Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/447

Rh anarchistic, and therefore opposed to the authority of church and state.

Politically, liberalism tends more and more to break up into a number of factions, and in the parliamentary struggle it is therefore weak in its front against the uniform mass of the social democracy and also against the governmental reaction. Being void of real content, liberalism tends increasingly to cling to formal principles; the liberal parties lack independence and initiative. As an educational and economic force, liberalism becomes more and more negative; the earlier aspiration for liberty is replaced by a political moderation which is delighted to accept as freedom the fairly endurable measure of unfreedom that now exists. The cry for toleration as voiced by early liberalism was a call to arms against theocratic coercion, but the modern liberal conception of toleration grows ever more negative.

Thus liberalism is the codification of half-measures, persistent compromise in theory as well as in practice. We may quote Goethe: "When I hear people speak of liberal ideas I am amazed to see how readily human beings are satisfied with empty sounds; an idea cannot be liberal. It may be vigorous, efficient, self-contained, in order that it may fulfil its divine mission of being productive; but it is quite beyond the mission of an idea to be liberal. Where we must seek liberalness is in the feelings, in the living sphere of the affective life."

Historically considered, the lukewarmness and vagueness of liberalism are thoroughly characteristic of a transitional trend; these features explain its persistence, its mutability and its adaptability.

ATHOLIC politicians reproach liberalism with being the offspring of Protestantism and the parent of socialism and anarchism. They bring the identical charge against modern philosophy.

There is considerable truth in the accusation. In actual fact, liberalism grew to greatness in England, and, under English and American influence, in France; the liberal regime in politics was transplanted from England and America to the continent of Europe.