorcet said "a good

all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst the other, without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above the other." See Two Treatises on Government (Book II, Chap. II, Par. 4). It is hardly necessary to point out that this "state of Nature" is a pure myth, and yet it was believed in by Rousseau, and came to form the basis of all Jacobin agitations. Millions of ignorant people still believe in it to-day.
        1 Op. Cit. Book II, Chapter VI, Par. 54.
        2 This was recognised by Aristotle. See his Politics, Book V, 1302 a.

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law should be good for all men, even as a proposition is true for all men" (which is obvious nonsense); when Jefferson said: "All men were created equal" 1; and when Mill claimed: "that equality of human beings which is the theory of Christianity", 2 we see the principle of equality transcending the alleged limits of the suffrage or of political rights, and becoming something basic in the nature of man.
        The belief in equality naturally leads to the depreciation of authority and subordination. We saw it do so in Locke, and it does so in Mill. Hence we find the latter postulating the following fantastic proposition:. "Command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life; society in equality is its normal state." 3 How much more wise and profound is Aristotle's statement: "Whatever is contrary to nature is not right; therefore if there is any one superior to the rest of the community in virtue and abilities for active life, him it is proper to follow, him it is right to obey." 4 Mill would have us believe that there is something abnormal and morbid about the conditions which Aristotle describes here. It is this disbelief in authority and subordination, which, in the ideology of Romanticism, Liberalism and Jacobinism, always leads to the decline of discipline; for wherever the ideology prevails discipline ceases to be upheld. And since, without discipline, it is impossible to maintain standards, the belief in the myth of human equality and the disbelief in authority and subordination ultimately lead to the loss of a nation's identity.
        As, however, the tendency in the Liberal and

        1 Declaration by the Representatives of the United States.
        2 The Subjection of Women. Chapter II, Section 10.
        3 Ibid. Section 12.
        4 Politics. Book VII, 1325b.

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Jacobin tradition is to undervalue the importance of health and bodily considerations (this is due to the Romantic and Christian influence which over emphasises the importance of states of the soul and mind) we find this ideology unfavourable to national health and beauty and therefore once again unfavourable to the preservation of the nation's identity. The Puritans, who were the lineal ancestors of the commercial, urban, Whig and Liberal party in English politics, transformed, as I have shown elsewhere, 1 the nature and habits of Englishmen in the seventeenth century and later, by all manner of reforms which showed an entire lack of consideration for the body and health of the individual subject. They prepared the way for the Industrial Revolution, by inaugurating an era of bodily neglect and hostility to bodily concerns and concerns of beauty. As I shall show later, the power of the Puritans was largely the outcome of the Reformation and its sweeping changes; but at any rate, in the seventeenth century, it was they who were directly responsible for spreading an influence over England and her people which, though not slow to operate, may be said not even yet to have borne its full crop of disasters. To the Liberal-Puritan-Jacobin ideology, Disraeli's deeply serious regard for the body is something quite strange and outlandish. 2 It is assumed by anti-Conservative parties that the health of the nation and the bodies of the masses may be left to the care of Providence. And the fight over the Factory Acts in the nineteenth century, in which Liberals found themselves ranged

        1 A Defence of Aristocracy. Chapter V.
        2 Wilfred Meynell (op. cit. p. 140): "He loathed levity about the only serious and mysterious thing we really know — the body." See also Aristotle. Politics. Book VII, 1334b. "The body, therefore, necessarily demands our care before the soul; next the appetites, for the sake of the mind; the body for the sake of the soul."

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against Conservatives of the type of Sadler and Shaftesbury, was prolonged owing to the inability of the Liberals to realise the importance of safeguarding the physical condition of the masses. The fact that it was an outbreak of fever in the cotton mills near Manchester which first drew widespread attention to the overwork and illtreatment of children employed in manufacture as early as 1784, and that the first important Factory Act was not passed until 1833, shows not only that the struggle turned on health considerations, but also that the Liberal opponents of the new legislation were not prepared to be moved by such considerations. It is, however, quite fantastic to suppose that a nation may be preserved if those responsible for its government pay no heed to the health of its people; and in this unconcern regarding the body, which seems to adhere to Whig and Liberal tradition, we have another example of that Romanticism which, as we have seen, is incompatible with permanence of any kind.
        In its attitude to liberty, the Liberal and Romantic ideology is again as different as possible from the Tory and Conservative attitude. As we have seen, while the Tory and Conservative resist the granting of too much political liberty to the subject, because they wish to be responsible for the subject's guidance and protection, feel that such guidance and protection will always be necessary, and have no desire to shirk the responsibility they involve; and, while they wish to safeguard the individual liberty of the subject as far as possible, the Whigs and Liberals, on the other hand, are always endeavouring to relieve themselves of the responsibility of guiding and protecting the masses by giving them as much apparent political power as possible, and caring not a scrap for their individual liberty. An extreme application of these

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Whig and Liberal principles, in which, unfortunately, Conservatives have very mistakenly participated, has consequently led to a condition which Mr. E. S. P. Haynes very rightly describes as follows: "We have no individual liberty except in regard to political discussion, and even this liberty is a fraud, because it gives us no participation in the government of the country." 1 Thus while the Liberals shirk, and have always shirked, the protection and guidance of the people, it is their fantastic belief that it is impossible to give the people too much political power. In practice, of course, this political power is negatived by the Caucus and by the "Prætorian Guard" of the party in power, as is proved by the fact that as fast as the voting power of the people has been extended, the more determined and more highly organised has become the "direct action" of the proletariat in the form of combined strikes. But, as an illusion, it is thought that political power amuses the people, and it certainly has the further advantage of relieving the governing class of any duty to protect or guide them.
        The idea of granting political liberty to the people 2 and of handing over to them the control of their nation's affairs is, of course, as fantastic as any other Romantic and Liberal scheme, and in practice, it is

        1 The Enemies of Liberty (London, 1925), p. 138.
        2 I shall make no attempt here to discuss the origin of the Whig and Liberal idea of the political liberty of the subject in the writings of men like Locke and Rousseau, because it would take too long. But anyone can, at a glance, perceive the wild nature of these alleged "philosophic" roots of popular liberty in Locke's indefensible statement that "man is born free", which he occupies many pages in a vain attempt to support (Two Treatises of Government. Book II) and Rousseau's equally preposterous claim that "man was born free and everywhere he is in chains". (For a fuller discussion of the absurdity of this standpoint see my False Assumptions of Democracy, Chapter IV.)

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found to work so little, that it is, as we have seen, entirely negatived by means of government machinery. Whether, however, the political liberty of the people remains a fantastic ideal or becomes a practical reality, does not effect it as a principle; and it is as a principle that the Conservative must approach it. But the Conservative, who takes the science of politics seriously, is opposed to handing it over lock, stock and barrel, to the thoughtless and frivolous masses. He believes as Burke believed, that the government of a country is "a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any one person can give in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be". 1 How then can the masses, with all their other pressing preoccupations, usefully employ themselves with self government? The defender of democratic control usually argues that, where it is withheld, the intelligence of man stultifies and their capacities decline. But is it then the political activity of the average member of a democratic state that develops his intelligence? What part then does his profession, craft, or science play in this development? Do not these preoccupy him very much more? Mill, in arguing in favour of popular government, maintains that, without it, the thinking and active faculties of the people would be undeveloped. But this is the most transparent sophistry. How much of the average man's intelligence is due to his political activities? And are the people of self-governing modern England more intelligent than the people of England a hundred and fifty years ago? Mill says: "A person must have a very unusual taste for intellectual exercise in and for itself, who will put himself so the trouble of thought when it is to have no outward effect, or qualify himself for functions which he has

        1 Reflections.

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no chance of being allowed to exercise." 1 But is politics the only field in which thought may find an "outward effect"? And who among the people did Mill imagine qualified himself for political functions? In a state without popular self government, Mill continues: "nor is it only in their intelligence that they [the People] suffer. Their moral capacities are stunted. Whenever the sphere of action of human beings is artificially circumscribed, their sentiments are narrowed and dwarfed in the same proportion." 2 One wonders who could possibly be taken in by such childish argumentation, of which there is too much in most of Mill's books. What does the word "artificially circumscribed" mean in Mill's context? Are Parliamentary institutions natural? Is voting and reading party newspapers a natural function of the animal man? Did Mill really believe that the intelligence and moral nature of the average man depend for their development and health upon his foggy political cogitations, assisted by the clap-trap of the daily press? 3 It is this kind of plausible reasoning that constantly confronts one in writers on the Whig and Liberal side, and we are led to believe that it only the private citizen could drop all his other occupations (which, at least when they are skilled, teach him self-discipline and enlarge his mental faculties)

        1 Representative Government. Chapter III.
        2 Ibid.
        3 An interesting and telling example of the more sound view regarding this matter is afforded by the action of the organist of Salisbury Cathedral during the latter half of the seventeenth century. At the time when petitions were constantly being sent up to Charles II by the Petitioners and Abhorrers (see p. 84 infra), he was asked to sign one of them, and he replied: "I understand nothing but music, and, if you please, I will set a tune to it, and that is all I can do for your service." This is the best comment from an honest man on Mill's idea of the stultification of the popular mind in communities where the suffrage is restricted. (See Roylance Kent. The Early History of the Tories. London, 1908. Page 259.)

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and devote himself entirely to politics, we should witness a wonderful intellectual revival. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The fate of Athens after almost all its free male population had become whole time professional politicians and judges, shows that the activities so much extolled by Mill lead rather to intellectual besotment than to brilliance. And when we see what these Athenian assemblies did, how they behaved and how their country suffered from their amateur political deliberations, we are led rather to suspect, in opposition to the Romanticist Mill, that political activities are probably the most corrupting that a man can engage in. It requires the utmost steadfastness of character, the most extreme uprightness, and the most unwavering adherence to principle, to resist the influence which democratic politics exercise over those engaged in it. And it is by no means every man who has these natural gifts. "Look at it as you will," said Disraeli, "ours is a beastly career." 1 And it is this "beastly career" which Mill thought so elevating to the common man that he would not have had his chance of embracing it "artificially circumscribed".
        And this brings us to the last fundamental principle of the Whig and Liberal ideology which we shall consider. I refer to the fantastic belief in the radical goodness of human nature. The way politicians of this school speak of the "People", of trusting the "People", of appealing to the "People", the way they construct their schemes as if angels and not venal, acquisitive and egotistic human beings were the object of them; and above all, the way in which they tend to speak of political abstractions which have no basis in natural, human existence, is a sign of this superficial and facile psychology. A good deal of

        1 Meynell (op. cit. p. 97).

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the preference for democratic before aristocratic control is based upon the assumption that man in the aggregate is better and wiser and more trustworthy than man in small exclusive bodies selected from the best of a particular generation. And, since this is a fantastic and romantic belief, it does not work and leads to impermanence in the institutions of the State which gives it practical expression. As J. K. Bluntschli very rightly points out, the impermanence of the Athenian as compared with the Spartan constitution was due to the introduction in Athens of democratic control 1; and it must ever be so, unless we are sufficiently fanciful to suppose that men by being multiplied ad infinitum for purposes of State control become more far-sighted and more trustworthy than their best and rarest examples. 2 The truth is that the multiplication of State controllers, far from improving the control, depreciates its quality; because, since mediocrity and inferior gifts are more common than superior ones, the more widely the democratic net is thrown the more inferior becomes its ultimate

        1 See The Theory of the State (3rd Edition. Authorized translation, Clarendon Press, pp. 442–443). "Solon witnessed, without being able to prevent, the victory of tyranny over the democracy which he had established with its mixture of the aristocratic elements of birth and wealth. After the fall of the tyrants, pure democracy was introduced at Athens, but it fell into obvious and hopeless collapse before it had existed a century. On the other hand, the constitution of Lycurgus maintained the greatness of Sparta for five centuries. When Sparta did fall it was because that constitution had been violated by the accumulation of wealth, by the corruption which was thus introduced, and by the demagogic intrigues of the ephors."
        2 In considering the effect of ancient democracies, we ought never to forget that these democracies consisted only of the free men of the States in which they ruled, and not of the entire population. Democracy to-day, however, is not the rule of a cultivated class, but of everybody. This makes the danger to the State very much more serious.

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haul in those qualities which are desirable for the proper direction of the State. But this reasoning is realistic, and sounds cold and gloomy compared with the full-throated Romantic cry: "The People are at the helm, all's right with the world".
        Truth to tell, the traditional and orthodox Tory and Conservative position is one definitely opposed to democracy. And the idea mooted ever since the eighties of last century of a Tory-democratic party is thus an absurdity. Far from believing in the natural or inherent right of every individual to political liberty the Conservative believes "that all men are directed, by the general constitution of human nature, to submit to government, and that some men are in a particular manner designed to take care of that government on which the common happiness depends." l And why does this constitute the Tory and Conservative faith in politics? Because it is the only belief that works, if the object is to preserve the identity of a nation.
        The Jacobin ideology goes very much further than the Whig and Liberal in its Romantic nights. The theories of Socialism and Communism are alone sufficient to show to what extent fancy and not a sound knowledge of human nature directs the supporters of this ideology in the framing of their Utopias. But since, as Burke points out, "criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not existed, and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the wide field of imagination, in which they may expatiate with little or no opposition", 2 it is extremely difficult to convince people that these Utopian schemes,

        1 Viscount Bolingbroke. On the Spirit of Patriotism (Edition, T. Davies, 1775, p. 8). See also A Dissertation on Parties (same edition, p. 208): "Absolute monarchy is tyranny, but absolute democracy is tyranny and anarchy both."
        2 Reflections.

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which hold out what appear to be definite prospects of a paradise on earth, are built upon Romantic or unreal principles of psychology and sociology. It is true that socialistic and communistic settlements have again and again been proved a failure, owing precisely to the unreality of their psychological bases. But in the world of pure Romance it requires a good deal of this vicarious experience of failure to destroy mischievous illusions. And, as sound critical faculties are usually found in inverse ratio to emotional susceptibility, the great majority of mankind, who are chiefly emotional in their thought, are likely always to feel a certain attraction to Socialism and Communism, and to be deterred from wholly advocating them only by the amount of private property they may happen to hold.
        From this brief and inadequate comparison of the ideologies of Conservatism and Liberalism, and the description of the roots from which they derive, it might be inferred that the course of each party is so sharply defined from the other that nothing could be simpler than to trace their separate policies in two consistent lines throughout history. This, however, is very far from being the case. The clash and rivalry of parties in Parliament on the one hand, and, on the other, the failure of Conservative statesmen and thinkers to maintain the high standard of realism requisite for sustaining conservatism as a practical and sound political policy, have led to much confusion and to the framing of much unconservative legislation on the part of Conservatives themselves. And the Tory reader of history is frequently astonished to find his party committing themselves to programmes and policies which are as remote as they can be from the ideology of his political creed, and therefore inconsistent with the aim of preserving the nation's

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identity throughout change.
        Owing either to a lack of realism or to the wish to cut the ground from under the feet of their opponents, Conservatives have too often stolen a leaf from the Liberal, and even the Jacobin book, or initiated policies which were not Conservative in spirit. And, seeing that some of the best Conservative leaders have been guilty of this practice, it is not surprising that there should be considerable doubt among the rank and file of the party, concerning the true character of their position.
        For instance, throughout the last fifty years, the Conservatives have been much too prone to identify themselves with the capitalists, to whom they do not strictly belong, and have supported and even initiated legislation which has enslaved rather than emancipated the working classes, who ought always to have been regarded as their particular protégés. Instead of taking a firm stand in favour of improving the condition of the workers so that these might themselves have taken better care of their children's health and education, and by so doing have preserved that self-reliance, independence and personal freedom, which were the characteristics of the Englishmen of history, Conservatives have been too much inclined to co-operate with Liberals in a campaign of enslavement, which has consisted in keeping the condition of the poor more or less as it has always been since the Industrial Revolution, and in spending for them vast sums in doing for them in education, health, and recently in insurance, what they ought to have been encouraged and helped to do for themselves. This has altered very considerably the character of the people, and the alteration has not been an improvement. To the extent, therefore, to which Conservatives have co-operated with the Capitalistic and

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Liberal Party in this change, they have been guilty of apostasy regarding the leading principles of their ideology as outlined above, and with this one great crime and blunder on their conscience (not to mention others), they can hardly hope to recover their health and vigour until they have redeemed these past errors, and attempted to come to clarity and precision concerning the true aims and responsibilities of their particular political faith.

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