The Legacy of the Liberal Spirit, men and movements in the making of modern thought

333 Pages·1943·5.211 MB·English

by  Fred Gladstone Bratton

TH E LEGACY
of the
LIBERAL SPIRIT

T H E L E G A C Y
of the
L I B E R A L S P I R I T
MEN AND MOVEMENTS IN THE
MAKING OF MODERN THOUGHT
BY
FRED GLADSTONE BRATTON
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1943
Copyright, 1943, *v
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
AH rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
the Permission of Charles Scribner's Sons
A
THIS BOOR IS
MANUFACTURED UNDER-WARTIME
CONDITIONS IN CONFORMITY WITH
ALL GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
CONTROLLING THE USE OF PAPER
AND OTHER MATERIALS
TO MY WIFE

Preface
T oday, more than ever before, an author is required
to “show cause” for using valuable paper. The pres­
ent volume is felt to come under the category of “neces­
sary” work because it attempts to describe the spirit or
tradition for which the allied nations are at the present
moment fighting, because it seeks to interpret the history of
freedom in its most critical stages, to distinguish between
the incidental forms of liberalism as a way of life and its
essential soul, and finally to show that the liberal spirit
is neither dated, dead, nor dying, but passing into a new
form of life, the nature of which is herein prefigured.
The title of this book implies, admittedly, a point of view
on the part of the author. A thorough-going objectivity has
its dangers and professorial fence-sitting, if carried to ex­
tremes, results in the flabby notion that everybody is right.
Such a type of broad-mindedness neither serves the ends of
scholarship nor makes for good reading. But while confess­
ing to a point of view, the author hopes that he is not like
the Cheerful Cherub’s dogmatist who said:
“In controversial moments
My perception’s rather fine;
I always see both points of view:
The one that’s wrong—and mine.”
Many thoughtful people today, infected with the virus
of questionnaire-education and the discussional method,
can hardly bring themselves to end a sentence with a pe­
riod. They are not sure of anything. Like Pilate, they ask:
vii
viii Legacy of the Liberal Spirit
“What is Truth?” They remember too well the witticism
of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that “no generalization
is wholly true, including this one.” Not wishing, therefore,
to appear dogmatic, they refuse to take sides. They belong
to what Dean Willard Sperry used to call the “Yes, but—”
group. To go about at this late date raising the question,
“Yes, but what is Liberalism?” is to be living intellectually
on borrowed time. This deliberate haziness has helped to
bring on our present moral paralysis.
On the other hand, there is an understandable ambiguity
about such words as Humanism, Democracy, Pacifism,
Socialism, and even Liberalism. It is desirable in the
interests of semantics that an author define or qualify the
terms he uses. That is the purpose of this Preface.
The word “liberal” as herein used refers to a way of life
which emphasizes the primary importance of the person,
the freedom of the individual, free press, free speech, con­
stitutional government, tolerance, the scientific spirit of
inquiry, the rational outlook, social reform, popular edu­
cation, a relativistic philosophy, and an ethico-sodal reli­
gion.
The legacy of the liberal spirit in its organized forms of
political democracy, civil liberties, and religious freedom
is the way of life that is at stake in the present world
struggle. A proper defense of that tradition is unintelligible
without a knowledge of its history and pedigree. The pur­
pose of this book is to trace the course of the liberal tradi­
tion in its critical phases. Among other things the author
attempts to establish the connection between religious
liberalism and political democracy, especially as found in
eighteenth-century France and America. During that pe­
riod “democracy” was a philosophical term with certain
religious, social, and political implications, all of which cen­
Preface ix
tered in one principle: the importance of the individual, his
reason and conscience, his freedom and responsibility.
One reason for the present confusion about the term
Liberalism is that we have not distinguished between its
passing and permanent phases. Liberalism is an idea, a
principle, not a platform or a party. Laissez-faire, for
instance, coming from the eighteenth-century emphasis on
individualism, was once a liberal method. The fact that for
certain people it has now become obsolete is no reason for
giving up the whole concept of Liberalism. The liberal
spirit of any given age, in other words, cannot be frozen
into any transient form.
Liberalism is not to be viewed as a nineteenth-century
phenomenon ending with the second world war. As an
attitude towards life it has a history of 2500 years. As an
organized cultural movement it might be said to have
started with the French Enlightenment, which gave birth
to the spirit of Rationalism and naturalistic philosophy.
But back of the Age of Reason was the Renaissance-Refor­
mation, which shifted men’s attention to man. Even before
that there were many expressions of the liberal outlook,
abortive but nonetheless distinct attempts to establish in­
tellectual freedom and the life of reason. The endeavor is
here made to bring fresh light to the pregnant periods in
the development of liberal thought and to paint in true
form and color the most representative thinker of each
period. These men— misunderstood and mistreated—will
probably never be given their proper place in history but
it is hoped that the present volume will make some con­
tribution towards their rehabilitation—which is long over­
due.
The use of the biographical method should reveal the
author’s belief in the inadequacy of economic determinism