THE DEFENCE 213 



and suggested that the origin of all the error may lie in 

 the presupposition of exclusion which all the theories alike 

 have made, and which none has examined. 



Above all will the student of politics value the sugges- 

 tion that he is not forced to choose between such elements 

 of political life as law and liberty, the freedom of the 

 individual and the effective power of the State. He will 

 follow with great interest the hint of the idealist that it is 

 theory, and a false theory, which has set these ultimate 

 conditions of private and public well-being in antagonism ; 

 that if he comes to the facts he will find that freedom and 

 order grow together ; and that where citizen and State are 

 at their best the functions and powers of each are at their 

 highest. And, if that be the case, the practical politician 

 will recognise that to enlarge the power of the State is not 

 necessarily to encroach upon the individual. He will be 

 prepared to consider every proposed enlargement of it upon 

 its merits, instead of condemning it on a -priori grounds 

 as an evil to be resisted in the name of freedom. 



On the other hand, the knowledge that the liberty of 

 the individual is not necessarily antagonistic, or in inverse 

 ratio, to the order and power of the State, takes away the 

 fear of extending his power. We shall not, like Plato, 

 prefer the despotism of the philosopher-king to democracy, 

 nor, like Carlyle, endow the ordinary citizen with only the 

 right to obey. We shall recognise that the philosopher- 

 kingjn order to govern requires philosophic subjects, and 

 that the citizen who can willingly obey the wise must him- 

 self bejwise. The a priori fear of Individualism passes 

 away, like the a priori fear of Socialism. We should not 

 deem it necessary to abolish private property, or to put all 

 the means of producing wealth in the hands of the State, 



