What did it mean to be “liberal” before “liberalism”? Such a question surely depends on a sensitive reconstruction of how those terms have been defined. Until recently, however, intellectual historians tended not to be troubled by the fact that the word “liberalism” was only normalized in Britain from the 1820s.Footnote 1 Their energies have instead concentrated on tracing the deeper ancestry of this political concept. It remains relatively common to write about “liberal” thinkers and the “liberal” tradition in the early modern period, and John Locke continues to wear the crown of founding father fairly comfortably.Footnote 2 There have, however, been two influential lines of criticism of this thinking. First, J. G. A. Pocock's work downplayed—but did not deny—the significance of “liberal individualism” in favor of an enduring republican tradition, and this spawned a lively literature on “republicanism versus liberalism” on both sides of the Atlantic.Footnote 3 An instance of this debate can be seen in arguments about whether rational Dissenters are best described as “civic humanists” or “bourgeois liberals.”Footnote 4 Second, there have been those—preeminently J. C. D. Clark—who have argued that neither of these “-isms” is very helpful for understanding the period before c.1800. Instead, Clark stresses the centrality of theological argument for both defenders and opponents of the church-state establishment. The “republican” paradigm has been overstated, he claims, while the “liberal” paradigm is a consequence and not a cause of the revolutionary era, as shown by the emergence of its terminology in the 1810s.Footnote 5 Whether persuasive or not, these historiographies reveal some uncertainty about the desirability and plausibility of investigating liberalism before the word existed.
Raymond Geuss has argued that liberalism was “born looking backward” and has always claimed for itself a much older history than could possibly be convincing. While one can trawl the past for earlier anticipations, the catch will prove very “meagre” until at least the eighteenth century.Footnote 6 The problem of anachronism is therefore a very real one, and helps explain why the “liberal tradition” in Britain between the 1770s and 1840s has been reconstituted according to changing historical trends. Once, English utilitarianism was at the core, but that has been largely displaced by a mixture of Whig constitutionalism and Scottish economics, which themselves combine uncertainly with a more Radical commitment to democracy. Accordingly, we have a “liberal tradition” which might include Smith, Burke, Paine, and Bentham—even though only the last of these called himself a liberal, and even then, only late in life. This need not necessarily matter—Geuss advises that we should abandon the search for “true” or “real” liberalism as a symptom of the philosopher's obsession with clear definitions and consistent theories. Instead, a genealogical approach shows that a word like “liberalism” has no natural limits to its use and that it evolves in response to the pressures and demands placed upon it. It has always been a collection of vague “beliefs, commitments, concerns, and projects” and “contingent conjunctions of ill-defined concepts and half-unarticulated theoretical fragments,” which are variously embodied in social movements and institutional forms. Hence, ultimately, the past (and, for that matter, the future) of liberalism is whatever enough people agree is in its spirit or continuous with its supposed tradition.Footnote 7
Geuss is primarily concerned with the leading theoretical aspects of liberalism, but his comments invite the historian to think again about its historical evolution. Typically, intellectual histories of liberalism have traced what are presumed to be its core concepts—liberty, toleration, individualism, the limited state, and so on. But such concept histories—as in Begriffsgeschichte—have often been criticized for being historically attenuated, with, as James Schmidt notes, a “rather Olympian distance” from the “scruffier history of arguments and counter-arguments.”Footnote 8 In addition, there can be the problem of anachronism—the concepts associated with “liberalism” are much older than the term itself, and so the existence of a range of seemingly liberal ideas in the early modern period may not be sufficient grounds for concluding that “liberalism” was in fact present. This raises the question of the problematic relationship between words and concepts. Quentin Skinner has argued that one can possess a concept—Milton's understanding of originality, for instance—while not having the word, and, conversely, one can use a word without knowing about the concepts that may be associated with it.Footnote 9 Thomas Dixon contends that while concept histories stipulate the meanings attached to a term, and trace the genealogy of those meanings even in the absence of the term, a word history tracks how it was used over time: “it starts with the coining of the term and traces its development forwards and outwards from there.”Footnote 10 That said, Skinner also argues that in practice it is the “surest sign” that groups have “self-conscious possession” of a new concept when a corresponding vocabulary develops to allow them to refer to it consistently.Footnote 11 It seems likely, therefore, that a word history can show us when contemporaries started to register shifts in the meanings of “liberal” language, and what they thought it meant; it can enable us to see when and how particular concepts, institutions and histories were attached to it; and, moreover, it might also offer insight into its place within political struggle—what it legitimated and castigated.Footnote 12 This is particularly useful for a period when a new terminology was emerging and where there was considerable uncertainty about what it meant, and hence also opportunities to use it in striking ways.
Since historians of liberalism tend to be concerned with political thought, it is no surprise that they have focused attention on “liberty” before “liberalism”—that is to say, they have looked at the conceptual development of ideas of freedom as the means of understanding the prehistory of liberalism. In one sense this is absolutely correct: a political ideology which is intimately associated with liberty must examine how that concept evolved.Footnote 13 But, wearing a strictly historical hat, such an approach may risk misinterpreting how contemporaries actually understood these words. Perhaps “liberal” was not closely identified with “liberty” in the eighteenth century—perhaps it was not even seen primarily in political terms. After all, Richard Price, who had much to say in other contexts about “liberal,” only used the word twice in his Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty.Footnote 14 Instead, we need to understand “liberal” as it was understood at the time. The key argument made here is that it should be seen in terms of its relation to a hitherto neglected strand of domestic thought—namely “liberality.” It is suggested that until the 1760s to be “liberal,” and to demonstrate “liberality,” were primarily associated with the exercise of charity rather than having political implications.
The first major turning point occurred between the 1760s and 1780s. Despite the political crises—in America, India, and Ireland—that rocked the state, this was a period of optimism about the possibility of change. There was a vogue for “improvement” and “reform” across virtually all aspects of social, economic, religious, and political life,Footnote 15 and the term “liberal” needs to be seen in this context. To be “liberal” was to be open-minded about new ideas and new reforms, and in that sense it could be embraced irrespective of political affiliation. However, it was latitudinarians and Dissenters in their campaigns for greater toleration that invested the term with strong religious associations, and laid the foundations for a further turning point from the mid-1790s. Just as the word “reform” became sullied in the post-revolutionary climate, so anti-Jacobins also started to fixate on “liberal” terminology. They questioned why it was so widely esteemed, and challenged the terms of its reference. While this did not dent the broader appeal of the language, it meant that from now on it was much more consciously debated and contested.
DEFINING “LIBERALITY”
Until the middle of the eighteenth century this terminology was used in a fairly traditional manner. The words “liberal” and “liberality” were anglicizations of Latin terms. The definitions provided by the New Latin–English Dictionary of 1757 give a good sense of how the originals were understood. The adjective liberalis was defined in these terms: “1. Belonging to freedom. 2. Genteel, gentlemanlike, wellbred, becoming gentlemen. 3. Well favoured, handsome, fashionable, becoming. 4. Liberal, openhanded, free-hearted, bountiful, free, frank, generous. 5. also exalted, ample.” Meanwhile, liberalitas was “1. Generosity, ingenuity. 2. Bounty, liberality, freedom, kindness, or good nature. 3. Fair means, good usage.”Footnote 16 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language shows how closely the definitions of the English words related to their Latin counterparts, and they were not altered in the seven editions published between 1755 and his death in 1784. The word “liberal” was defined as “1. Not mean; not low in birth; not low in mind. 2. Becoming a gentleman. 3. Munificent; generous; bountiful; not parsimonious,” while “liberality” meant “munificence; bounty; generosity; generous profusion.”Footnote 17 Interestingly, while the Latin term libertas is clearly derived from the same root, it was invariably translated as liberty or freedom, and had a quite distinct set of associations about the absence of constraint for an individual, and the absence of tyranny and slavery for a state. However, an exploration of the meanings of the word “liberal” begins not with “liberty” but with “liberality,” which was, in Johnson's mind at least, the closer counterpart.
While Johnson's first two definitions of “liberal” refer to its social qualities (“not low in birth . . . becoming a gentleman”), it is only the third that provides a clue as to what the word meant. To be “liberal” was to demonstrate “liberality”—it meant being munificent, generous, and bountiful. This core meaning had very deep roots. In the fourth book of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considered the virtues appropriate to social and political behavior, and alongside magnanimity and friendliness, he described liberality or generosity. This was concerned with the giving and the getting of money, and here, as elsewhere, a middle course was recommended, steering a path between prodigality on the one hand, and meanness on the other. Cicero's De Offices offered an extended discussion in which liberality was part of the virtue of justice.Footnote 18 While honorable, the exercise of liberality should not do harm—it should not be excessive or extravagant, and its objects should be worthy. Cicero also argued that it was not restricted to giving money, and kindness could be showed instead by offering services to the needy, which also had the advantage of exercising men's virtues rather than merely drawing on their wealth. These arguments were common points of reference into the eighteenth century, as evident in textbooks of moral philosophy.Footnote 19 John Hartcliffe adopted a broadly Aristotelian perspective in a chapter on “liberality.”Footnote 20 Like many accounts, it devoted most attention to specifying precisely the forms which giving money should take: the ends, the times, the places, as well as the amount bestowed, the quality of the benefit given, and the intention that accompanied it. A more famous and influential textbook was Francis Hutcheson's Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, which categorized liberality as part of the virtue of justice, but noted that as an imperfect obligation it was also closely aligned to charity. The influence of Aristotle and especially Cicero was clear in this work.Footnote 21 Similarly, Adam Ferguson included liberality, along with innocence, piety, friendship, gratitude, charity, civility, politeness, as private duties included under the heading of probity or justice. His brief description—“the free communication of what is ours, to oblige others”—was closely linked to charity, “the free communication of what is ours, to relieve the distressed.”Footnote 22
This brief discussion should be sufficient to show that “liberality” was understood as the virtue which concerned the giving and receiving of benefits—primarily money. As such, these classical maxims could easily be aligned with scriptural teachings about charity and benevolence.Footnote 23 Admittedly, there were some Dissentient voices—the Nonjuror and leading member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Robert Nelson, argued that while liberality was simply disinterested giving that lacked any obligation, charity was a duty, the “express Command of GOD” to restore wealth which did not ultimately belong to the donor. Still, he recognized it was the “Great Errour” of most Christians to confound the two.Footnote 24 As it happens, in the King James Bible, there are only eight separate verses which use “liberal” or “liberality,” and two of these come from the same chapter of Isaiah. In particular 32:8—“The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand”—was the subject of a number of expository sermons. These preachers were well aware of the classical ancestry of the terminology, and references to Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas can readily be found.Footnote 25 They discussed traditional themes such as the distinctions between liberality and magnificence (a key point for Aristotle), the understanding of liberality as an aspect of the cardinal virtue of justice, and the need for careful consideration of the appropriate objects of liberality. A further point was the way this verse was used to show that liberality was effectively a synonym for charity. By “deviseth liberal things” the importance of extensive philanthropy was urged, and specific objects—for example, relieving the widows and orphans of deceased Dissenting ministers—were instanced. Most important, however, was the way preachers dwelt on the character of the “liberal man.” The Baptist Joseph Stennett stated that such a person was marked by a “kind, compassionate, benevolent disposition.” He wished well to mankind and expressed tenderness at the sight of human suffering. He was constantly driven to charity, and his motives were of the purest spiritual kind—“he that is truly liberal, is so on higher and nobler principles” than the man who expected some kind of reward in return.Footnote 26 For the Presbyterian Samuel Wright, the liberal man had a “bountiful and good Mind”: he was an impartial advocate for what was right and was deeply opposed to hypocrisy and slander. “The truly liberal or generous Man cannot enter into such Measures as appear to him a Prejudice to Truth.” The “churl” mentioned in Isaiah was concerned only with advancing his own narrow interests, or those of party, while the “Liberal or Bountiful Man is not partially kind, but quite benevolent and generous throughout his whole Conduct”—he “says and does kind things with great Freedom and Pleasure.”Footnote 27 Interestingly, it was not fortune or family or even a “liberal education” that set one man above another. Instead “it is the generosity of the mind which truly elevates a man, and renders him worthy of honour; and that he only can be properly said to be rich, who is so in good works.”Footnote 28 For these religious—and often Dissenting—writers it was the integrity of religious character that ultimately marked a “liberal man.”
So, despite a common etymological root, the way “liberal” language could be used by the eighteenth century was quite diverse. There was “liberal” as generous and bountiful—this was closely related to classical discussions of the virtue of liberality and could easily be linked to religious arguments about charity. Often there was no obvious tension between the two: a short essay in 1780 quoted Marcus Aurelius and Cicero in order to affirm an essentially Christian message—that liberality was the proper use of those benefits which God gave to us for “the succour of many,” and that—in the tradition set by Aristotle—it should be guided by “prudence and moderation.” “He is properly called a liberal man, who, according to his income, giveth freely, when, where, and to whom he should.”Footnote 29 But at this point it is worth recalling Johnson's first two definitions—that liberal was neither mean nor low, and that it was appropriate to a gentleman. This social understanding of “liberal” also had a long history. The Greek term used by Aristotle that is commonly translated as “liberality” was eleutheriotēs, which literally means “being in a free condition.” In other words, a central aspect of being a free citizen rather than a slave was that one was not constrained by concerns about one's possessions—one could be “liberal” with them.Footnote 30 Hence the virtue of liberality was aligned with the condition of freedom, which itself was associated with an elite of citizens as opposed to slaves. This is most fully reflected in the Latin congeries of phrases which have liber as their core—hence, in Roman thought, to be generous, to be noble, and to be free were virtual synonyms. The legacy of this thinking can be seen in the history of the “liberal arts”—this was traditionally the education most appropriate to forming a citizen (or, later, a gentleman), and into the eighteenth century was contrasted with the so-called “mechanical” or “servile” arts. Ferguson captured the point nicely: “We look for elevation of sentiment, and liberality of mind, among those orders of citizens, who, by their condition, and their fortunes, are relieved from sordid cares and attentions.”Footnote 31 However, the content of “liberal education” and its relevance for the professional classes were increasingly discussed from mid-century, and there was growing recognition that the world of literature and learning was not the exclusive preserve of a gentlemanly elite. Moreover, the injunction to be “liberal” applied to all Christians, not just a leisured elite.Footnote 32 Hence the word carried with it a number of unresolved ambiguities: what was one liberal about? Did it just mean providing charitable relief? Or did it refer to a broader state of mind? If so, what, then, were its objects? In addition, were there any social or educational restrictions on who could be liberal?
THE “LIBERAL MIND”
From the 1760s the term “liberal” started to acquire a new range of associations that depended on an expanded understanding of “generosity.” The more traditional meanings about charity and philanthropy certainly endured, but they were joined by a new stress on the “liberal” nature of a person's character. Phrases such as “liberal mind,” “liberal opinions,” “liberal sentiments,” and “liberal principles” were becoming widespread: while the phrases were infrequently used before 1760, an electronic search of eighteenth-century printed material shows an increase from 133 “hits” in the 1760s to 515 in the 1770s, 928 in the 1780s, and 1,297 in the 1790s.Footnote 33 The significant point is the way that the adjective was now being applied as a way of appraising the “generous” mind of a person—this had some relation to the traditional gentlemanly connotations of “liberal,” but it was now not so much class as character that mattered.
The broader context for understanding this growth of “liberal” language is a marked cultural shift in the period between the 1760s and 1780s. Contemporaries were aware that they were living through a period of change—the transformation of communication and travel, the acceleration of urbanization, and the vogue for “improvement” in agriculture were all clear markers of this. The imperial crisis that became apparent in the aftermath of the Seven Years War raised central questions about the ideas and institutions of rule both abroad and at home, and there was a growing sense that moral and perhaps even political reform was needed throughout society.Footnote 34 Indeed, recent historians—preeminently Arthur Burns and Joanna Innes—have argued that this period saw the beginnings of the “age of reform,” and have shown how the word came into new prominence. While “reform” had a long ancestry and a broad set of associations—sometimes focused on moral questions, at other times concerned with institutional change—from the 1780s it was increasingly linked to measures of parliamentary reform, and as a result acquired negative connotations in the 1790s.Footnote 35 But “reform” was not the only word affected by the new perception of change.
The growing number of “liberal” minds was clearly linked to the sense of commentators that they were living in an “enlightened” age. While historians have established that the term “enlightenment” was only coined and developed at the turn of the century, by contrast the word “enlightened” was extremely common.Footnote 36 Sometimes the two words were conjoined: David Williams spoke of the times as a period of “enlightened and liberal philosophy,” while Josiah Tucker wrote of Edward III as having a “liberal Mind” which was much more “enlightened” than one might expect for the times in which he lived.Footnote 37 Many writers spoke of the “liberality of the present times.”Footnote 38 While, as we shall see, Dissenters were particularly keen on this language, there is not, until the 1790s, any sense of repulsion among other writers. There seemed to be a widespread and uncontentious agreement that liberal sentiments were spreading and that this was a sign of a growing enlightened age. Take Edmund Burke, for example: he attacked the government in 1774 for not having “liberal ideas” in the management of affairs, welcomed the support of men of “liberal principles” in Bristol in 1775, and in 1780 defended the Rockinghamites for their “known liberal principles in government, in commerce, in religion, in every thing,” as well as commending the “liberal mind and enlarged understanding” of Charles James Fox.Footnote 39 Hence, it seems that the language of “liberal” was increasingly on people's lips. It was being used in a new way, but drawing on well-established meanings. Partly for that reason, it had a positive appraisive force—few, if any, yet thought that to be called “liberal” might be a form of abuse.
It should be noted that this terminology was used in very general terms—to be “liberal” was to have an open or a generous mind. It did not so much refer to specific principles, as rather to indicate a style of thinking. That said, it did come to be used frequently in connection with arguments for religious toleration, and Dissenters and latitudinarians were particularly attracted to it as a way of articulating and legitimating their aims. There were two periods of intense organizational and political activity. The first from 1770 to 1774 began with a petitioning campaign to loosen the requirement of Anglicans to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and was followed by an attempt to amend the Toleration Act. Both failed. During the second period of activity from 1787 to 1790 many Dissenters wanted to go further. They were no longer content with ironing out the compromises of the existing Toleration Act, but now advocated a more complete toleration of other religious groups, and also argued for the removal of the legal disabilities for Dissenters to participate in civic and political life. They accordingly pressed for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Despite a narrowing of the majority against this by 1789, the final attempt in 1790 was lost in the reaction to the French Revolution.Footnote 40 Nevertheless, during these two decades there was, in public commentary, a broad sense of a link between supporting religious reform and having a liberal mind. Rockingham and Shelburne, for instance, were commended for endorsing a “liberal toleration of religion”—what was key here was that since “liberal” meant being generous, in this context it meant being generous not about money but about toleration.Footnote 41 A close association between “liberality” and belief was being forged.
But there was a more precise way in which these debates affected the language of liberality, and which would have implications for its future development. A central theme was the way increased toleration was linked to ideas about the inviolability of the conscience. There was fundamental agreement with Locke's arguments in the Letter on Toleration, and with Lord Mansfield's 1767 judgment that “Conscience is not controulable by human laws, nor amenable to human tribunals.”Footnote 42 Indeed this theme was repeatedly stressed by numerous writers. To Joseph Fownes the right of thinking for ourselves “and following the conviction of our judgment in relation to the object of our faith” was the most “sacred” of inherent rights. Such a right could not be given up on entering society.Footnote 43 It was to Philip Furneaux a right “essential to our nature” which we could not resign if we wanted to.Footnote 44 It was inalienable, wrote Robert Robinson: “No man, can any more divest himself of private judging than of thinking . . . no man ever gave up his right, nor ever can. It is con-natural, deprive him of this, and you deprive him of existence.”Footnote 45 As a result it could be no part of the magistrate's brief to control the conscience in matters of religion—and it was, in any case, counterproductive to repress opinion. For Furneaux, a particularly influential advocate of extended toleration, the continuing existence of persecuting statutes was a reproach to the “boasted freedom and liberality of sentiment of the present age.”Footnote 46
One important area of disagreement, however, was the scope of the right of conscience. Traditionally this was restricted to the sphere of religion. As John Dunn has argued, “there was no sense whatever in which Locke recognized any such general right to think whatever one happens to think.”Footnote 47 Hence even the acceptance of religious toleration still preserved a large space for “the logic of prudence and utility” to be exercised.Footnote 48 It was this which advanced Dissenters challenged in the 1770s. The Unitarian Joseph Priestley had in 1768 bemoaned those Dissenters who restricted their arguments only to Trinitarians, and who had little to say for Unitarians, let alone Catholics. They pressed for “the rights of conscience, of private judgment, and of free inquiry” only insofar as they themselves were affected. What was really needed was “universal toleration.”Footnote 49 David Williams agreed, and criticized the relief proposals of 1773 for being too weak—what was required was a plan on “the most liberal principles.”Footnote 50 As Peter Miller has argued, there was a shift from the right to judge privately the truth of Scripture to the right to “think and judge freely on all issues.”Footnote 51 Hence for Williams writing in 1777 the pursuit of private judgment was “inalienable” in “all subjects of knowledge, morality, and religion.”Footnote 52
Nor was this simply an abstract right—it was, instead, a fundamental principle of scientific enquiry and the very basis of an enlightened society. Priestley was the most vocal of such advocates, but he was not alone. Robinson argued that the right of private judgment was central to the progress of all arts and sciences. Once, all of these—“music, astronomy, physic”—had simply been private opinions, but because they had been allowed to circulate they had spawned further developments and discoveries: “And what follows? What might be expected; The perfection of science.”Footnote 53 Nearly everything Priestley wrote rested on such assumptions. In his Essay on the First Principles of Government he explained that opponents of free inquiry always wished to control the press, and that this stymied intellectual endeavor. Why would someone embark on a quest for knowledge if they could not share their findings? While “unbounded free inquiry upon all kinds of subjects” might bring some inconvenience, its restraint was infinitely worse.Footnote 54 In a 1785 sermon, he explained himself even more clearly. Just as free inquiry in natural science uncovered the truths of the universe, so too could it unearth truths in the realms of morality, religion, history, and politics. The science of man required unlimited freedom of inquiry: anyone who assumed that all such truths had been discovered—whether churchman or Dissenter—was in danger of attaching themselves to a system blindly, a position which eventually hardened into bigotry. Moreover, free inquiry was part of the providential plan—it was through the continual exercise and discipline of the understanding that new knowledge was acquired, and the perfection of reason was revealed.
Importantly, Priestley saw nothing to fear from this. Those critics who denounced free inquiry because it threatened Christianity were confused: if such inquiries ultimately showed this religion to be false, that would be no cause for concern, because it was only as truth that Christianity had any appeal in the first place. As it happened, Priestley confidently claimed, no serious believer doubted its truth. Furthermore, the diversity of opinion created by free inquiry was not in itself an endpoint to be feared: he was not defending pluralism for its own sake. Instead, it was only a “temporary inconvenience”—this was the only way at arriving at the ultimate goal of “a permanent and useful uniformity.” Any field of knowledge emerged stronger from being exposed to scrutiny, and truth would eventually be revealed by such challenges. “By promoting discussion, therefore, we really accelerate this progress, and are bringing forward the period of uniformity; while those who are the enemies of free inquiry, and who hate all controversy, are prolonging that state of suspense and diversity of opinion, which they so much dislike, and pushing back that very uniformity of opinion for which they sigh.” But to try to force such uniformity was “narrow and illiberal,” and, besides, ultimately unsuccessful. Hence Priestley's vision of a wide scope of toleration and conscience was a mechanism or “methodological principle” by which natural and moral truth could be uncovered.Footnote 55
The implications this had for “liberality” can be clarified by dwelling briefly on the role of a related concept within Dissent: candor. As one historian has remarked, this idea became “almost an idol” for Dissenters for whom it meant “open-mindedness” and “freedom from prejudice.”Footnote 56 Price and Priestley regularly invoked the idea—it was about integrity, a reasonable disposition, a belief that ideas should be subjected to reason, and that this was the only form of legitimate persuasion. It also increasingly meant a commitment to openly avowing the fruits of intellectual enquiry. Its closeness to “liberality” is evident in Johnson's definition: “sweetness of temper; purity of mind; openness; ingenuity; kindness.”Footnote 57 These concepts provided polite rules for scientific controversy—candor was a “quality of behaviour that mediates between people” and enables strangers to engage in civilized conversation about issues over which they might disagree.Footnote 58 Liberality was the way that a person should react to the candor of others. The closeness between the two—and the relationship of both to true religion—was nicely brought out by Robinson's “Essay on Candour and Liberality of Spirit” of 1784, which recommended “generosity of heart” towards those who did not share our sentiments. This was especially important in matters of religion—each person found a different way to God, and who was to say which was right? Toleration was essential: “The wisest and best way then is, to render the present life happy by agreeing where we can, and, where we cannot by agreeing, to differ.” This, he stressed, was not to be confused with simple indifference, which was by contrast a “specious pretence of liberality of sentiment.” Robinson's point was to show how a man of liberal sentiments was truly the religious man—like Christ he was generous and tolerant to those who disagreed with him. This was in sharp contrast to the “bigots” who adopted a continual tone of “censure, slander, and persecution” toward their intellectual opponents. Christianity did not require any support from such “illiberality.”Footnote 59 This toleration—even embrace—of diversity which marked “liberality of sentiment” was an integral aspect of the religious and scientific culture of Dissenters, and did much to shape the way they approached the broader language associated with the “liberal mind.”
Richard Price, for instance, was keenly interested in the experiment of separating religion from politics in the new United States of America. He lamented the continual intervention of the state in Europe in “matters of speculation,” and hoped that “such fetters on reason” would not be established in America. “In this respect the governments of the United States are liberal to a degree unparalleled.” The constitutions established by the new states were “liberal beyond all example,” but they could have been even “MORE liberal” if religious freedom had been extended even beyond Christianity.Footnote 60 A few years later he noted that toleration was spreading fast, and so it was the task of the “enlightened part of mankind” to keep open the channels of free communication by ensuring that the religious and political establishment did not overawe them. He looked forward to the impending downfall of all religious hierarchies and believed that the “liberality of the times has already loosened their foundations.” However much ignorance and intolerance might clamor, the “liberal temper of the times must overpower them.” Ultimately the increase in knowledge of the world—natural and moral—was bringing more “enlarged views and liberal sentiments” in matters of religion.Footnote 61
These assumptions were not just restricted to advanced Dissenters like Price and Priestley. The movement to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts which developed during the late 1780s was steeped in similar language. In 1787 the Dissenting Deputies issued An Appeal to the Candor, Magnanimity, and Justice of those in Power which stated their case that toleration should not be seen as a favor, but as a right—indeed the word itself should no longer be used for it was self-evident that there should be no legal penalties inflicted on citizens because of their religious opinions. It invoked the example of France: there “all the enlightened sentiments of refined liberality” were starting to be felt, and since England prided itself on being more “illumined” than the rest of mankind, it ought also to be “just and liberal.” Surely it would not wish to lose its status as an “enlightened nation” or be accused of lacking “judgment and liberality”?Footnote 62 A few weeks later these arguments were set out more fully in another pamphlet which made abundant use of “liberal” language. Again, it played on the fear of failing in the race of international progressivism: the nation was losing out to countries “more liberal than us.” The age of persecution was over, and legislation must keep up with “the enlightened and liberal spirit of the times.” Unsurprisingly, Dissenters themselves claimed a good deal of credit for such progress: they had helped “liberalize” even the established church, because their institutions, “being formed in a more enlightened age, are more liberal.”Footnote 63 Such assumptions, couched in such language, were widespread.
The French Revolution entrenched this language further. Initially it was characterized as a stepping-stone on the path to liberality, but even once this belief was abandoned, the wider attachment to “liberal principles” persisted. Charles Stanhope, Benjamin Bousfield, and James Mackintosh all commended the National Assembly for being “liberal,” and Helen Maria Williams saw “liberal opinions of philosophy, liberty, and truth” bursting forth like leaves in spring, and looked forward to a time when all the nations of Europe would follow “the liberal system which France has adopted.”Footnote 64 In all these cases, reformers were simply commending France for its embrace of the spirit of liberality, and for being generous, free, and frank in its proceedings. As the 1790s developed—even as the Revolution soured, and repression accelerated—reformers continued to endorse “liberal principles” and “liberal opinions.” These phrases were essentially a shorthand for civil and religious liberty, and they did not point to any specific measures. The Monthly Review in 1792 noted that it had been accused of the “sin” of holding “latitudinarian or liberal principles,” while in 1796 the Monthly Magazine committed itself to “the propagation of those liberal principles respecting some of the most important concerns of mankind” which other periodicals and publications had abandoned.Footnote 65 The most common use of “liberal” was now in the context of free inquiry. Thomas Paine noted that the Reformation had ushered in the revival of the sciences and with it “liberality, their natural associate,” also appeared. John Thelwall believed that the encouragement of “free and liberal enquiry” was the basis of improvement, and even conceded that pre-Revolutionary France had something “liberal” about it because of the diffusion of knowledge, cultivation of science, and improvement of literature.Footnote 66 Hence, while “liberal” language saturated reformed publications, the word was used adjectivally to commend viewpoints: it did not denote what would now be called an ideology but rather a broader mind-set.
This is borne out when considering two of the more substantial discussions of liberality in this period, those by John Aikin in 1793 and William Burdon in 1801. Aikin, a central literary figure of the decade, was a fervent supporter of the rights of Dissenters, and commended them for their spirit of free inquiry. He argued that this “very essence” of their nature had enabled them to become “the Philosophers of the Christian Religion.”Footnote 67 In his Letters from a Father to his Son, he explored the interrelated themes of “prejudice, bigotry, candour, and liberality.” Bigotry, he explained, was a form of unreasoning prejudice combined with malignity, while candor, by contrast, was a “disposition to form a fair and impartial judgment on opinions and actions.” In the case of liberality, while it appeared at times to have an “indeterminate” meaning, it referred to “that generous expansion of mind which enables it to look beyond all petty distinctions of party and system, and in the estimate of men and things, to rise superior to narrow prejudices.” The stress here on disdain for all forms of narrow attachment is striking, and fits also with the cosmopolitanism that Aikin praised. “The liberal man . . . is fond of largely extending the relation of fellow-citizenship, and loves to admit all mankind to a fraternal share of the regard of their common Parent.” As with Robinson, Aikin insisted that this stance should not be confused with being indifferent to principles, although he understood why approaching a subject with a “liberal spirit” might appear so to some observers. In any event, the important contrast was with those bigots—he largely had intolerant churchmen in mind—who could not recognize that in allotting “different portions of light and knowledge” to mankind, God “has certainly not expected from them uniformity of belief and practice.”Footnote 68 Once again, as with Priestley and Robinson, the spirit of free inquiry and liberality of sentiment was central to the search for truth.
Burdon was a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge until 1796, and familiar with the works of Robinson, Aikin, Priestley and especially Godwin. He, too, was an enthusiastic defender of the right of private judgment.Footnote 69 The first essay in Materials for Thinking—which went through five editions between 1801 and 1820—focused on “Liberality of Sentiment.” The argument was a bold defense of intellectual independence: freedom of opinion was justified on its own terms, and also because of the consequences that flowed from it. Since no one could force others to be convinced it seemed pointless to try, whether by violence and punishment, or even through the subtler influences of authority, wealth, and the passions. He asked, “Why should any man dislike another merely because he thinks differently from him.” In his relations with others “the liberal man” could advise but never dictate, because he respected their judgment even when he strongly disagreed with them. What made someone liberal was not what “we think or believe, but what we think of others.” Again, as with Aikin and Robinson, this was not to be confused with indifference—true liberality of sentiment was a principled exercise of reason which was not unduly swayed by the partial sentiments of others. The liberal man “will never be a party man,” nor will he allow his opinions to be biased by local or national attachments; indeed, an excessive love of country was deeply offensive. By contrast, illiberality of sentiment was driven by all the vicious passions of the self: ambition, envy, pride, malice, hatred, jealousy, revenge, and avarice. As with Priestley, Burdon argued that liberality did not hinder but helped the ultimate progress of truth, which was uniform and consistent. But it could not be directed by force. Indeed, while in important matters similarity of opinion was ultimately desirable, in other matters diversity was a positive good. Burdon argued that liberality was crucial because it “softens all the harshness arising from difference of opinion” and enables “the Jew, the Christian, and the Infidel” to live in peace with each other. It would bring great benefits if it were extended to all aspects of religion and politics. Hence the liberality which leaves “every man to think and act as he pleases, is the best remedy for difference of opinion, and the surest promoter of harmony among all parties.”Footnote 70
The significance of Burdon's essay is not that its ideas were radically new, for they were part and parcel of the advanced wing of Dissent. Rather, it is the way that the language of liberality was being attached to them. Whereas liberality had once meant almost solely the largesse that could be offered to the poor, now it also referred to a domain of questions about the rights of the conscience, the pursuit of truth, and the extensive toleration needed in order to hold together the plurality of views that resulted. Of course, these ideas existed—and were debated—without necessarily requiring use of “liberal” language.Footnote 71 What is being charted is the way a word with certain earlier conceptual associations began—admittedly in some circles more than others—to acquire new connotations about debate and discussion. “Liberal opinions” were not yet linked to specific positions on what would come to be a “political spectrum”—a wide variety of moderates, reformers, and radicals could happily endorse “liberal opinions” without providing much specificity about what they were committed to. Similarly, liberality was not so much a set idea as a willingness to consider all opinions on their merits wherever they came from, and wherever they might lead. In that respect the “liberal man” could not easily be a partisan for any creed, country, or group. And it was in this respect that “liberality” would start to become suspect in the 1790s.
CRITICIZING “LIBERALITY”
The language of liberality was a strongly positive language. In both classical and religious literature, it was clearly a virtue. Even as the terminology evolved in the 1770s and 1780s, the idea of having a “liberal mind” was deeply and widely shared—it was linked both to older, gentlemanly associations, and to newer, enlightened convictions. In other words, it would have been very hard for anyone to attack someone for being “liberal.” Nevertheless, changes towards progressive language do start to become evident in the 1790s. In the case of “reform,” Innes has shown how its opponents tried to link it to the more suspect terminology of “innovation” and spoke of “pretended reform,” causing advocates of reform to devise strategies to resist this—some defined parliamentary reform in restorative terms, and many articulated a distinction between “radical” and “moderate” reform.Footnote 72 The term “liberal” also came under sustained scrutiny. Unsurprisingly, it has been suggested that Burke's reaction to the French Revolution marks the beginning of that process.Footnote 73 In fact, this is misleading in two ways. First, Burke's aversion to liberal language is inconclusive. Even in the Reflections he praised the “idea of a liberal descent” as part of the spirit of freedom, the need for assemblies to be composed of propertied men who can “enlarge and liberalize the understanding,” and criticized the French because “their liberty is not liberal.” There was, however, a striking footnote which did register some emerging unease about the associations of this language. An English Dissenter who happened to be in Paris had written to Price about how the French had abolished the “proud distinctions” between king and nobles, and that he was everywhere hearing ideas that resembled “the most enlightened and liberal amongst the English.” Burke commented that the statement was not true of England as a whole, but that if it was meant to confine “the terms enlightened and liberal to one set of men”—meaning Dissenters—then perhaps it was. Elsewhere, he noted in passing that “four technical terms” had become a sort of incantation: “Philosophy, Light, Liberality, the Rights of Men.”Footnote 74 Here Burke had a sense that liberality was becoming a radical slogan, but this suggestion was not followed up and his subsequent publications give little sense of further concern about the language of liberality.
The second way in which this argument is misleading is that it tends to encourage focus on the reaction to the Revolution, whereas in fact—as Burke's concern with Dissenters suggests—we need to look closer to home to detect the beginnings of a shift in usage. While the Revolution did become a factor from the mid-1790s, it was the obsession with Dissent and reform that was to be key even to that. Earlier, however, warning signs were evident in the writings of High Churchmen irked by the campaign to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. Samuel Horsley, Bishop of St Davids, noted in 1789 that there was much talk of “the freedom and liberality of thinking and enquiry,” and, the following year, criticized Anglican clerics who aped the criticisms of authority made by Dissenters because they were “ambitious of the fame of Liberality of sentiment (for under that specious name, a profane indifference is made to pass for an accomplishment).”Footnote 75 George Horne, Bishop of Norwich, had in 1786 shown the way that opponents of the Trinity adopted the epithets “LIBERAL” and “RATIONAL,” and in 1790 he opposed the renewal of the repeal campaign, commenting that the Revolution had been added as “a reinforcement of reasons for laying all things open” and that opponents were reproached with “falling so far short of the liberality of sentiment displayed in that kingdom.”Footnote 76 Such comments reveal the close connection between liberality and Dissent, and the attempt, on the part of High Church critics, to use the Revolution to discredit both.
But it was not just Anglicans who were concerned about this language. Andrew Fuller was an orthodox Baptist minister and, from 1792, secretary to the newly formed Baptist Missionary Society. While opposed to “hyper-Calvinism,” his polemical writings were fixated with rooting out Unitarian heterodoxy and Painite infidelity. In The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems Compared, he argued that most Dissenters were sound Trinitarians, but that Socinianism was inflaming animosity to Dissent as a whole. It so elevated the “social virtues” that duty to God seemed to fall by the wayside. “Under the specious name of liberality of sentiment they dispense with that part of the will of God which requires every thought to be in subjection to the obedience of Christ; and under those of candor and charity excuse those who fall under the divine censure.” Much of what passed for candor and benevolence was simply indifference to all religion, and he feared that increasingly “what has been called a liberality of mind” was an excuse to ignore the growth of deism and infidelity. Indeed, preempting what would become a familiar theme among critics, he thought that beguiling phrases such as “liberality, candor and charity” were disguises by which irreligion preyed on men of speculative minds, and flattered their worldly pride. While Priestley—the chief target—might claim that unbelief would disappear as truth progressed, Fuller countered that a general disregard for religion always paved the way for deism. Instead, one should be able boldly—but fairly and generously—to expose error when one found it without being accused of bigotry.Footnote 77
Up to the mid-1790s, then, there were increasing signs of concern about the growing appeal to liberality. Critics tended to believe it was closely linked to advanced Dissent, and worried that its extreme toleration encouraged religious indifference and threatened the ultimate triumph of irreligion. At this point, however, the terms of the debate were narrowly confined to religious discourse—but a change started to become evident from the middle of the decade as part of the “anti-Jacobin” reaction. There was a growing sense that a sect of “modern philosophers”—led by Godwin—were united in trying to tear down the whole moral, social, and political fabric. The author of the Pursuits of Literature described the Enquiry Concerning Political Justice as “the great code of improved modern ethics, morality and legislation,” which in its cold-blooded dismissal of all honorable feelings was typical of “the new sect.”Footnote 78 This characterization made it possible to roll together a wide variety of intellectuals into a single school. This was given an enormous boost with the development of the idea of “Jacobin conspiracy.” The Abbé Barruel's Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism was translated into English in 1797 and 1798, and other works of the same years—such as John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe and William Playfair's History of Jacobinism—contributed to the paranoia.Footnote 79 No doubt this was amplified further by the financial panics, domestic unrest, and invasion scares of these years. The main point taken from these works was that what had happened in France could happen in Britain, and that infidel ideology was the common cause. As The Pursuits of Literature put it, Barruel had shown that “LITERATURE has the power to kill” especially when conducted by “an exterminating philosophy.”Footnote 80 The British Critic, similarly, thought it “blindness and stupidity” to continue to ignore the enemies of all religion and all government.Footnote 81 In such a febrile environment the rights of the conscience were bound to look suspect. Burdon went to the heart of the matter when he insisted that the aim of the author of The Pursuits of Literature was to “destroy the right of private judgment” and to “prevent the propagation of religious enquiry” by boosting the powers of church and state—“such is his liberality.”Footnote 82
The Anti-Jacobin was established in the immediate wake of reviews of Barruel's volumes, and appeared in weekly instalments from November 1797 to July 1798. Its stated aim was to prevent Britain from following the calamitous path of France. It disdained the “wild” and “unshackled” freedom of thought which rejected habit, wisdom, and restraint in favor of judging everything by its own light. That liberality and candor were an integral part of the problem is clear from this confession: “that we have not so far gotten the better of the influence of long habits and early education, not so far imbibed that spirit of liberal indifference, of diffused and comprehensive philanthropy, which distinguishes the candid character of the present age.” The ironic tone signaled that the author was casting himself as a lone prophet, warning against the prevailing culture. The danger of liberality now was not just religious but also national indifference. “It may be thought a narrow and illiberal distinction—but We avow ourselves to be partial to the COUNTRY in which we live . . . We are prejudiced in favour of her Establishments, civil and religious.” The aim of the “new and liberal system of ETHICS” was to loosen the social order and to unravel the reciprocal ties and bonds that held it together by proposing the supremacy of the rights of “unconnected” individuals.Footnote 83 Here, “liberal” language was now being connected to the radical social and political ideology of the Revolution. Under the name of “Jacobinism” this ideology was contemptuous of all religious orthodoxy, and used the idea of free inquiry to smuggle in theories which would bring about the end of the existing order.
Over the following months these arguments were frequently restated, and a series of binary opposites elaborated—the chief of which was “religion” versus “philosophy.” While there were some positive uses of “liberality”—the “liberality and patriotism” of English soldiers—the enduring feeling was that the terminology had now become contestable.Footnote 84 The paper wrote of “Republican Liberality,” and contrasted the slogans of philosophy, equality, and liberality with freedom, happiness, dignity, peace, and honor.Footnote 85 Many of these slogans were the subject of the well-known poem by George Canning which singled out philanthropy, sensibility, justice, and, interestingly, candor. “Much may be said on both sides”—it is the voice of candor, a “drivelling Virtue” which softened our commitments and attachments because it was “Convinc'd that all men's motives are the same” and that “Black no so black; nor WHITE so very white.” Canning preferred
. . . the manly Foe
Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow
But of all plagues, good Heav'n, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid's Friend! Footnote 86
Candor was weak and vacillating when compared with the strength of fixed principles. While Canning did not mention liberality, this attack on candor was directed at the same target—the idea that a sincere search for truth required listening carefully to opponents was in reality little more than a disguise for indifference and a precursor for infidelity.
One author not at all reticent in attacking liberality was John Bowles. A contributor to the Anti-Jacobin, he had been a fervent loyalist pamphleteer and hardline opponent of France throughout the decade.Footnote 87 He was also particularly concerned about moral and religious degeneration, but while he persistently denounced this it was only from early 1797 that he linked it to “liberal” language.Footnote 88 Writing in March he warned that letting the Whigs into office would unleash licentious manners and profligate passions. The public needed to be roused from its docility, the cause of which was “a false and mistaken liberality, the spawn of the frivolous philosophy of the age, which renders us unwilling to impose the least restraint upon the language and actions of men.”Footnote 89 In the guise of “Cato” he developed these themes in the Anti-Jacobin. Noting a recent speech by Sheridan which had commended the “increased amiability” and “conciliating” feelings of the times, Bowles instead argued that it was a period of infidelity and profligacy, caused by indifference and selfishness. This in turn was partially caused by a long period of prosperity and luxury which had eased the need for exertion and vigor, and set the stage for the Jacobinism which was now insinuating itself into national life under the names of philosophy, philanthropy, and freedom. The well-disposed must waken themselves and recognize that an “absurd and ruinous affectation of liberality” should not replace “manly decision and energy.” “Then let us hear no more,” he pleaded, “at such a time, of amiability and gentleness—of candour, liberality, and moderation—of conciliating, mild, and generous feelings. Such qualities are now not virtues, but vices. They tend only to stifle energy, to frustrate exertion, and to accelerate ruin.”Footnote 90 Here, for the first time, was a clear and bold statement that liberality was a negative force—what had once been acclaimed as a virtue was in reality a vice.
These anti-Jacobin anxieties were to continue long after the weekly paper ceased publication. A new periodical—the Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine—was founded in 1798 to continue the exposure, joining the British Critic and the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine as the voices of religious and political orthodoxy. Bowles himself continued to reiterate and amplify these thoughts in various pamphlets.Footnote 91 He was also instrumental in founding the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1802 as an agent of the “vigour” for which he clamored.Footnote 92 A new generation of High Churchmen also joined the attack. Charles Daubeny's Guide to the Church was first published in 1798, and bemoaned the “general indifference for all religious opinions” that passed under the name of “liberality of sentiment.” In the 1804 edition he commented on the falsely named “present liberal mode of thinking,” noted that the desire of not giving offence was a “misnomer” called liberality, and again attacked “liberality of sentiment” as typical of “this enlightened age.”Footnote 93 Similarly, William Van Mildert, future Bishop of Durham, was so inspired by the writings of Barruel and Robison that he devoted his Boyle lectures to attacking rational Christians, as well as Paine and Godwin, for assisting the rise of Jacobinism, and to exposing “liberality of sentiment and freedom of religious opinion” as false and fashionable ideas.Footnote 94
The attack on liberality was not confined to such isolated publications. The British Critic, and especially the Anti-Jacobin Review, hammered the point home month after month such that it became a virtual article of faith among the clerical classes. The seriousness they attached to this concept was signaled very early on. The Monthly Review had praised the translations of biblical texts by the Roman Catholic scholar Alexander Geddes as something to be hailed “by every liberal advocate for Revealed Religion: for the age of enlightened criticism is at hand.”Footnote 95 The Anti-Jacobin Review angrily responded that “the epithet liberal is frequently misapplied.” While liberality in its true form was an estimable quality, the “pioneers of sedition” were deliberately corrupting language by describing ideas hostile to church and state as “liberal.” This was nothing new: the reviewer referred to Cato's speech from Sallust's Catiline Conspiracy which argued that the degeneracy of language always preceded the ruin of a state, and which had cited abuse of terms such as liberality and moderation as instances of this. In the same way, the reviewer continued, the modern enemies of politics and religion were degrading honorable qualities into “cant terms”:
This process which begins with daubing out some vice in false colours, terminates in discountenancing that virtue, the name of which is so abused. For when a virtue has only a polluted name to be called by, one of its attractions, and that of no little general power, becomes negative; and all that many of the best men dare to do, is, to exercise it timidly and by stealth.Footnote 96
This was a classic instance of the form of rhetoric known as paradiastole, and the Anti-Jacobin Review took every available opportunity to expose the innovative meanings given to terms such as “liberality” and “moderation” in an effort to restore to them their original senses.Footnote 97
One strategy was simply to highlight these new meanings, as in a sermon which dwelt on the differences between “genuine” and “spurious” liberality. The former was loved by all, and its proper exercise was the cause of many blessings, but “when under the plea of candor and liberality” license was demanded to spread subversive principles, to attack pure religion, and to encourage conspiracies, and all this was to be “tolerated without control under pretence of liberality,” then it was high time to expose it for what it was.Footnote 98 Another strategy was satire. At the end of 1803 the Anti-Jacobin Review published a short essay called “A modest proposal for conciliation of all parties, political, moral, and religious, on the broad basis of liberality of sentiment.”Footnote 99 This proposed that in these enlightened times establishing liberality of sentiment was the perfect solution to political and religious strife. Not, however, the “almost exploded” notion of Christian charity which sought unanimity through inculcating true principles, but instead the idea of “banishing . . . all invidious distinctions arising from principles of whatever kind.” The problem was that people had convictions—that adultery was wrong, that monarchy was right, and so on—but if instead they abandoned them, then everyone could live happily together. If “moderation and candour” were given free reign, it would soon be realized that “nothing is so amiable or praise-worthy as to leave every man in the unmolested possession of his opinions, and to suffer him to act upon them, without any restraint, whatever may be their tendency!”Footnote 100 Ironically, this was largely a restatement of Burdon's very arguments, but the Anti-Jacobin Review felt that they were almost sufficiently parodic on their own terms.
Many more examples could be given—again and again it was stressed that a new meaning had been given to “liberality.” To distinguish this from its traditional and laudable counterpart, adjectives were attached to it—“specious,” “false,” “canting,” “pretended,” “supposed,” “modern,” and so on. Often the words were italicized for ironic effect: “the liberal Christian,” “liberal-minded Professors,” “liberal-minded divines” and so on.Footnote 101 These writers also tended to draw attention, again ironically, to “these most enlightened days”: they spoke of “new-fangled creeds of liberality,” “the ‘age’ of unbounded liberality,” “that magic phrase liberality of mind,” the “distemper” of “false liberality,” and many other variations.Footnote 102 At times, those who were identified as proponents of this new philosophy were described as a group. The “liberalists . . . like modern philanthropists, are confined to no country,” stated the Anti-Jacobin Review, which craved pardon for coining a new word when it denounced the “modern science of liberalism.”Footnote 103 The writer here was being playfully neologistic, and there is no sense that this very early use of “liberalism” gained traction. The important point is that the Review felt a need for such nouns—they provided convenient labels under which to subsume a whole range of actually rather different antagonists from militant infidels to rational Dissenters to cautious latitudinarians.
This concern about the growth of liberality also shaped the more practical controversies that bothered the “anti-Jacobins.” The “liberal” writers at the Monthly Review were lambasted for their “illiberal” attack on Lord Redesdale's Thoughts on the Catholic Question—a work which defended the constitution while they, “under the mask of liberality,” were trying to subvert it. Similarly, those who congratulated Henry Grattan for his moderation and liberality were criticized, and told to stand up for “right principles,” stated on “true and solid grounds,” and expressed in “firm, manly, and decisive language.”Footnote 104 Unsurprisingly, the education of the poor was a particularly contentious issue, with advocates of ecumenism accused of peddling “mistaken notions of liberality.”Footnote 105 Bowles was hostile to Whitbread's proposed reforms in 1807, again complaining about the corrupted state of morals in “this liberal age.”Footnote 106 With the formation of the Royal Lancastrian Society in 1810, orthodox critics went into overdrive. The Anti-Jacobin Review mocked its exclusion of religious creeds: “Such is the liberality of the age, that it is deemed insolent and illiberal to enquire into a man's religious principles and moral conduct.”Footnote 107 Herbert Marsh campaigned actively to ensure that the national religion was central to any system of education, and complained about the seductive power of an “apparent liberality” that was deluding the people into a belief that teaching Anglicanism was unnecessary.Footnote 108 The Anti-Jacobin Review was incensed that politicians were not doing enough to support the establishment because they were actuated by the “dangerous spirit of liberality.” In former times, the author went on, our ancestors boldly and openly defended the principles they believed in—“There was no metaphysical refinement in those days; truth was the standard round which churchmen rallied; the bastard liberality was then unborn.”Footnote 109 What these orthodox critics particularly disliked was how extensive the vogue for liberality had become—“the liberal philanthropists and free-thinkers,” they believed, were increasingly shaping the terms of debate and the outcome of legislation. The fate of Sidmouth's bill to restrict itinerancy in 1811 was an indication of the latter, while the altered meaning of toleration suggested the former. Anyone who now defended the established order risked being tarred with the abusive terminology of bigotry, intolerance, and persecution.Footnote 110
* * *
In many respects the anti-Jacobins were right—the appeal to the language of liberality was widespread at the opening of the nineteenth century. This was very evident in Dissenting publications such as the Monthly Review and the Critical Review, and helps explain why Dissenters have frequently been described as “liberals” even though it was only from the 1820s that the word began to be used as a noun. But this language was not restricted to them—the Whig Edinburgh Review endorsed “liberal opinions” and “liberal views,” and even the Tory Quarterly Review seemed unperturbed by these terms. In other words, appeals to “liberal sentiments” remained widespread and common at the start of the nineteenth century, although as yet the phrase remained frustratingly vague—it had no stipulative definition. The exception to this widespread endorsement was the orthodox religious press, and even within this sphere it was largely High Churchmen who were hypersensitive. The fact that they could not yet rouse wider opposition to this language did not prevent them from trying, and there was no cessation of their attacks on the “modern school of liberality.” Even as new sects of “liberals” were emerging in Spain and France in the 1810s, the anti-Jacobins continued the task of exposing the “liberalists” in Britain who they believed had come to prominence in the 1780s and 1790s.
How do word histories help us to understand the broader history of liberalism? One advantage is that they force the historian to attend to the terminology used by historical actors. While this is hardly a new insight in the history of ideas, nevertheless liberalism has perhaps attracted more than its fair share of anachronistic histories, where the concerns of contemporaries are shuffled aside in favor of tracing traditions and concepts more congenial to the present. The recent excavations of “reform,” “democracy,” and “aristocracy” in this period show the immense value of listening carefully to what was said, and the same is true of “liberality.”Footnote 111 In the case of Britain, it has been argued that this language was being politicized domestically even before the arrival of new meanings from Europe in the 1820s, and that this occurred because of its evolution between the 1760s and 1780s from an older—and largely apolitical—concern with monetary generosity into an insistence that a tolerant mind was open to “liberal opinions” and “liberal sentiments.” The politicization occurred because this language was eagerly propounded by Dissenters who proselytized for the right of private judgment, and were unconcerned by the inevitable pluralism this threw up. All this became deeply suspect as the intellectual fallout of the French Revolution became apparent, and it also helps explain the intimate association between liberal terminology and questions of religion, truth, and toleration.
In addition, word histories may also contribute to comparative understanding. This has been an important area of growth in recent intellectual history: the pleas for global and international “turns” help to move the subject away from traditional fixations with the nation-state and to show how ideas traveled across, and were transformed by, transnational exchange.Footnote 112 The recent efflorescence of interest in the relationship between liberalism and empire has been a striking instance of this, although these studies have not tended to concern themselves with liberal language in the manner explored here.Footnote 113 But what about exchange across rather than within linguistic barriers? Certainly, Britain was by no means intellectually closed in this period—newspapers and periodicals reported extensively on developments across the Channel and, similarly, travelers to Britain were keenly interested in what they observed.Footnote 114 The scope for word histories is amply borne out in an ongoing comparative project on the development of “democracy” led by Joanna Innes and Mark Philp. They chart the changing references of the term, but they also situate it within appropriate institutional contexts. This means recognizing both when there was a “shared democratic heritage” across the European world, and “that there can be no one history of the re-imagining of democracy . . . such a history must take the form of a series of adjacent (though interconnecting) local histories.”Footnote 115 This may mean that different national and even provincial cultures generated their own peculiarities. Philp has criticized the “linguistic turn” for decoupling the meanings of terms from their local sites of performance, suggesting that while there certainly needs to be investigation of discursive interaction and exchange beyond the nation-state, this should not preclude recognition of the situated creation of meanings beneath it.Footnote 116 Jonathan Sperber, for instance, has argued that Britain and continental Europe—at least before 1830—inhabited “two quite different political universes” when it came to reform.Footnote 117 The chief socioeconomic ambition on the Continent was the emancipation of agriculture, and politically the focus was on abolishing the rights and privileges of the ancien régime and eventually—so “liberals” and “constitutionalists” hoped—establishing some form of parliamentary representation. This had all largely been achieved in Britain—indeed, in the latter case, the agenda had moved on to making Parliament much more representative. Unlike “reform” and “democracy,” however, there has as yet been comparatively little attention to the wider discursive development of “liberal” language, so we do not know whether its use in Britain was typical or not. In any case, by the time Napoleon was defeated, even though the language of “liberalism” had not yet been articulated, the language of “liberality” was widely understood and provided the lens through which it would be read.
