Liberalism

The paper sets out to define liberalism through a brief outline of its history, more especially its English development, starting with Magna Carta and moving through the upheavals of the seventeenth century and the transformation of the Victorian Age to some of the modern debates, particularly that between freedom and equality. It discusses how the natural law concept turned into human rights and how theories of contract curbed monarchical high- handedness, so leading to democracy and rule of law. While laissez faire and individualism are conventionally thought to be the essence of liberalism, this concept is contradicted by the course of reform in Victorian England and further state social and economic action since. From Locke to Adam Smith to L. T. Hobhouse is a history of development and change. The strand of liberal thought from Milton's Areopagitica to Mill's On Liberty is also briefly outlined. The conflict between liberalism and Marxism is touched on, and Paton briefly related to the tradition.