(remembering again our doubts), and that coercion which is only arrangement. The former is only a small part of the action of our sovereign authority: society has not come into being merely to provide prisons; the latter is a limited power rendered necessary by the unwieldiness of large masses-one might compare it to the power of the marshals over those who wish to take part in a procession. I But here I must leave the sovereign in his own State, with this enormously increased activity (there was relatively little skilled administration in Hobbes' day outside the domain of war and taxation) and correspondingly diminished power. wish I could deal with the interesting question raised by those who distrust the State even as a co-ordinating and regulating body, and prefer forms of organisation which have long been abandoned as insufficient for the needs of a complicated society, or as serving too easily the more selfish ends of their members. This distrust of the State is due not so much to any strong views about the plurality or indivisibility of sovereignty, but to the "pathology of the modern State"; by which I mean the concentration of interest and ability upon political power over men," and a forgetfulness that, as Harrington saw in the lifetime of Hobbes, political power follows the distribution of property, and that a greater care for "the administration of things "is therefore a surer way to good social ends, to commodious living." 66 But I must end with a question I cannot answer. If, like Hobbes, we regard society as based upon, and continually sustained by will; if, unlike Hobbes, we think that fear has played always a subordinate part, and in our time is playing a diminishing part in the determination of this will, in the maintenance of a commonwealth-what are we to say of war? I find war between states a difficulty. I can hear one of Hobbes' more splendid periods: "But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another; yet in all times, Kings and persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their Independency, are in continuall jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War. But because they uphold thereby, the Industry of their Subjects; there does not follow from it, that misery, which accompanies the Liberty of particular men." In this last sentence is the greatest difficulty. For in war there is more than fear; there is mutual aid in one of its oldest and deepest forms. No one who has seen war can forget the sense of companionship which takes the sting out of terror. It is hard not to give a hollow answer to the question what is to take the place of the songs men sing as they go into battle. I will not say that we shall lose nothing by the disappearance of war; I will say that the best men in society will lose most, and only the best will understand what they are losing. But if history has taught anything about war in the past it is that victory does not belong to despots, and that free men uncoerced make the best soldiers. As for the future, war will not be ended, because men are become more fearful of death-through their very fearlessness is the spring gone out of the year for our time-but because of the desire for a more "commodious" life and because the force of things, the accidents of economic need, the blind destructiveness of our weapons, have made victory scarcely less a calamity than defeat. The forts of which Hobbes wrote are becoming cumbersome ruins, and the frontiers old boundary-marks. There can be no longer a song of the sword. So remote, then, and so antique is become the scheme of Thomas Hobbes that I can end with the thought of men going out to find fear which has been lost from the world. E. L. WOODWARD BIBLIOGRAPHY A. PRIMARY SOURCES THOMAS HOBBES: Collected Works, edited by Sir W. Molesworth. Latin 5 vols., English 11 vols. 1839-1845. (The only collected edition of Hobbes' works.) Leviathan. Introduction by W. G. Pogson Smith. Oxford, 1909. Leviathan. Introduction (and bibliography) by A. D. Lindsay ("Everyman's Library"). B. SECONDARY SOURCES Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. viii, chapter xii (W. R. Sorley), and bibliography at end of volume. JANET, P.: Histoire de la science politique dans ses rapports avec la morale, vol. ii. T VIII JAMES HARRINGTON HE seventeenth century in England is an age which neither historians nor the general reader have scorned. It is never termed dull, nor material, nor futile, nor immoral. Its warfares are rarely denounced, even by the most pacific of historians. Individuals still contest its problems, with a vivid intensity of interest commonly reserved for their own concerns. Perhaps, then, it really was the epic period of English history. There are few of its great men who brought anything common or mean into those memorable scenes-few of whom we can complain that "Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces That miss the many-splendoured thing. Some of them found it, indeed, in strange places-in legal subtleties, in defence of Magna Carta, in personal loyalties, in gloomy penitence, or arrogant beliefs; in trifling bits of ceremonial or even more trifling hatred of ceremonial in Church or in Commonwealth. But they followed, however feebly, after what was great; when they missed it they did not miss it because their faces were estrangèd, but because they were rather feeble, inadequate mortals. This is peculiarly true of James Harrington. He seems to have missed greatness of thought, just as he missed vigour of action; to have missed beauty of character, just as he missed that many-splendoured tongue, the English prose of the seventeenth century; to have missed power while he sought wisdom. He did not consciously turn away his face; perhaps he followed only too conscientiously. Yet he missed all through the note of inspiration and of sympathy, the understanding of what lies at the root of all true political thought. He is dull-not only because he cannot write save in shrewd pedestrian fashion, but also because he does not really understand his fellow-men. Why, then, should we stop to consider him and his political thought? Partly, I suppose, because his book is extremely unreadable, and therefore well adapted to a single lecture; and partly because it contains very unusual ideas, hardly to be paralleled in any English writer till the nineteenth century, which ideas have nevertheless had a considerable practical influence, both in England and America. Harrington first wrote his unmanageable work, the Oceana, and launched it upon the world; then he wrote it again and again in different forms. All these forms are collected in the folio edition of his Works, edited by Toland. His verse, consisting largely of translations of Virgil, was judged by Toland to be worthy neither of him nor of the light. From Aubrey we gather the impression that the reader has cause for gratitude. Harrington himself made excuse for one of his pamphlets with the twofold reason that something must be conceded to the spirit of the times, and that it had at least provided him with occupation for some hours on a rainy day! One of his biographers remarks that one must needs love so ingenuous an author. Yet it would be hard to adduce two worse reasons for writing on politics. Having gone thus far in alienating sympathy, let me look back to examine Harrington's life-very briefly-before going on to consider his ideas, and to endeavour to justify my opinion that Harrington missed life all through. His youth was evidently a quiet and well-ordered affair. The qualities for which he is most commended to us by his biographer have in them a slight flavour of The Fairchild Family. His own family are said to have been awed' by his natural gravity and love of learning while he was still a boy. Left fatherless at an early age, he was privileged, as a soccage tenant, to choose his own guardian; he chose his grandmother, who managed his estates most admirably. When he made the 'Grand Tour,' he was not content with charming the Electress Elizabeth and her entourage; he was careful also to learn the language of each country that he visited. Yet he must have had real charm; he took special pains with the education of his sisters (not always a grateful task), making large discourses to them on religion, on benevolence, on the reading of useful books, and the constant practice of virtue, |