The social student should shun mere optimism; but he should not be afraid to make the most of that which he studies. It is an unfortunate result of the semi-practical aims which naturally influence social philosophers, that they are apt throughout to take up an indifferent, if not a hostile, attitude to their given object. They hardly believe in actual society as a botanist believes in plants, or a biologist believes in vital processes. And hence, social theory comes off badly. No student can really appreciate an object for which he is always apologising. There is a {xi} touch of this attitude in all the principal writers, except Hegel and Bradley, and therefore, as I venture to think, they partly fail to seize the greatness and ideality of life in its commonest actual phases. It is in no spirit of obscurantism, and with no thought of resisting the march of a true social logic, that some take up a different position. They are convinced that an actual living society is an infinitely higher creature than a steam-engine, a plant or an animal; and that the best of their ideas are not too good to be employed in analysing it. Those who cannot be enthusiastic in the study of society as it is, would not be so in the study of a better society if they had it. “Here or nowhere is your America.” Bernard Bosanquet Caterham, March, 1899. {xiii} CONTENTS. CHAPTER I RISE AND CONDITIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF THE STATE 1-16 1. Meaning of “Philosophical Theory” 1 2. Philosophy and the “State,” 3 a. The Greek City-State 4 b. Type of mind implied in it 5 c. Type of political philosophy suggested by it 5 3. Transition from City-State to Nation-State. Law of Nature 9 4. Rise of Nation-States and of modern political philosophy. Rousseau 11 CHAPTER II SOCIOLOGICAL COMPARED WITH PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 17-52 1. Problems of Social Physics and of Idealism 17 2. Social Theory as influenced by special sciences 19 (i) Mathematics 19 (ii) Biology 21 (iii) Economics 27 (iv) Jurisprudence and the theory of Right 34 _(a)_ Law as “ideal fact” 34 _(b)_ Sociological analysis of Law 36 (v) Idea of the “spirit of laws” or mind of peoples; Anthropology in widest sense 39 (vi) Psychology 42 (vii) Connection of points of view and kinds of fact 47 3. Comparison of Psychological Sociology and Social Philosophy 48 CHAPTER III THE PARADOX OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION; SELF-GOVERNMENT 53-78 1. The conception of self-government 53 2. Law and Liberty in Bentham 56 3. Examination of Mill’s “Liberty” 60 (i) Mill’s idea of Individuality 60 (ii) His view of the authority of Society over the Individual 61 (iii) His applications of his principle 66 4. Views of Herbert Spencer 69 (i) Spencer and Bentham on Natural Right 70 (ii) Liberty and restraint in Spencer and Huxley 71 5. Mill’s criticism of Self-Government 73 CHAPTER IV