Introduction to modern political theory

Modern political theory is, however, in a state of considerable confusion; not only are the matters which it discusses of a highly
controversial nature, but there is disagreement both as to the character of its central problems, and as to the appropriate
methods of treating them. For this reason the task of describing the most important aspects of modern political thought is not an easy one. I am fully aware that many of the topics usually discussed in political theory find little or no place in the succeeding chapters. The Idealist theory of the State is allotted a bare dozen pages, and is treated mainly as a background to the various
reactions it has provoked; Individualism is dismissed in an equally summary fashion, and consideration of the relationship
between law and politics there is none. On the other hand I shall seem to some to have devoted a disproportionate amount
of space to recent developments in Socialist theory. This apparent disparity of treatment is not intended to imply any is paragement of the merits of Idealist or Individualist theory as compared with those of Socialism; it simply reflects the tendencies prevalent in political theory to-day.