Into this Maelstrom Disraeli was plunged when he entered Parliament. He had his own views. He knew the condition of the poor both in England and Ireland. He had declared that no Government should have his support which did not introduce some large measure to improve that condition. He had chosen the Conservative side because he had no belief in the promises of the political economists, or in the blessed results to follow from cutting the strings and leaving everyone to find his level. He held to the old conception of the commonwealth that all orders must work faithfully together; that trade was to be extended not by cheapness and free markets, but by good workmanship and superior merit; and that the object which statesmen ought to set before themselves was the maintenance of the character of the people, not the piling up in enormous heaps of what wealth had now come to mean. The people themselves were groping, in their trades unions, after an organisation which would revive in other forms the functions of the Guilds; and the exact science of political economy would cease to be a science at all, whenever motives superior to personal interest began to be acted upon. Science was knowledge of facts; the facts most important to be known were the facts of human nature and human responsibilities; and the interpretation of those facts which had been revealed to his own race, Disraeli actually believed to be deeper and truer than any modern speculations. Though calling himself a Christian, he was a Jew in his heart. He regarded Christianity as only Judaism developed, and, if not completely true, yet as immeasurably nearer to truth than the mushroom philosophies of the present age. He had studied Carlyle, and in some of his writings had imitated him. Carlyle did not thank him for this. Carlyle detested Jews, and looked on Disraeli as an adventurer fishing for fortune in Parliamentary waters. His novels he despised. His chains and velvets and affected airs he looked on as the tawdry love of vulgar ornament characteristic of Houndsditch. Nevertheless, Disraeli had taken his teaching to heart, and in his own way meant to act upon it. He regarded the aristocracy, like Carlyle also, in spite of the double barrels, as the least corrupted part of the community; and to them, in alliance with the people, he looked for a return of the English nation to the lines of true progress. The Church was moving at Oxford. A wave of political Conservatism was sweeping over the country. He thought that in both these movements he saw signs of a genuine reaction, and Peel, he still believed, would give effect to his hopes. [Sidenote: DISRAELI AND PEEL]