477.

[138] _Ibid._ ii. 34-41, 323, 478-481.

[139] _Ibid._ ii. 483.

[140] Bentham's _Works_, x. 404.

[141] He was member for Old Sarum 1801-2; but his career ended by a
declaratory act disqualifying for a seat men who had received holy
orders.

[142] Bentham's _Works_, x. 404; _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 52; Paul's
_Godwin_, i. 71; Coleridge's _Table-Talk_, 8th May 1830 and 16th August
1833.

[143] Stephens, ii. 316, 334, 438.

VI. INDIVIDUALISM

The general tendencies which I have so far tried to indicate will have
to be frequently noticed in the course of the following pages. One
point may be emphasised before proceeding: a main characteristic of the
whole social and political order is what is now called its
'individualism.' That phrase is generally supposed to convey some
censure. It may connote, however, some of the most essential virtues
that a race can possess. Energy, self-reliance, and independence, a
strong conviction that a man's fate should depend upon his own character
and conduct, are qualities without which no nation can be great. They
are the conditions of its vital power. They were manifested in a high
degree by the Englishmen of the eighteenth century. How far they were
due to the inherited qualities of the race, to the political or social
history, or to external circumstances, I need not ask. They were the
qualities which had especially impressed foreign observers. The fierce,
proud, intractable Briton was elbowing his way to a high place in the
world, and showing a vigour not always amiable, but destined to bring
him successfully through tremendous struggles. In the earlier part of
the century, Voltaire and French philosophers admired English freedom of
thought and free speech, even when it led to eccentricity and brutality
of manners, and to barbarism in matters of taste. Englishmen, conscious
and proud of their 'liberty,' were the models of all who desired liberty
for themselves. Liberty, as they understood it, involved, among other
things, an assault upon the old restrictive system, which at every turn
hampered the rising industrial energy. This is the sense in which
'Individualism,' or the gospel according to Adam Smith--_laissez faire_,
and so forth--has been specially denounced in recent times. Without
asking at present how far such attacks are justifiable, I must be
content to assume that the old restrictive system was in its actual form
mischievous, guided by entirely false theor