MATTHE-W AENOLD'S OEITIOISM 111 



vidualism. His remedy for the democratic tenden- 

 cies of the times, tendencies he does not regret, is 

 an increase of the dignity and authority of the state. 

 The danger of English democracy is, he says, " that 

 it will have far too much its own way, and be left 

 far too much to itself." He adds, with great force 

 and justness, that "nations are not truly great solely 

 because the individuals composing them are numer- 

 ous, free, and active, but they are great when these 

 numbers, this freedom, and this activity are em- 

 ployed in the service of an ideal higher than that of 

 an ordinary man taken by himself." Or, as Aris- 

 totle says, these things must be in "obedience to 

 some intelligent principle, and some right regula- 

 tion, which has the power of enforcing its de- 

 crees. " 



When the licensed victualers or the commercial 

 travelers propose to make a school for their children, 

 Arnold is unsparing in his ridicule. He says that 

 to bring children up "in a kind of odor of licensed 

 victualism or of bagmanism is not a wise training to 

 give to children." The heads and representatives 

 of the nation should teach them better, but they do 

 nothing of the kind; on the contrary they extol the 

 energy and self-reliance of the licensed victualers or 

 commercial travelers, and predict full success for 

 their schools. John Bull is suspicious of centraliza- 

 tion, bureaucracy, state authority, which carry things 

 with such a high hand on the Continent. Anything 

 that threatens, or seems to threaten, his individual 

 liberty, he stands clear of. The sense of the na- 



