218 president's address — section g (i.). 



Liberalism was the lieir of the French Revolution. It stood for 

 the spirit of liberation — freedom from all control which would hamper 

 the individual in his task of developing his own powers, and finding 

 the social place for which those powers fitted him. Its motto was 

 " Touies les carrieres ouvertes aux talents." So far as it uttered any 

 moral imperative to the individual, it called upon him not to abide 

 in the place, but to find the place to which he was called. So far as 

 it offered any practical guide to social and political effort, it called 

 upon society to vmite in freeing itself from the restrictions which had 

 been inherited from the misgovernment of the past. And as those 

 inherited restrictions were numerous, and often excessively burdensome, 

 liberalism started with a practical and popular, even although it was 

 in the main a negative, programme of reform. The banners waved, 

 the trumpets sounded, and the liberal party moved from victory to 

 victory, until John Bright seemed to see in the immediate future — that 

 is, in our past — the end of any need for further legislation, the coming 

 of the political millenium, when there would be no work left for liberal 

 hands to do. We need not be disrespectful to our predecessors because 

 changed conditions have led to a change in sentiments and ideas. With- 

 out the liberalism of the nineteenth century, the socialism of the 

 twentieth century would not have been possible. It is a superficial 

 view of political evolution which sees in socialism only a reaction, 

 more or less prolonged, against the individualism of the school of 

 laissez-faire. The " swing of the pendulum " is a convenient but mis- 

 leading metaphor, useful as a consolation to the political party for the 

 time out of office, but without scientific value as descriptive of the 

 actual course of social evolution. The movenient of liberalism was 

 really a preliminary clearing of the ground for the movement of social 

 and political reconstruction. 



Now, whenever a great movement takes place there appears, 

 sooner or later, a theory of the movement, and sooner or later the theory 

 tends to harden into a creed, which, like most creeds, may have only an 

 historical or polemical value. We continue to fight over the meaning 

 of the creed long after it has ceased to apply to the facts of life. Life 

 moves on, and the first postulate of all scientific explanation is that 

 the theory should be adequate to the facts. It is true that no theory 

 — and especially no social theory — ever is adequate to all the facts 

 of the case ; but it has always been the curse of theories of social 

 progress to be identified with the rough generalisations of political 

 practice, the results of the analysis of a particular epoch. And this 

 applies to the gospel of collectivism as well as to the gospel of laissez- 

 faire. Man cannot do without a working hypothesis, whatever be the 

 sphere of inquiry ; but it is harder in politics than in any other depart- 

 ment to avoid the fallacy which consists in interpreting the facts by 

 a theory which has ceased to apply to them. 



Social science and social practice seem at the present moment to 

 be at the mercy of two conflicting dogmatisms — the dogmatism which 

 denies the State and the dogmatism which deifies the State. Both 

 forms of dogmatism have arisen as partial and opposite interpretations 



