Principles of western civilisation

IV WESTERN LIBERALISM 103

face of Europe. They were unmistakably the result of these conceptions; they were everywhere intimately and inseparably associated with them in the minds of the leaders of the political movement which was transforming society.

When we regard closely the leaders of this movement in England—who were thus engaged in formulating the principles upon which the political development of the modern world has since proceeded—we must be struck with one unmistakable characteristic of their stand-point. These men were engaged in the endeavour to establish what they held to be the first principles of political society. Yet we have to remark upon the fact that the last thing they had in mind was the utilitarian interests of society comprised within the limits of political consciousness. Nay more, the very essence of their work lay, as we see, in the fact that they were endeavouring to project the ruling principles of society altogether beyond the meaning of those institutions and causes which had, throughout the past, entangled them within the meaning of the State.

We cannot, therefore, fail to notice the tremendous assumption which underlay every one of the principles which these men were propounding. The most fundamental political doctrine of modern Democracy is, for instance, that of the native equality of all men. It is, in reality, around this doctrine that every phase of the progressive political movement in our civilisation has centred for the last two centuries. It is this doctrine which is asserted in the political constitution of every country where the principles of Western Liberalism have been accepted. It is this doctrine which is