Lecture saint? Evangelicals assuredly did not exaggerate XII. the value of the æsthetic side of human nature, and the High Church movement, looked at from one side, was a revolt against that underestimate of Jaste which was common to the philanthropy and to the religion of 1834. Nor is the abhorrence of ardent utilitarians for declamation, sentiment, or vague generalities altogether unlike the distaste which may be observed in some of the ablest and best of Evangelical teachers for anything indefinite, vague, or mystical. However this may be, it can hardly be doubted that Benthamism and Evangelicalism each represent different forms of individualism, and to this owe much of their power." Hence the Church movements, which from one side or another have attacked and undermined the power of Evangelicalism have, as the assailants of individualism, been in the social or political sphere the conscious or unconscious allies of collectivism. Any movement which emphasises the importance of the Church as a society of Christians must, in the long run, direct men's thoughts towards the importance of the State as the great political and moral organism of which individual citizens are members. 1 "This is one of the peculiarities of the English mind; the "Puritan and the Benthamite have an immense part of their nature "in common; and thus the Christianity of the Puritan is coarse and "fanatical;-he cannot relish what there is in it of beautiful, or "delicate, or ideal.”—Arnold, Life, ii. p. 53. 2 Mill, Autobiography, p. 111. 3 See Venn Family Annals, p. 74. 4 They both appealed to the strength, though also to the weaknesses, of the middle class. This explains how it happened that they each reached the height of their power at the time when, under the reformed Parliament of 1832, the middle classes guided the public life of England. This is true of teachers whom no one would dream of Lecture placing among High Churchmen. Dr. Arnold and F. D. Maurice each brought into prominence the idea of a Christian's position as a member of the Church. Dr. Arnold car ried this idea so far as to advocate a fusion between Church and State which should exclude from citizenship any man avowedly not a Christian, and Arnold, as we have seen, stood apart from the Liberals of his day by his denunciation of laissez faire and his opposition to the whole view of life and society represented by Benthamism. Maurice was so profoundly impressed with the evils of unrestricted competition that, at a time when socialists were decried throughout England, he and his disciples preached the doctrine, if they did not create the name, of Christian socialism. The High Church movement of 1834 was at its origin guided by Tories who supported authority in the State as well as in the Church. These leaders were occupied almost exclusively with questions of dogma or of church discipline. They took little interest in, and showed small sympathy with, the humanitarianism which commanded the ardent support of Evangelicals.1 Between 1830 and 1840 1 Hurrell Froude excited the sympathetic admiration of the early Tractarians; his Remains were published in 1837, under the editorship of James Mozley, and with a preface by Newman; they were not afraid to publish without censure the following report of his feelings:-"I have felt it a kind of duty to maintain in my mind an "habitual hostility to the niggers, and to chuckle over the failures "of the new system, as if these poor wretches concentrated in them"selves all the Whiggery, dissent, cant, and abomination that have "been ranged on their side." . . . “I am ashamed I cannot get over my prejudices against the niggers.” "Every one I meet seems "to me like an incarnation of the whole Anti-Slavery Society, and XII. XII. Lecture it might well seem that the Oxford movement would not tell upon the course of social reforms, but, as the century wore on, it became apparent that the new prominence given to the idea of churchmanship would directly, and still more indirectly, affect the course of philanthropic efforts. It may without unfairness be asserted, that partly under the influence of the High Church movement, zeal for the promotion of that personal humanitarianism-if the expression may be allowed -which meant so much to the reformers (whether Benthamites or Evangelicals) of an earlier generation has declined, but, on the other hand, men and especially ecclesiastics, anxious to promote the physical, as well as the moral welfare of the people, have of recent years exhibited a sympathy with the socialism of the wage-earners as unknown to Bentham as to Wilberforce. This difference is one easier to perceive than to define. It is a change of moral attitude which is very closely connected with the reaction against individualism, and if stimulated by the High Church movement, is not confined to teachers of any one school or creed. Westcott,' an Anglican bishop, and Manning, an English cardinal,* have each composed, or attempted to compose, conflicts between the parties to a strike, and have been actuated therein by admitted sympathy with "Fowell Buxton at their head."-Sir J. Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, ii. pp. 188, 189. 1 Life and Letters of B. Foss Westcott, ii. p. 115. "On 2 See Dict. National Biography, xxxvi. pp. 66, 67. "occasion of the strike of the London dock labourers in August "1889 [Manning] warmly espoused their cause, and materially "contributed to bring about an adjustment of the dispute.”—Ibid. wage-earners. Nor is it a far-fetched idea that in Lecture XII. certain circles, at least, the attacks made by Professor T. H. Green and other impressive teachers on the assumptions of utilitarianism and individualism may have facilitated the combination, not unnatural in itself, of church doctrine with socialistic sympathies.' The attack on individualism, then, in any sphere means the promotion of a state of public feeling which fosters the growth of collectivism in the province of law. 2 Politics are not the same thing as law, but in modern England any revolution in political ideas is certain to correspond with alterations in legislative opinion. If then we take care not to confound the accidental division of parties with essential differences of political faith, we discover a change in the world of politics which closely resembles, if it be not rather a part of, the transition, with which these lectures have been occupied, from individualism to collectivism. One example of this change in political opinion is to be found in the altered attitude of the public towards peace and economy. During the era of Benthamism " peace and retrenchment" were the watchwords of all serious statesmen. This formula 1 For the inclination of the Church party in France to favour a certain kind of socialism, see Pic, Traité Élémentaire de Législation Industrielle, ss. 354, 355. 2 See p. 176, ante. 3 Compare for the tone of English public life from 1830-1850, Martineau's History of the Thirty Years' Peace, and Walpole's History of England, published 1878-1886, which embodies the sentiment of the era of reform, though the book is written rather from the Whig than from the Radical point of view. XII. Lecture has now fallen out of remembrance. The point to be noted is that this fact is significant of a very profound revolution in political belief. The demand for peace abroad and economy at home stood in very close connection with the passion for individual freedom of action which was a leading characteristic of Benthamite liberalism. Peace ought to mean light, and war certainly does mean heavy taxation, but heavy taxation whether justifiable, as it often is, or not, always must be a curtailment of each citizen's power to employ his property in the way he himself chooses. It is an interference, though in many cases a quite justifiable interference, with his liberty. The augmentation, moreover, of the public revenue by means of taxation is not only a diminution of each taxpayer's private income and of his power within a certain sphere to do as he likes, but also an increase in the resources and the power of the State; but to curtail the free action of individuals, and to increase the authority of the Government, was to pursue a policy opposed to the doctrine, and still more to the sentiment of Benthamite Liberals. Indifference to the mere lightening of taxation, as an end absolutely desirable in itself, is assuredly characteristic of a state of opinion under which men expect far more benefit for the mass of the people from the extension of the power of the State than from the energy of individual action. No doubt collectivists may hold that the proceeds of heavy taxes are wasted or are spent on the effort to attain objects in themselves undesirable; but the mere transference of the wealth of individuals to the coffers of the State cannot appear to a col |
