Abstract
This book is about the political thought of a group of British writers, active in the first two decades of the twentieth century.1 They were all either historians or writers strongly influenced by historical method. They were responding to certain tendencies apparent in their day and were aware of the relative nature of all political thinking. Although their ideas were frequently presented in the context of historical treatises or essays, they were addressed — at least in part — to problems of their own day. In reacting vigorously against the growing power of the state and against certain political theories which justified the omnicompetent state, they responded not only by appeals to the past, but by enlisting the support of contemporary intellectual currents. Figgis, in particular, appealed to writers like Henri Bergson, Rudolf Eucken, William James and even to some themes in Friedrich Nietzsche to defend a pluralist model of political order and the role, in particular, of churches in the modern state.
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Notes and References
For earlier discussions of English political pluralism see K. C. Hsiao, Poitical Pluralism;
H. M. Magid, English Political Pluralism;
W. Y. Elliott, The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics;
Ernest Barker, Political Thought in England: from Herbert Spencer to the Present Day;
F. W. Coker, ‘The Technique of the Pluralist State’, American Political Science Review, 15, 1921, pp. 186f,
E. D. Ellis, ‘Guild Socialism and Pluralism’, American Political Science Review, 17, 1923, pp. 584f,
E. D. Ellis, ‘The Pluralist State’, American Political Science Review, 14, 1920 pp. 393f.,
G. Sabine, ‘Pluralism: a Point of View’, American Political Science Review, 17, 1923, pp. 34f,
N. Wilde, ‘The Attack on the State’, International Journal of Ethics, 30, 1920, pp. 349f,
L. Rockow, Contemporary Political Thought in England, chs 6 and 7. Works published since the first edition of this book include, Andrew Vincent, Theories of the State, ch. 6;
Paul Q. Hirst, The Pluralist Theory of the State: Selected Writings of G. D. H. Cole, J. N. Figgis and H J. Laski;
S. Ehrlich, Pluralism, On and Off Course;
and P. P. Craig, Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, ch. 5.
Figgis, The Gospel and Human Needs, p. 52.
For a discussion of Creighton, Acton and Maitland see appendix 2, to Figgis, Churches, pp. 226.
Laski, A Grammar of Politics, Preface to the First Edition.
See Kingsley Martin, Harold J. Laski; Bernard Zylstra, From Pluralism to Collectivism: the Development of Harold Laski’s Political Thought.
See A. W. Wright, G. D. H. Cole and Socialist Democracy, and Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism.
Balfour, Essays Speculative and Political, p. 198.
See, for example, Schiller, Riddles of the Sphynx, and Studies in Humanism.
Bradley, Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 268.
James, A Pluralistic Universe, p. 79.
James, A Pluralistic Universe, p. 321.
See below pp. 74f. This would be true also of the American Mary Parker Follett.
Figgis, Antichrist, pp. 30–1.
I do not wish to suggest that ideologies are merely rationalisations of self-interested groups or classes (though the word is frequently used in this pejorative sense). This is a large subject. Here I would merely assert (a) that it is impossible to understand human actions adequately unless we see them as purposive, and often following from conscious decisions; (b) that the decisions which people make are closely related to the beliefs they hold; (c) that these beliefs cannot satisfactorily be accounted for simply as mechanical consequences of physiological or social conditions; (d) that people sometimes hold beliefs because they think them to be true, and that one way of changing these beliefs is to convince them that they are false; and (e) that it is often important to consider whether a belief is true or not, and that this inquiry is distinct from (though sometimes connected to) a discussion about the origin of the belief.
See ch. 3 in David Nicholls, Deity and Domination.
For other examples see Terence Ball et al., eds, Political Innovation and Conceptual Change.
I shall use the words synonymously throughout the book.
I have considered this conceptual modification of liberty, in relation to political developments in David Nicholls, ‘Positive Liberty: 1880–1914’, American Political Science Review, 56, 1962, pp. 114–28. Michael Freeden discusses the same events in The New Liberalism: an Ideology of Social Reform; for my response to his position see David Nicholls, Deity and Domination, p. 69.
In W. E. Connolly, ed., The Bias of Pluralism, p. 95.
E. Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 169.
In G. B. Shaw, ed., Fabian Essays, p. 182
In Fabian Essays, p. 60. In some of his later essays, however, Webb was less optimistic about the outcome of this glide. See, for example, Towards Social Democracy.
Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism, p. 148.
R. Michels, Political Parties, p. 113.
Craig, Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States, pp. 146–7. This book includes a most interesting attempt to relate various pluralist theories to legal and institutional developments. For Ehrlich see Pluralism On and Off Course, p. 49.
Barker, ‘The Discredited State: Thoughts on Politics before the War’, The Political Quarterly, 5, February 1915, p. 121.
H. S. Holland, ‘The State’, in B. F. Westcott et al., The Church and New Century Problems, p. 51.
W. J. H. Campion, in Charles Gore, ed., Lux Mundi: a Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation, p. 444. See my criticism of this chapter in Robert Morgan, ed., The Religion of the Incarnation, pp. 172–88.
Maurice, The Kingdom of Christ, III, p. 76.
David Nicholls, Deity and Domination, passim, and ‘Two Tendencies in Anglo-Catholic Political Theology’, in Geoffrey Rowell, ed., Tradition Renewed, pp. 140–53.
Churches, p. 57.
Figgis, Antichrist, pp. 189 and 191.
Figgis, Church Tunes, 9 April 1914, p. 529. ‘The root fact is this: our taste, our knowledge, our morals and our religion are able to exist because we live on the fruits of a system that is really slavery, and until this be changed all the honesty and devotion in the world will never prevent our religion from being half-hearted, our literature rococo, our architecture exotic, our culture mean and sickly, our art a succession of bad jokes and even our virtues at their very best rather an accident than an achievement.’ Ibid.
For a note on the distinction between a secular and a secularist state see p. 96
The Independent Review, 7, 1905, p. 19.
J.F. Stephen, Liberty Equality Fraternity, p. 256; see also Henry Maine, Popular Government, p. 32. On Balfour see David Nicholls, ‘Few are Chosen’, The Review of Politics, 30, 1968, pp. 33–50.
Churches, p. 150.
Churches, p. 135.
See below Ch. 7.
Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, p. 60.
I discuss briefly the relationship between British political pluralism and more recent American theories, and with concepts of a pluralist or segmented society in the Conclusion to this volume,
Aristotle, Politics, 5:11.
Proudhon, Idée générale de la révolution au 19e siècle, p. 344.
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© 1994 David Nicholls
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Nicholls, D. (1994). Parentalism and Pluralism. In: The Pluralist State. St Antony's. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23598-8_1
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