REV. W. R. INGE, D.D., ON FREEDOM AND DISCIPLINE. 245 



trade unions, but of the army and its chiefs. Further, it is 

 unlikely that a nation will long submit to military rule unless 

 the people can be induced to believe that they are threatened 

 by other nations, and unless the army is periodically used for 

 conquest and plunder. Thus the whole system hangs together, 

 and the chief danger which menaces it lies in the probability 

 of provoking a powerful coalition. We, on the contrary, 

 represent the democratic principle in its strength and weakness. 

 Our organization is loose and slovenly ; we can only mobilize our 

 resources slowly and at enormous cost ; our policy is vacillating 

 and inconsistent, and constantly interfered with by the necessity 

 of considering public opinion, and buying off recalcitrant sec- 

 tional interests. On the other hand, we are perhaps less likely 

 to commit great national crimes ; and our neighbours know that 

 they have nothing to fear from us. 



The more we reflect on this tremendous struggle, between the 

 ideals of Discipline and Liberty, the more convinced we shall 

 be that it is only one phase of a universal conflict, which in 

 myriad shapes pervades all human relations. It is the issue 

 at stake between Patriotism and Humanitarianism ; between 

 Socialism and Syndicalism ; between Catholicism and Protes- 

 tantism — the religion of authority and the religion of personal 

 inspiration (we ought not to be surprised that the Vatican was 

 backing Germany all over the world) ; between faith in average 

 human nature and the aristocratic ideal. It is one of the 

 fundamental antinomies of life, a part of the Yes and No in 

 which, as Jacob Bohme says, all things consist. 



There are some who would state this otherwise. It is, they 

 would say, part of the eternal struggle between good and evil, 

 between light and darkness, between grace and law, between 

 spiritual freedom and bondage. Such is not my position in 

 this paper. I must confess, indeed, that in my own mind the 

 balance inclines less decidedly on the side of liberty than it 

 would have done had I written this paper a few years ago. 

 I have not lost my faith in religious liberty, or my honor of 

 priestly domination, the worst of all forms of tyranny. But 

 I have been disillusioned by recent developments of democracy 

 in England, France, and America. I am no more a pro-German 

 than Plato was a pro-Spartan ; but I sympathise with his 

 distaste for Athenian democracy as he knew it, and with bis 

 dream of a highly organized State in which those should rule 

 who have learned to rule, and in which each citizen shall have 



