Principles of western civilisation

IV WESTERN LIBERALISM 133

practically eliminated. And in the counter-revolution, as represented in modern Germany, it is Democracy itself which is tending to be eliminated.?

In England and the United States we have, in reality, neither the Revolution nor the counterrevolution. The great stream of tendency which is carrying development forward has simply disappeared beneath the surface of intellectual life in both countries. Deep down in the minds of the people, both in England and the United States, there may be distinguished once more the same conviction which found expression in Burke in the period of the French Revolution. Deeper than any theory of Liberalism in the past, deeper than any intellectual perception in the present, there is still to be found, throughout the whole English-speaking world, the immovable conviction that the life-principles of Western Liberalism transcend the meaning of all theories whatever of business, economic, or material interests in the political State; and that the principles of the Democracy which our civilisation is destined to realise are incompatible with the materialistic interpretation of history. But it is a conviction which has remained almost without reasoned expression in the modern science of society.

The spectacle, which presents itself at the present

1 The pressing need above all others in modern Germany is, says Mr. Russell, not simply friendliness towards the working classes by the propertied classes, but common justice and common humanity towards them. ‘To all who wish the present tense hostility between rich and poor in Germany to be peacefully diminished, there can be but one hope; that the governing classes will, at last, show some small measure of political insight, of courage, and of generosity. They have shown none in the past, and they show little at present. . . . Cessation of persecution, complete and entire Democracy, absolute freedom of coalition, of speech, and of the press—these alone can save Germany, and these, we most fervently hope, the German rulers will grant before it is too late” (German Soc. Dem., p. 163).