THE POLITICAL DANGERS OF SELF- CONSCIOUSNESS.
IT is difficult for us now to realise the attitude of states- men in the past to the problems which were presented them for solution, or the spirit in which they dealt with them. That awakening of self-consciousness which is the great feature of the age in which we live, has completely changed our point of view ; and the notion of an ideal to which we are progressing, or even in pessimists wbo would deny that we have progressed or are progressing, the habit of regarding political events as a series, and political move- ments as continuous, completely dominates all our thinking about politics. Yet none the less it is certain that this habit of regarding history as a continuous and ordered whole leading up to an ideal, an ideal placed in the future and not in the past, dates only from the end of the last century. Before that, rulers and subjects were content to think only of their own times and of the conditions in which they lived ; and they seem to have thought of those condi- tions as something final, something which might, indeed, be affected from without, but of internal development the possibility did not even occur to them. They knew little of the past; of the future they thought not at All. At each step of what seems to us a process, they acted only as the exigencies of the moment required, and after each step they rested, without any desire for further advance, till circumstances compelled them to the next. Such is the manner in which, for instance, the English Constitution his grown up. We are always surprised to find that so great a step in political progress as the Revolution was the result of cool calculation, and called forth none of the enthusiasm of humanity which inspired both leaders and people in the French Revolution. And the same thing is true even of an event which so shortly preceded and so greatly influenced the French Revolution as the American War of Independence. Here there was enthusiasm enough, indeed, but not enthusiasm for the future or for a demo- cratic ideal such as fills the minds of Americans at the present day ; but enthusiasm only for the immediate cause of defending the liberty of the Colonies from a definite and tangible aggression on the part of the Mother-country. There were advantages as well as disadvantages in such an attitude of mind. Statesmen were able to examine the practical needs of their time, their vision undisturbed by preconceived ideas of what ought to be. They lost, indeed, in experience through their deficiency in historical knowledge, and the want of an ideal deprived them of a guide which should give consistency to their actions ; but in the great men, we find that an in- stinctive love of unity and continuity and order more than compensated for these shortcomings. The statesman has now to think not only of the present with which he is dealing, but of the past from which it has sprung, and of the future to which it shall lead. As he studies geography to learn where he lives, he has to study history to learn when he lives. He has to frame an ideal, and if he would achieve greatness, to place it high and follow it steadfastly and strenuously. Floating, as it were, on a recognised stream of change, he must not think of any measure that he devises as a final contribution to the organisation of society, but must consider how it will be likely to fall in with the new circumstances which the future shall bring, and so gain for itself an enduring value. But more than all—and here first the -vast import of the mental revolution presents itself, and the dangers it brings with it are seen —he has to reckon with the presence of ideals in the minds of those whom he would govern. He has not only to contend with those obstacles which have opposed statesmen at all times, the wanton viciousness of in- dividuals and the natural vis inertia and spirit of routine in all ; he has also to deal with what is now perhaps a far greater danger to society, the desire of change, or " progress " so al led, in those whose education or natural abilities are not great enough to elevate them to a rational ideal. The awakening of self-consciousness has supplied the masses with a new motive to action. The statesman has now to use the bit rather than the spur. On all sides he is dragged and pulled about by men who desire a measure not because it is necessary to their own interests, but because it falls in with their notion of progress, and sub- serves their probably crude and unintelligent aims for the good of society. In the past, every man was satisfied as long as his own interests remained undisturbed, and the cardinal rules of morality were not flagrantly violated. Now, each wants to be satisfied not only that his own interests are furthered, but also that his conceptions of the interests of others and of society as a whole are carried out. And this is, at present, the great difficulty of states- men, the prevalence of unwise and one-sided popular ideals. The value of resistance to them we can only realise when we consider their instability, which is just in pro- portion to their one-sidedness and insufficiency. Take,.for instance, an ideal which has been of great power among us, arising from a false view of our own history. The great fact in that history for the last two centuries has been the gradual transference of power from the Crown, first to the aristocracy, then to the middle class, and finally to the people as a whole. To a superficial view, this process might seem a process of the destruction of authority, and, as such, has been denounced by many who have seen in it a resolution of the social organism into its component atoms. But, rightly regarded, the process has been a widening and deepening of the foundations of society, and though the destructive aspect might be the more obvious, the reconstruction has been silently pro- ceeding all the while. That aspect, however, which has misled men of learning into denouncing our long re- volution, has misled others with less learning and love of order, into admiring it for what is in it least admirable. Until lately, the notion has been strong among many in England, that we had only to follow out mechanically by legislative enactment the process of destroying authority and abolishing restraint, and we should arrive at the Millennium. The simplicity and easiness of an ideal like this were sure to attract, but in time its insufficiency was equally sure to be discovered. And we have now dis- covered it, and incontinently plunged into the opposite extreme. The danger is now from the Socialists, not from the Individualists ; we are no longer likely to have too little government and authority, but too much. On this side are now to be found all who give themselves up to the dominant tendencies of the time in which they live ; all who seek a royal road to perfection, who hope to see society renovated, not by strenuous effort in the way of well-doing on the part of individuals, but by the mechanical application of certain nostrums and panaceas, by sub- jecting everything to the control of the State, by the nationalisation of the land, by State interference with labour.
The vice of such schemes is not so much their inherent impossibility at all times and in all states of society, as the temper in which they are urged, and the unreasoning im- portunity of their advocates. These are usually men who answer literally to the energumeni of the early history of Christianity, who are possessed by one idea to the exclu- sion of every other. And in proportion as men follow ideas in their detachment and isolation, their devotion to them often is great, and their energy and noisiness in advocating them. People like this will not stay to think whether their schemes are adapted to the neces- sities of the moment, or whether the free and unim- peded action of time is not accomplishing far more surely and effectually the end to which they would profess that these schemes are subservient. They have forgotten that their methods had ever reference to an ultimate end, and have elevated them into an end in themselves. There is always a possibility of the noise of such a factious minority misleading weak and time-serving politicians into overrating its influence, and lending themselves to the furtherance of its designs. But the danger, we believe, is often exaggerated. In this matter, a prudent optimism is wisest, after all. In spite of the wide diffusion of ideas, and of a too often imperfect education, the mass of men in all rationally governed States, and most of all in England, are not at all likely to be led astray by a priori politicians ; they are steady and stolid, and by no means devoted to ideals, or fanatical in their pursuit of them. In politics a slight measure of fatalism is not unjustifiable, for truth and justice in the end have a power of self-pro- tection; and in most cases the greatest injury we are likely to receive from the noisiness of factions is the injury to our nerves and tempers. To oppose such crude ideals with most success, we should set up others wide enough and high enough to include whatever is good in the aspirations of doctrinaires, without conceding anything to their foolish and fanatical love of untried methods. For when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
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