Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/19

Rh duties; and in the effort to promote, as far as law can fairly do so, the diffusion amongst the whole people of the real blessings of civilization, material, intellectual, and moral. A considerable part of such a programme would be the common property of all Liberals; but if we find in one section of them an increasing recognition of the necessity of consciously devoting the powers of government to the service of the Democracy, we may profitably trace the growth and development of that section into the separate entity which we call the Radical party. We must, however, limit this inquiry to the presence and operation of the party in Parliament. It is only in the legislature that direct and immediate influence can be exercised over the principles and policy of the government. Until it can find expression there, no cause and no party can be said to be within the range of practical politics. Any change forced upon the nation by powers extraneous to Parliament would, if possible at all, be revolution, and not reform. None such has taken place within the period covered by our inquiry. What has often occurred is, that certain questions have been debated and agitated for by people outside before they have found organized support inside Parliament. But the history of the formation and discussion of social and political ideas in the community at large, would be at once too extensive and too indefinite for our present purpose, which is to ascertain not how ideas originate, but how certain classes of them obtain expression in policy and law. The former object would be the work of the science of sociology; the latter may furnish a manageable chapter in political history. So far as it is really effective, it will deal with the same natural laws of growth and evolution, but it will only attempt to observe them as they are manifested within specific limits of time, place, and circumstance.

If this theory of the development of the party is sound, we must not expect to be able to fix any precise and definite date for its birth. We may, however, trace, either in the ranks of the Liberals in Parliament or among the people outside, the action of causes which would lead to new combinations.