Rose got rather white, and his nostrils expanded. "I'm
sorry I put it in that way," he said rather frostily, "if you object. But I
mean it, I think. I don't like diluted Liberalism."
"Yes, but you beg the question by calling it diluted," said Father Payne.
"If anyone had said that the only Tory he respected was a man who if he
could press a button in a still darker room, and by doing so bring it to
pass that all institutions on the face of the earth would remain immutably
fixed for ever and ever, and would feel himself bound conscientiously to do
it, you wouldn't accept that as a definition of Conservatism? These things
are not hard and fast matters of principle--they are only tendencies.
Toryism is an instinct to trust custom and authority, Liberalism is an
instinct to welcome development and change. All that the definition of
Liberalism which was quoted means is, that the Liberal has a deep respect
for freedom of opinion; and all that my grotesque definition of Toryism
means is that a Tory prefers to trust a fixed tradition. But, of course,
both want a settled Government, and both have to recognise that the world
and its conditions change. The Tory says, 'Look before you leap'; the
Liberal says, 'Leap before you look.' But it is really all a matter of
infinite gradations, and what differentiates people is merely their idea of
the pace at which things can go and ought to go.
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