Principles of western civilisation

IV WESTERN LIBERALISM 105

within the limits of political consciousness. Without this conception the theory of equality would have presented itself to its original sponsors as being just as lacking of support from the teaching of reason and experience as the most hostile critic of Democracy has endeavoured to prove it. Nay more, it would have appeared as immeasurably and as inconceivably absurd as even Nietzsche in his fierce invective has in our time asserted it to be.

When the scrutiny is continued we must notice again how fundamental was the assumption these men had in mind in laying down that doctrine which Maine has pointed out to be absolutely new and exceptional in history—the central doctrine upon which the whole theory and practice of modern Democracy has since been founded—namely, that all authority is ultimately resident in the people, and that governments hold their power only by delegation from them.!

In the movement in progress in England in the seventeenth century the people were placed in the seat of the king. But we notice at once the significance of the conception by which the transition was justified at the time. It did not involve the assumption that there remained no ruling principle resident in society beyond the will of society directed towards the realisation of the utilitarian interests of its existing members. Nothing could have been further from the minds of the propounders of the doctrine underlying the change. The accompanying conception represented almost the very opposite of such an assumption. It represented in the last analysis rather the endeavour to project the

1 Popular Government, pp. 8-13.