The Greek city had fallen through its intense individualism. Roman citizenship failed because it became universal. It lost the power to create a common character and to command a common allegiance. Something was needed which should be less narrow than the city-state, and less wide than a world-empire, before the modern conception of citizenship could be realized.
In the city politics of Mediaeval Italy we find revived in a new form the Greek idea of citizenship. There is the same intense activity within a limited area, the same intimate participation in civic duties and privileges, the same pride in the material and spiritual development of the city itself. But faction, the ruin of the cities of Greece, is rife in the Italian, and here it is animated by a bitterness if possible more personal and more intense. You have only to read the burning words of Dante to see to what depths the civic spirit might descend.
“Ah, servile Italy, thou home of sorrow, Ship with no pilot in a mighty storm, Thy lordship narrowed to a house of shame.”*
And, in bitter irony, of his own city of Florence,-
“Ay make thee glad, thou hast good reason why,-
So rich, so peaceful and so wise withal !
How many times within thy memory
Laws, coinage, customs, office, hast thou changed,
And all thy members many times renewed.”
But other and ampler ideas of citizenship were in the air. The Roman Empire had left to the world the idea of a wider and a juster rule, and the Christian theory of a universal citizenship, though it was but parodied in the secularized Church of the Papacy, had enlarged and ennobled men's views of the possibilities of political life. And so in the minds of some of the noblest men of the time the thought of the Holy Roman Empire comes in to correct and purify the perverted and corrupted forms of civic life. Throughout the "Divina Commedia" of Dante, and more explicitly in his "De Monarchia," is expressed the belief in an universal kingdom to which all the states of Europe are to be subject and in which divided Italy is to find unity and peace. From our point of view this stage of civic is interesting, because it is the last appearance in history of the city-state. It has enriched our world with great masterpieces of literature and art, but in its strength and in its weakness it belongs to older world: the nation-states of Europe had come into being and the city-states could not survive beside them; for the Holy Roman Empire, though it continued for much and kept alive in Europe the idea of order and civil relations among states, never fulfilled the promise of Dante's dream.
We must come nearer home to see the idea of citizenship take a fresh development in the "nation-state." For centuries England was a divided polity. The period of warring kingdoms, the period of feudalism, had to pass away before the English conception of citizenship could grow to its fulness. It is no accident that the age of our greatest poet is the age, also, in which the nation first becomes fully conscious of itself, and the unity of citizenship is felt as a real and national bond, a source of pride to every Englishman, claiming his allegiance and devotion. The historical plays of Shakespeare are not history, but they record once for all the idea of the free English people, now at last finding its full expression in a formed and definite national character, and resting on the possession of a compact and independent territory. England stands clear and aloof from the claims of Pope and Emperor which distract the continent. and seeks abroad new outlets for its young and lusty vigor in distant
exploration and adventure. The gates of a new world are opened, and the strong sense of national life finds expression in the creations of the dramatist, just as the newly wakened hopes of human knowledge find their prophet in the philosopher-statesman who tried to lead his fellow-countrymen by a new way into the promised land of universal science.
The nation has come into being, and the citizenship which we recognize is no longer the share in one city, no longer, even, as in the Roman Empire, the passive participation in a world-wide polity, but a free and active share in political as well as in personal rights and duties. The Englishman, like the Roman of the Empire, is a member of a smaller as well as of a wider society; he has ties which bind him to town and parish, as well as to king and Parliament. So far they are alike; but his share in the larger polity, unlike that of the Roman, is coming to be exercised in a political as well as in a social sense. He is an active member of the body politic, with a true share in the government of his country, as well as in the pride and privilege and opportunity which his citizenship afford him. How is this possible? The answer is this, and it marks the new stage of political development: Representation has given a new character and new possibilities to national life. Imperial and municipal claims can now be reconciled in a real sense. The possession of civil rights was still, no doubt, limited, and a long period of struggle between King and Parliament ensued before the English citizen entered fully into his inheritance, before the idea of self-government was fully embodied in the supremacy of a representative Parliament. Side by side with this internal and constitutional development, there went on a more or less continuous expansion without, which has given some of its characteristic features to our nation as we know it to-day. With the growth of our foreign possessions we have entered into a new and wider world, in which we have not yet fully realized the duties and responsibilities which our citizenship carries with it, any more than we have yet fully adapted our organs of government to new conditions. Like the Englishman of Shakespeare's day, we have still laid upon us the double claim of local and national ties; but our membership in the nation of which we form a part has received a vastly wider range, and the growth of our state has been so rapid and so extensive that we have not yet had time or patience to adjust our old ideas to the new place we are called upon to fill. What ideal of citizenship are we going to maintain in this new world? On the answer to this, as made by the country at large, the future of England will in the main depend. How far is it possible to adapt what is best in the old-world notions of citizenship to new society and to the conflicting claims which makes upon us? For us surely, as for the Athenians whom Demosthenes addressed, there is no better rule than to frame our conduct by the pattern of what is noblest in the past, and to live up to our inheritance. Let us look back for a moment over the ground we have traversed.
In Greece we have seen the free development of the individual citizen controlled by the idea of personal service. In the Roman Empire we have traced, along with the reconciliation of local and imperial and imperial government, an ideal of universal law and order as the privilege of all citizens and the guardian of civilized life for them and for their subjects. Mediaeval Italy has shown us the intense city-life of the Greek, with a difference. Citizenship is still restricted, but free labor and wide commerce have broadened its foundations, and the ideas of the Church and the Empire have enlarged its range of vision. Finally, in Shakespeare’s England we are confronted by the eager spirit of a young nation beginning to make free use in every sphere of the gifts of enterprise and government which it has come to recognize as its own. In what relation do we stand ourselves to these ideas and principles of the past ?
We are no longer, like the Greek, exercising civic rights within the narrow compass of a single city, supported by a slave population without rights and without opportunity. We are like the Roman, in that our citizenship finds its field in a wide range of empire; but our individual responsibility is intensified far beyond his, because we are all, in a sense, through the Parliament and Ministry which represent us, members of the governing body in whose hands lie the guidance and control of our world-wide interests and duties. Like the citizens of Florence or Venice, we have each of us his own city or country-side to think of and to live for, but our interest in them is distracted by considerations of a far wider scope than ever Venice dreamt of when she still held “ the gorgeous East in fee. “ The glory of England as Shakespeare saw it is ours to keep and cherish, but the duty carries with it to-day a far more momentous issue, while its demands come upon us no longer with the vivid concentrated force of the old appeal. Our citizenship is diffused in more ways than one, for the population of our own island has enormously increased, while the larger England, in India and the Colonies, lays upon us obligations of sympathy and responsibility unequalled in the history of the world. Thus our duties have grown, while the very increase brings with it a danger that our personal sense of duty may diminish.
Can we face our responsibilities? Have the old ideas any value for us? Many of us, from the mere complexity of the situation, are disposed to set aside all such claims. We are inclined to regard our country as the most comfortable home, our colonies as the most obvious outlet for the unoccupied talents of our younger kinsfolk, our national honor and prestige as the natural accompaniment of our success and a creditable and convenient resource in foreign travel. We are ready to criticise with equal frankness our local and imperial authorities, our parish council, or the Ministry of the day, while for ourselves we quietly pursue our professions or devote ourselves to self-culture or to meeting the thousand and one demands of family and social life. To some of us, indeed, “ society “ has taken the place of the city and the state, and government and its ministers
The Greek city had fallen through its intense individualism. Roman citizenship failed because it became universal. It lost the power to create a common character and to command a common allegiance. Something was needed which should be less narrow than the city-state, and less wide than a world-empire, before the modern conception of citizenship could be realized.
In the city politics of Mediaeval Italy we find revived in a new form the Greek idea of citizenship. There is the same intense activity within a limited area, the same intimate participation in civic duties and privileges, the same pride in the material and spiritual development of the city itself. But faction, the ruin of the cities of Greece, is rife in the Italian, and here it is animated by a bitterness if possible more personal and more intense. You have only to read the burning words of Dante to see to what depths the civic spirit might descend.
“Ah, servile Italy, thou home of sorrow, Ship with no pilot in a mighty storm, Thy lordship narrowed to a house of shame.”*
And, in bitter irony, of his own city of Florence,-
“Ay make thee glad, thou hast good reason why,-
So rich, so peaceful and so wise withal !
How many times within thy memory
Laws, coinage, customs, office, hast thou changed,
And all thy members many times renewed.”
But other and ampler ideas of citizenship were in the air. The Roman Empire had left to the world the idea of a wider and a juster rule, and the Christian theory of a universal citizenship, though it was but parodied in the secularized Church of the Papacy, had enlarged and ennobled men's views of the possibilities of political life. And so in the minds of some of the noblest men of the time the thought of the Holy Roman Empire comes in to correct and purify the perverted and corrupted forms of civic life. Throughout the "Divina Commedia" of Dante, and more explicitly in his "De Monarchia," is expressed the belief in an universal kingdom to which all the states of Europe are to be subject and in which divided Italy is to find unity and peace. From our point of view this stage of civic is interesting, because it is the last appearance in history of the city-state. It has enriched our world with great masterpieces of literature and art, but in its strength and in its weakness it belongs to older world: the nation-states of Europe had come into being and the city-states could not survive beside them; for the Holy Roman Empire, though it continued for much and kept alive in Europe the idea of order and civil relations among states, never fulfilled the promise of Dante's dream.
We must come nearer home to see the idea of citizenship take a fresh development in the "nation-state." For centuries England was a divided polity. The period of warring kingdoms, the period of feudalism, had to pass away before the English conception of citizenship could grow to its fulness. It is no accident that the age of our greatest poet is the age, also, in which the nation first becomes fully conscious of itself, and the unity of citizenship is felt as a real and national bond, a source of pride to every Englishman, claiming his allegiance and devotion. The historical plays of Shakespeare are not history, but they record once for all the idea of the free English people, now at last finding its full expression in a formed and definite national character, and resting on the possession of a compact and independent territory. England stands clear and aloof from the claims of Pope and Emperor which distract the continent. and seeks abroad new outlets for its young and lusty vigor in distant
exploration and adventure. The gates of a new world are opened, and the strong sense of national life finds expression in the creations of the dramatist, just as the newly wakened hopes of human knowledge find their prophet in the philosopher-statesman who tried to lead his fellow-countrymen by a new way into the promised land of universal science.
The nation has come into being, and the citizenship which we recognize is no longer the share in one city, no longer, even, as in the Roman Empire, the passive participation in a world-wide polity, but a free and active share in political as well as in personal rights and duties. The Englishman, like the Roman of the Empire, is a member of a smaller as well as of a wider society; he has ties which bind him to town and parish, as well as to king and Parliament. So far they are alike; but his share in the larger polity, unlike that of the Roman, is coming to be exercised in a political as well as in a social sense. He is an active member of the body politic, with a true share in the government of his country, as well as in the pride and privilege and opportunity which his citizenship afford him. How is this possible? The answer is this, and it marks the new stage of political development: Representation has given a new character and new possibilities to national life. Imperial and municipal claims can now be reconciled in a real sense. The possession of civil rights was still, no doubt, limited, and a long period of struggle between King and Parliament ensued before the English citizen entered fully into his inheritance, before the idea of self-government was fully embodied in the supremacy of a representative Parliament. Side by side with this internal and constitutional development, there went on a more or less continuous expansion without, which has given some of its characteristic features to our nation as we know it to-day. With the growth of our foreign possessions we have entered into a new and wider world, in which we have not yet fully realized the duties and responsibilities which our citizenship carries with it, any more than we have yet fully adapted our organs of government to new conditions. Like the Englishman of Shakespeare's day, we have still laid upon us the double claim of local and national ties; but our membership in the nation of which we form a part has received a vastly wider range, and the growth of our state has been so rapid and so extensive that we have not yet had time or patience to adjust our old ideas to the new place we are called upon to fill. What ideal of citizenship are we going to maintain in this new world? On the answer to this, as made by the country at large, the future of England will in the main depend. How far is it possible to adapt what is best in the old-world notions of citizenship to new society and to the conflicting claims which makes upon us? For us surely, as for the Athenians whom Demosthenes addressed, there is no better rule than to frame our conduct by the pattern of what is noblest in the past, and to live up to our inheritance. Let us look back for a moment over the ground we have traversed.
In Greece we have seen the free development of the individual citizen controlled by the idea of personal service. In the Roman Empire we have traced, along with the reconciliation of local and imperial and imperial government, an ideal of universal law and order as the privilege of all citizens and the guardian of civilized life for them and for their subjects. Mediaeval Italy has shown us the intense city-life of the Greek, with a difference. Citizenship is still restricted, but free labor and wide commerce have broadened its foundations, and the ideas of the Church and the Empire have enlarged its range of vision. Finally, in Shakespeare’s England we are confronted by the eager spirit of a young nation beginning to make free use in every sphere of the gifts of enterprise and government which it has come to recognize as its own. In what relation do we stand ourselves to these ideas and principles of the past ?
We are no longer, like the Greek, exercising civic rights within the narrow compass of a single city, supported by a slave population without rights and without opportunity. We are like the Roman, in that our citizenship finds its field in a wide range of empire; but our individual responsibility is intensified far beyond his, because we are all, in a sense, through the Parliament and Ministry which represent us, members of the governing body in whose hands lie the guidance and control of our world-wide interests and duties. Like the citizens of Florence or Venice, we have each of us his own city or country-side to think of and to live for, but our interest in them is distracted by considerations of a far wider scope than ever Venice dreamt of when she still held “ the gorgeous East in fee. “ The glory of England as Shakespeare saw it is ours to keep and cherish, but the duty carries with it to-day a far more momentous issue, while its demands come upon us no longer with the vivid concentrated force of the old appeal. Our citizenship is diffused in more ways than one, for the population of our own island has enormously increased, while the larger England, in India and the Colonies, lays upon us obligations of sympathy and responsibility unequalled in the history of the world. Thus our duties have grown, while the very increase brings with it a danger that our personal sense of duty may diminish.
Can we face our responsibilities? Have the old ideas any value for us? Many of us, from the mere complexity of the situation, are disposed to set aside all such claims. We are inclined to regard our country as the most comfortable home, our colonies as the most obvious outlet for the unoccupied talents of our younger kinsfolk, our national honor and prestige as the natural accompaniment of our success and a creditable and convenient resource in foreign travel. We are ready to criticise with equal frankness our local and imperial authorities, our parish council, or the Ministry of the day, while for ourselves we quietly pursue our professions or devote ourselves to self-culture or to meeting the thousand and one demands of family and social life. To some of us, indeed, “ society “ has taken the place of the city and the state, and government and its ministers
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