Our subject then is the Progress of the Commonwealth or, in other words, the record of the course of the common life of mankind in the world. It is a theme which really underlies all the other subjects of discussion at this week's meetings: for it is only the existence of the Commonwealth and its organized efforts to preserve and sustain the life of the individuals composing it, which have made possible the achievements of mankind in the various separate fields of effort which are claiming your attention. Lord Acton spent a lifetime collecting material for a History of Liberty. He never wrote it: but, if he had, it would have been a History of Mankind. A History of Government or of the Commonwealth would be nothing less. Such is the nature of the invitation so kindly given to me and so cheerfully accepted. If you could wait a lifetime for the proper treatment of the subject I would gladly give the time; for, in truth, it is worth it. What is the nature of this common life of mankind and with what is it concerned? The subjects of its concern are as wide as human nature itself. We cannot define them in a formula: for human nature overleaps all formulas. Whenever men have tried to rule regions of human activity and aspiration out of the common life of mankind, and to hedge them round as private or separate or sacred or by any other kind of taboo, human nature has always ended by breaking through the hedges and invading the retreat. Man is a social animal. If he retires to a monastery he finds he has carried problems of organization with him, as the promoters of this gathering would confess you have brought with you here. If he shuts himself up in his home as a castle, or in a workshop or factory as the domain of his own private power, social problems go with him thither, and the long arm of the law will follow after. If he crosses the seas like the Pilgrim Fathers, to worship God unmolested in a new country, or, like the merchant-venturers, to fetch home treasure from the Indies, he will find himself unwittingly the pioneer of civilization and the founder of an Empire or a Republic. In the life of our fellows, in the Common Weal, we live and move and have our being. Let us recall some wise words on this subject from the Master of Balliol's book on the Middle Ages. 'The words "Church" and "State"', he writes,