al purpose may be said to be to give
such a theory of the relations of church and state as may justify an
establishment upon loftier grounds than those of the commonplace Tory.

His method, as he explains, is to find the true 'idea' of a
constitution and a national church. The 'idea,' he explains, does not
mean the conscious aim of the persons who founded or now constitute
the bodies in question. An 'idea' is the subjective counterpart of an
objective law.[171] It corresponds to the vital force which moulds
the structure of the social organism, although it may never have been
distinctly formulated by any one of the actors. In this sense,
therefore, we should have to proceed by a historical method. We should
study the constitution as we study the physiology of a physical
body;[172] and he works out the analogy at some length. So far,
Coleridge is expressing the characteristic view that Nature in general
is to be regarded as an evolution; only that evolution is to be
understood in the sense of Schelling not in the sense of either
Darwin. Of course, when Coleridge professes to find the 'idea' of the
church and state, what he really finds is not the idea so much as his
idea of the idea--which may be a very different thing. His theory of
'evolution' is compatible with assuming that evolutions are
illegitimate whenever he happens to dislike them.

He coincides rather curiously with James Mill in asserting that the
'social bond' was originally formed to protect property, not to
protect life.[173] He discovers accordingly that the ancient races,
Jews, Goths, and Kelts alike, divided the land into two parts, one to
be inherited by separate families, the other to be set apart for the
nation. From the latter or the 'nationalty' springs the church
establishment. This property belongs rightfully and inalienably to the
nation itself. It is held by what he calls the 'clerisy.' Its
functions are, in the first place, to provide a career by which the
poorest classes may rise to a higher position; and secondly, to
provide for the development of all the qualities which distinguish
the civilised man from the savage.[174] Briefly, then, the church is
that part of the national organism which is devoted to educating the
people to be 'obedient, free, useful organisable subjects, citizens,
and patriots, living to the benefit of the estate, and prepared to die
for its defence.' Henry viii. would have surpassed Alfred if he had
directed the 'nat