epeat Burke's
destructive criticism of metaphysic liberties, or Bentham's damning
exposure of the "anarchic fallacy" of the Rights of Man, or Mr. D. L.
Ritchie's quite recent dissipation of the errors underlying the idea of
Natural Rights. But it is still more curious that many of the men who
revive against the modern democratic State this long-laid ghost of
eighteenth-century individualism call themselves Socialists, and invoke
the State (when it suits them to do so) to embark on all manner of
anti-individualistic enterprises. This anomaly, however, is merely one
among many flagrant instances of that ignorance of precedent which
revives long-buried heresies, that incapacity for thought which seems
unaware of inconsistencies, or that shameless perversity which seeks out
and proclaims any sort of general principle which happens to suit the
exigencies of the moment.

A second rival to the State is Political Party. At the present juncture
there are four important political parties in existence in the British
Isles, viz., Liberal, Conservative, Nationalist, Labour, beside various
incipient ones. The two old parties, Liberal and Conservative, stand for
more or less clearly defined and sharply opposed general principles.
Hallam has described them as the party of progress and the party of
order respectively; and he (followed by Macaulay and other writers) has
devoted a good deal of care to the elucidation of the fundamental
differences between them. These old parties are by far the most vital
and powerful political entities in the United Kingdom. They have
deep-rooted traditions, efficient organizations, large funds secretly
raised and administered, formulated programmes, and all the
paraphernalia of habitations, catchwords, and badges calculated to
excite loyalty and stimulate zeal. They secure in alternation the
control of the State, and administer in the name of the nation as a
whole the vast affairs of the British Empire. It may be at once
admitted that parties such as these are inevitable in any system of
representative government. For so long as fundamental differences of
opinion exist among electors, it is only by means of organizations based
on the primary opposing principles that any working constitution can be
framed. To attack party-government as such is vain and even absurd.
Nevertheless, party has become the rival of the State; and its rivalry
is all the more dangerous and insidious because it always professes to