Every political problem involves a conflict between an existing institution and the interest of individuals. The two parties thus approach it from different sides. The Tory looks down from the institution to the man, the Liberal up from the man to the institution. To the Liberal, the State and all other institutions within it are things of flesh and blood, they are so many expressions of human society, associations of human beings for their own human purposes. To the Tory, the institution is a machine, its efficient working is everything, and it is the duty of the individual to subordinate himself to that object whether his own interest is served by it or not. The Liberal says, "The State is made for man, and not man for the State." The Tory reverses the dogma, and even when he pursues the good of individuals, he pursues it rather in order to make them better soldiers or workers, that is to say, better servants of the State, than to make them better in themselves. Democratic government to the Liberal is an essential condition of the free growth of the individual soul. To the Tory, if he believes in it at all, it is a piece of efficient political machinery. "What use can the State make of this man?" asks the Tory. "What {24} use can this man make of himself?" asks the Liberal. The Tory theory is expressed in terms of duties, the Liberal in terms of rights. The disposing mind is at the back of the one, the encouraging mind at the back of the other. The Tory finds the good of the individual in the strength of the State. The Liberal finds the strength of the State in the good of the individual. Where the one seeks to maintain and use, the other seeks to ease, to alter, and to readjust, binding himself to no particular scheme of political or economic construction, but ready to apply to each case of individual hardship, as it arises, such devices as he can invent.