Then, on the psychological side, democracy has to make assumptions which render its position precarious in proportion as they are not verified by experience. Democracy, of all forms of government, assumes the existence of a common or public will. Without such an organization of the will of the community the democratic system must fall flat or degenerate into mere forms to which the real substance of democracy is foreign.' Since it is well-nigh impossible for the mass of the people to study in detail the issues at stake and arrive at a common opinion and manifest a united interest in public matters, it is particularly necessary that they be instructed by the press, "but the bulk of the Press will lay before the public nothing that will not be popular. Its business is to tickle its master's vanity, to tell him solemnly that his duty lies there whither his prejudices already lead him, and to cover up and hide away all things done in his name which might be hurtful to his self-esteem. The few who persist in telling the truth share the traditional fate of the honest counsellor at the hands of the mob of courtiers.”1⁄2

Finally, there are the problems of democracy and majority rule, including the protection of the minority and the avoidance of precipitate legislation. This problem has usually been looked upon from the standpoint of preventing radical legislation, and the aristocratic and conservative second house has been hit upon as a device to prevent undue haste in progressive measures. Professor Hobhouse quite rightly points out that there is another side to be considered. At present the restraints are all placed upon progressive tendencies and none on reactionary movements. There is nothing to frustrate extreme measures proposed by a conservative majority, while a liberal majority has to face the aristocratic upper chamber, the bench, and the conservative tendencies in society in general which are now upheld by minorities.3 A way to make the protection of the minority operate impartially, Hobhouse suggests in his proposal for an impartial second chamber without the power to overthrow the government, but with the right to Liberalism, pp. 228-32; Social Evolution and Political Theory, pp. 191–92.

1 Liberalism, pp. 183-84.

3 Ibid., pp. 242 ff.

refer appropriate measures to the vote of the people. He thus advocates a limited use of the referendum, but stipulates that financial measures and others affecting only certain interests or localities should be eliminated from consideration in this respect.' He points out how the English experience has disproved at least one common charge against democracy, namely, that plays into the hands of the rabble. No sooner had the people finally been enfranchised in England in 1867 and 1884 than they put the Conservative party back in power and kept it there most of the time for two decades. "The first act of the new British democracy was to install the Conservatives in power, and to maintain them with but partial exceptions for nearly twenty years. Never were the fears or hopes of either side more signally disappointed. "

Hobhouse considers the question as to whether an efficient bureaucracy or a partially bungling democracy should be preferred. He believes that with all its faults the latter promises more for the future of mankind. Bureaucracy provides an excellent means for administration, but it is very poorly adapted for determining points of policy on a large scale. It is "the means to an end rather than the means for determining the end." Again, a bureaucracy tends to become mechanical in its action and makes no provision for the development of the individual personality. "When administrative efficiency is made the supreme end, personal liberty, and religious and national divergencies become secondary and subordinate matters. There is not much consideration for the weaker brother, nor much patience with the offender. The grinding of the machine wears away these graces of humanity."3

Hobhouse makes clear how in the last analysis the future of democracy is involved in the general progress of civilization and in the development of a socialized theory of politics. No people is fully enjoying political liberty when its industrial conditions are such as sap the vitality of the people, or when its international affairs are in such a condition that armed preparedness is necessary. "We may fairly conclude that the ideas of democratic government, 1 Ibid., pp. 245-48.

* Democracy and Reaction, p. 50.

3 Ibid., pp. 119-24.

personal liberty, the supremacy of law as against arbitrary rule, national rights, the wrongfulness of aggression, racial and class equality are in principle and in practice closely interwoven."

4. Sovereignty, liberty, and natural rights.-Hobhouse's use of the term sovereignty is hardly clear or consistent. It seems that in most cases he uses it to mean the law-making and enforcing power, though at times he appears to mean by it the ultimate power behind the constitution, which in democratic countries resides in the mass of the people. While this is essentially Dicey's distinction between legal and political sovereignty, Professor Hobhouse does not explain explicitly which use he has in mind at different times. In his Morals in Evolution, he states that the distinguishing characteristic of the state based upon citizenship is the fact that law is now the embodiment of popular will and that government is subjected to the sovereignty of law. Again, he asserts that the federal system in the United States is characterized by the division of sovereignty between the states and the nation. Of course, it is a cardinal quality of sovereignty, in the generally accepted sense, that it cannot be divided, but here Professor Hobhouse seems to refer to governmental power. Then, in his work on Liberalism,3 he contends that "the old doctrine of absolute sovereignty is dead. The greater States of the day exhibit a complex system of government within government, authority limited by authority." Here, again, he must mean by sovereignty governmental power, for in no important modern state is actual sovereign power divided and distributed. In his Democracy and Reaction, in discussing the possibility of an international state or of an enforcement of international agreements, he argues that law may be enforced without any sovereign power behind it if the customary precedent for the enforcement of law is strong enough. But, at the same time, he refers in many places to the conception of ultimate popular sovereignty as the indirect control of the government by the people-the ultimate power of the electorate to determine questions of law and political policy.$ Democracy and Reaction, p. 166; cf. also Liberalism, pp. 248-51.

In spite of these seeming inconsistencies, however, it need not be assumed that he does not have clear and definite conceptions about the nature of sovereignty, since nothing more than casual references to the term occur in his works and nowhere does he attempt a formal definition and interpretation of the concept.'

Hobhouse's discussion of liberty and its reconciliation with authority is particularly clear and satisfactory. Liberty he defines in its most general sense as "the condition of mental and moral expansion, and of all forms of associated as well as personal life that rest for their value on spontaneous feeling and the sincere response of the intellect and of the will." Practically, however, liberty means the freedom of individual conduct in those lines of activity which do not interfere with the similar privileges of all other normal members of society. Hence, liberty by definition implies the presence of restraints, and, as a matter of fact, the problem of realizing liberty in a society resolves itself into the problem of successfully organizing the system of restraints within the group. The old tradition of the antithesis between liberty and authority therefore vanishes the former cannot exist as a universally realized ideal without the existence of the latter."

The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State. It is by this means that it maintains liberty of expression, security of person and property, genuine freedom of contract, the rights of public meeting and association, and finally its own power to carry out common objects undefeated by the recalcitrance of individual members.5

Hobhouse resolves liberty into its various aspects—civil, fiscal, personal, social, economic, domestic, local, racial, national, international, and political, and by pointing out the degree and quality of freedom which each implies, as well as the corresponding restraints which are required, he gives a high degree of concreteness

It should be noted, of course, that the conventional or Burgessian theory of sovereignty has recently been effectively assailed in the writings of Duguit, Laski, and the Gild-Socialists.

Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 200.

3 Ibid., pp. 189 ff.

♦ Ibid., pp. 189-90, 200; Liberalism, pp. 91 f., 139, 144.

s Liberalism, pp. 146–47.

to a discussion which is otherwise wont to run into metaphysical generalities.1

The question of liberty and the restraints which it involves, both upon individuals and upon society as a whole, naturally leads to the question of what justification there is for these restraints. This justification is usually found in the so-called rights of individuals, and Hobhouse devotes his attention to an analysis of just what these "rights" actually mean and imply from a sociological viewpoint. A right in its most general sense he finds to be an expectation which will appeal to an impartial person as being adapted to the promotion of the general welfare of the community. There can be no right of the individual which conflicts with the common good of the community or is independent of society. Hence, there can be no "natural rights" in the older metaphysical and juristic sense of the word, which referred to rights which pertained to the individual prior to the formation of political society and which it was the primary function of civil society to protect and guarantee.3 But, if one conceives of the normal functioning of a progressive society and the promotion of the common welfare as natural, then there may quite properly be recognized a new sociological variety of true "natural rights,” which are not assumed to be antecedent to society, but which constitute those indispensable liberties and immunities which society should guarantee to the individual in order to secure the proper adjustment between the welfare of society and the good of its constituent members:4

The rights of man are those expectations which the common good justify him in entertaining, and we may even admit that there are natural rights of man if we conceive the common good as resting upon certain elementary conditions affecting the life of society, which hold good whether people recognize them or not. Natural rights, in that case, are those expectations which it would be well for a society to guarantee to its members, whether it does or

Liberalism, chap. ii.

Social Evolution and Political Theory, pp. 196-98.

3 The view of Paine, Jefferson, Locke, and others.

4 Social Evolution and Political Theory, pp. 197-99; Liberalism, pp. 123 f., 127; Democracy and Reaction, pp. 124-37.