methods of Liberals at different times are very wide. But the mental habit has always been the same. "The passion for improving mankind, in its ultimate object, does not vary. But the immediate object of reformers and the forms of persuasion by which they seek to advance them, vary much in different generations. To a hasty observer they might even seem contradictory, and to justify the notion that nothing better than a desire for change, selfish or perverse, is at the bottom of all reforming movements. Only those who will think a little longer about it can discern the same old cause of social good against class interests, for which, under altered names, Liberals are fighting now as they were fifty years ago."^[1] The constitutional Liberalism of Fox, the economical Liberalism of Cobden, and the new collectivist Liberalism of Mr. Lloyd

George exhibit great differences in comparison. But the three men are alike in their desire to set free the individual from existing social bonds, and to procure him liberty of growth.

The justification for this individual freedom is not that the man is left to his own selfish motives, to develop himself for his own advantage. It is that it is only in this way that he can realize that his own best advantage is only secured by consulting that of his fellows. "The foundation of liberty is the idea of growth ... it is of course possible to reduce a man to order and prevent him from being a nuisance to his neighbours by arbitrary control and harsh punishment.... It is also possible, though it takes a much higher skill, to teach the same man to discipline himself, and this is to foster the development of will, of personality, of self-control, or whatever we please to call that central harmonizing power which makes us capable of directing our own lives. Liberalism is the belief that society can safely be founded on this self-directing power of personality."^[2] This Liberalism has nothing to do with anarchy. Coercion may be consistently applied wherever individual liberty is employed for the public injury, and the imprisonment of burglars and the regulation of factories by law are only two aspects of the same thing. But Liberalism restricts freedom only to extend freedom. Where the individual uses his own liberty to restrict that of others he may be coerced. But in spite of the modifications to which all such political principles must be subject, the general rule holds good. The ideal Liberal State is that in which every individual is equally free to work out his own life.

The practical difficulty of working out the relations between the individual and the society in which he is placed is of course very great, and it will probably always be impossible to maintain a perfect equilibrium. No doubt we shall always suffer from one or other of the two unsatisfying conditions—the sacrifice of the individual to what the majority thinks to be the right of the whole society, and the sacrifice of the

society to the undue emancipation of the individual. But the necessary imperfection of the result is no argument against this or any other political system of thought. Politics are no more than a means of getting things done, and when we have found a society of perfect human beings, we can fairly complain that their affairs are not perfectly managed. So far as he can, the Liberal aims at securing this balance of social and individual good, remembering that the good of society can only be measured by the good of all its members, and not by the good only of some dominant rank, creed, or class. "Rights are relative to the well-being of society, but the converse proposition is equally true, that the well-being of society may be measured by the degree in which their moral rights are secured to its component members.... The moral right of an individual is simply a condition of the full development of his personality as a moral being. Equally, the moral right of any community is the condition of the maintenance of its common life, and since that society is best, happiest, and most progressive which enables its members to make the utmost of themselves, there is no necessary conflict between them. The maintenance of rights is the condition of human progress.... To reconcile the rule of right with the principle of the public welfare is the supreme end of social theory."^[3]

In practical politics the work of modern Liberalism has been to alter the conditions of society so that this freedom of growth may be secured for each member of it. The old conception of society was a conception of classes. Human beings were graded and standardized. Certain privileges were reserved for certain groups. Society looked, for its estimate of a man, not to his natural powers, not to what he might make of himself, but to his brand or mark. If within a certain degree, he had a free choice of his mode of life; if without it, he found his condition prescribed, sometimes so rigorously that he could hardly ever improve it. Liberalism has endeavoured to go deeper into the man, to get beneath the outward complexion,

to find out his intrinsic worth, and to give him that place in the social estimate which his natural powers deserve. Arbitrary distinctions are abhorrent to it. It is incapable of thinking in terms of class. Every class is, in its eyes, only an aggregate of individuals, and to exalt one class above another is to appreciate some individuals at the expense of others, to place marks of comparative social worth upon the members of different groups which do not correspond to the relative values of their natural qualities. Against a privileged race, rank, creed, or sex Liberalism must fight continually. By the artificial elevation of one above another, it is made to count for more in society, its members are aggrandized and those of its rivals are depreciated; and while the first are encouraged to abuse, the second are hampered and fettered in their growth. The Liberal asserts that no man, because he happens to be of a particular sect, or to be born of a particular family, or to possess a particular form of property, or to hold particular opinions, shall be invested by Society with privileges which give him an advantage in social intercourse over his fellows. He does not assert that all human beings are equal in capacity, but he demands that their natural inequalities shall not be aggravated by artificial conditions. For what he is worth, each shall be free to realize his highest capacity.

The Liberal conception of equality as between individuals is extended to the case of Churches, of nations, and of sexes. These classes are indeed not regarded by the Liberal as classes, but simply as associations, for limited purposes, of individuals, who are, in all essential respects, separate and distinct. To confer a privilege upon one Church or nation or sex is simply to confer a privilege upon the individuals who compose it, and whether the privilege is the monopoly of political power or the sole right to take part in a public ceremony, it does in greater or less degree affect the relative social values of the members of the two groups, and places the members of the inferior at the disposition of those of the superior. To give the Established Church the sole right to take part in the coronation of the King is a violation