building, stable conditions of law and order, but excessive taxation and decline of political liberty to be regarded as “prosperous” or not? Or take the actual combination of features adduced by Wood for the England of Charles I. “Expansion of commerce and general material prosperity. Decline in international prestige. Public discontent. Distress during civil war. Parliament struggled for its existence.”[1] By what principles does Wood strike a balance of “prosperity” (+) from this array? The question becomes particularly pertinent when we contrast this conclusion with his characterization of the period from 1199 to 1216 in England as “＝,” that is, as neither prosperous nor in decline, on the basis of the following account. “Turbulence and discord resulting in the Magna Charta. The rights of individuals defined and enhanced. This constitutional growth must be regarded as of great importance.” The growth of constitutional democracy in England is indeed of great importance for that nation’s subsequent development. Why, then, does it not outweigh the temporary disorders and the local maladjustments of the time?
Periods of violent transformation of the status quo, no matter how progressive their ultimate fruits have been, would show relative declines in most of the respects listed on Wood’s scale. It is clear that unexpressed value judgments from which the author imagines himself totally free have played a large part in his use of the classifications. This is inescapable when we approach the subject with such inclusive categories as “prosperity” and “decline” and do not break them down into terms designating more limited social phenomena.
In justice to Wood it should be emphasized that he is aware of some of the difficulties, although he does not take them seriously enough. He admits at the outset of his study to some perplexity concerning the relative evaluation of political liberty because “one frequently finds that under strong kings the country flourished in almost every way except that the people were oppressed.” He cuts the Gordian knot by treating political freedom in states like courage and perseverance in individuals, as “middling attributes,” partly material and partly spiritual. He suggests that we “halve” them. This means either that we make our estimates of the condition of a country independently of the presence or absence of political liberty, or that sometimes, under conditions not indicated, we should regard freedom from
- ↑ The Influence of Monarchs, p. 401.
