On October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party, having conquered the major portion of the Chinese mainland by the force of its “People's Army of Liberation,” established, in the old imperial city of Peiping, a new regime called the “Central People's Government” of the “People's Republic of China.” For more than three years, ninety-eight per cent of the Chinese people have lived under this Communist dictatorship represented as a “People's Democracy.” Nor at the moment are there any visible signs that their condition may soon be altered. On the contrary, the Chinese Communists have proved themselves the adept disciples of their Russian mentors, capable of consolidating their rule with Soviet determination, thoroughness, and severity.

French social Catholicism—by which we mean the sum of all the efforts of Catholics in France to fight against the material and moral misery that the industrial revolution and economic liberalism inflicted upon the workers — has followed two general tendencies, one aristocratic and the other democratic.

The first, developed in the legitimist world of the Restoration, gave rise to a rightist Catholic social tradition which placed all its confidence in the authority of the upper classes and in the virtue of institutions. The second, which recruited its partisans from among the lower bourgeoisie and among the intellectuals, gave rise to a leftist tradition, that of Christian democracy, and placed its trust in popular liberty.

The examination and evaluation of Bismarck's statesmanship has been resumed with much vigor in Germany. The topic has always — and naturally — been a favorite of German historians. Yet the current discussion differs from previous examinations of Bismarck's policies. It is concerned not so much with a factual analysis of these policies as with their overall significance and validity.

The vast majority of all human beings alive on earth is affected in some measure by the totalitarian mass movements of our time. Whether men are members, supporters, fellow-travellers, naive connivers, actual or potential victims, whether they are under the domination of a totalitarian government, or whether they are still free to organize their defenses against the disaster, the relation to the movements has become an intimate part of their spiritual, intellectual, economic, and physical existence. The putrefaction of Western civilization, as it were, has released a cadaveric poison spreading its infection through the body of humanity. What no religious founder, no philosopher, no imperial conqueror of the past has achieved — to create a community of mankind by creating a common concern for all men — has now been realized through the community of suffering under the earthwide expansion of Western foulness.

Progress, Maine said, is rare in the procession of history; but it is real. Therefore—though never active in affairs of party — he commenced as a moderate Liberal under the influence of Burke's mind, endeavoring to promote cautious reform, reconciling old interests with new energies, preparing society for necessary change, preserving what is best in the ancient order. His Indian career displayed this influence of Burke, this respect for native custom and culture, this calm devotion to a society that is a spirit or a living thing, not a mere mechanical contrivance. Writers on politics who imply that Burke and his school opposed change per se err gravely. Beneficial change is the Providential instrument of social preservation, said Burke, a conservative force; but we must not fall into the vulgar error of thinking that all change is useful reform. The world experiences both improvement and decay; the latter tendency is the easier path, although ruinous at last; and statesmen must train themselves and the people to distinguish healthy change from processes of dissolution. When Henry Maine became convinced that the drift of change in Western society was retrogressive, then, like the astute representative of Burke's school that he was, he became a conservative. Lord Acton, in 1882, was startled and grieved to find Maine using “Toryism” as a term of commendation

The American Revolution was an event of particular interest to political theorists. Although it produced no thinkers to stand with Aristotle or even Locke and no book to be compared with The Republic or even The Prince, it was a high point in the long and fascinating career of the school of natural law. For this reason, the political theory of the Revolution deserves a more precise rendition than it has hitherto received. My purpose in this article is to do just that: to outline the theory of the Revolution for the benefit of political theorists and intellectual historians. Rather than quote from scattered sources, I shall attempt to express the general sense of the leaders of the Revolution. If one able Revolutionist had set himself consciously to express the political consensus of his time, to cast the principles of 1776 in a pattern for later ages to inspect and ponder, this might well have been the outline he would have chosen to follow—this was the political theory of the American Revolution:

The political and social world is governed by laws as certain and universal as those that govern the physical world. Whether these laws are direct commands of God, necessities of nature, or simply inescapable lessons of history makes very little practical difference. In any or all of these cases, men are guided and restricted by a moral order that they can defy but not alter. Revelation, reason, and experience, means through which men come to understand these laws, point out at least four instances in which they are applicable to the affairs of men. The higher law, or law of nature, is all of these things: