Action's political philosophy: an analysis

Action's thought is simple în logical structure, but co A in form, and concentrated in expression. His pr theory turns on the sovereignty of the developed silence, the conscience guided by experience and know The action of conscience in history comes under the development, that is, continuity and progress. Freedom, simplest sense, is free agency, which distinguishes history any necessary process whether natural or logical. In its e sense it means, primarily, freedom to do one's moral which, politically as well as morally, entails self-govern The two elements, freedom of conscience and develop Acton believed were shown in combination in the Englis American political traditions. For Acton, natural right history are not opposed, because the marrow of history in his view, is ethical.

The extreme logical simplicity of Acton's thought is H by the fragmentary, complex, and concentrated form expression. The fragmentary form was dictated by his not to appear doctrinaire. The complexity results from attempt to focus light simultaneously from every ava source, as, for example, when he writes of Whiggism: displayed the metaphysical, Somers and Holt the legal, the ecclesiastical, Leibniz its universal basis. It would no occurred to most thinkers to relate Locke's empiricism Leibniz's lex continui simultaneously to the study of the r tion of 1688. At the same time he tried to follow many dil counsels of perfection, for example, to state a stronger ca the view he rejected than its supporters could provide, avoid emphasis on his own view. Finally, he speaks in different characters, as a historian, as a political scientis as a philosopher. It must also be remembered that Acton's were always developing. His philosophy of history is an an to raise Hegel to a higher level and a wider view. The level is the sovereignty of conscience, the wider view is, own words, "all that goes to weave the web of social life