orough-going apostles of movement always have such a
theory; and though, as we have remarked, the theory emerges from the
practical needs which they feel, and is therefore apt to invest ideas
of merely temporary value with the character of eternal truths, it is
not on this account to be dismissed as of secondary importance. Once
formed, it reacts upon the minds of its adherents, and gives direction
and unity to their efforts. It becomes, in its turn, a real historic
force, and the degree of its coherence and adequacy is matter, not
merely of academic interest, but of practical moment. Moreover, the
onward course of a movement is more clearly understood by appreciating
the successive points of view which its thinkers and statesmen have
occupied than by following the devious turnings of political events and
the tangle of party controversy. The point of view naturally affects the
whole method of handling problems, whether speculative or practical, and
to the historian it serves as a centre around which ideas and policies
that perhaps differ, and even conflict with one another, may be so
grouped as to show their underlying affinities. Let us then seek to
determine the principal points of view which the Liberal movement has
occupied, and distinguish the main types of theory in which the passion
for freedom has sought to express itself.

The first of these types I will call the theory of the Natural Order.

The earlier Liberalism had to deal with authoritarian government in
church and state. It had to vindicate the elements of personal, civil,
and economic freedom; and in so doing it took its stand on the rights of
man, and, in proportion as it was forced to be constructive, on the
supposed harmony of the natural order. Government claimed supernatural
sanction and divine ordinance. Liberal theory replied in effect that the
rights of man rested on the law of Nature, and those of government on
human institution. The oldest "institution" in this view was the
individual, and the primordial society the natural grouping of human
beings under the influence of family affection, and for the sake of
mutual aid. Political society was a more artificial arrangement, a
convention arrived at for the specific purpose of securing a better
order and maintaining the common safety. It was, perhaps, as Locke held,
founded on a contract between king and people, a contract which was
brought to an end if either party violated its terms. Or, as in
R