There are schools of philosophy whose task it is to guard and transmit a definite doctrine, which generally gets its designation from the name of the thinker who was the first to elaborate it. It is in this sense that one speaks, say, of the Thomist, Scotist, Averroist schools. Certain schools receive their inspiration from the conceptions of a master but endeavor to renovate these conceptions; so we can speak of neo-Kantian sschools, neo-Hegelian currents, and neo-Thomist ideas.

EdmundBurke enjoys the rather unusual distinction of having been both a revolutionary and a conservative at one and the same time. Before and after Burke, men have begun life as radical firebrands and ended it as reactionaries; but Burke combined the two attitudes, although in differing proportions, now one or the other predominating, almost throughout the course of his life. For example, Burke approved unreservedly of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, accepted the American Revolution of 1776, and called for a drastic change in the administration of British India; yet, he became the first thinker to propound a comprehensive statement of modern conservatism. He favored the Polish Reform of 1791, the freeing of Irish trade, the relief from religious disabilities of the Catholics, and the promotion of religious tolerance; yet, he lauded prescription and traditionalism. It is this ever-present dualism of thought in Burke which has so consistently disturbed scholars and historians of political theory and made it so difficult for them to place him in one camp or another.

JohnMarshall was modest when he said in Cohens v. Virginia that The Federalist was “a complete commentary” on the American Constitution. His own ventures in constitutional exegesis—highlighted by his interpretations of the commerce and contract clauses and his liberal construction of the implied powers clause—secure his rank as a constitutional commentator and seriously rival the authors of The Federalist. Marshall was, however, operating at a distinct advantage over the influential Hamilton, Madison and Jay, who wrote commentaries on a constitution which was yet to be rendered workable; they composed pamphlets intended to secure acceptance of the proposed government by reluctant states. Such commentaries are bound to have more limited value than decisions meant to accomodate the constitutional instrument to the practical problems of government. Marshall's essential contribution lay in the fact that his expositions of the Constitution, as distinguished from the pamphleteering attempts of The Federalist, imparted momentum to those trends which were eventually responsible for the adjustment of our political institutions to the changing tempo of an industrial technology.

Modern historians have not discarded the concept of class as a tool for analysis, but they are increasingly cautious in its use. Even G. D. H. Cole, in his recent Studies in Class Structure, has warned that when this concept is applied to advanced industrial countries, its elusiveness is enhanced as new techniques blur the accepted social divisions.

We are beginning to understand,” a Djakarta newspaper editor confided to me last spring, “that this business of democratic government means making allowances for one crisis after another. When we got our freedom from the Dutch we expected perfection, but what we got was a lot of muddling— still it's the best alternative.” An Indonesian University colleague with a record of distinguished leadership in a minor political party asserted: “I think from your point of view it must seem we are creating our own troubles, one on top of the other—but you must admit we try to solve them too.” And a Dutchman, an old Indonesia hand with many service years in estate enterprise repeated to me the judgment of many observers of the present Indonesian scene: “Things here are always hopeless, never serious.” Such views as these are common in the most knowledgeable quarters in the country, even among those whose frequent headshaking about current Indonesian foibles has been apt to cause resentment in Indonesia and alarm abroad.

A little over two hundred years ago there was published A Discourse on a Subject Proposed by the Academy of Dijon: What is the Origin of Inequality Among Man, and is it Authorized by Natural Law? The importance of this work has been indicated by Jean Jacques Rousseau himself. In the Confessions he stressed that all the “strong ideas” contained in the Social Contract were present in the Discourse on Inequality and earlier in the Letter to M. Beaumont he had stated that all his works contained the same principles, the same morality, and the same beliefs.