Abstract

Treatises of this length and care are rarely written today and in the course of Cumming's explorations there is an enormous richness of insight, commentary, and analysis of the history of liberal thought. But at the same time, it is difficult to keep the main themes of this study in clear focus. One gets the impression that Cumming originally set out to understand liberal thought as expressed by John Stuart Mill and found himself digging into origins. Dig he does, taking into account in his intellectual journey through Western Civilization: Polybius, Cicero, Augustine, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Bentham, James Mill and many others along the way. One can learn a great deal about this western political tradition by following Cumming's patient explications and critiques. In the foreground is always John Stuart Mill and at times Cumming fosters the misimpression that Mill culminates this entire tradition. Yet Cumming's attitude toward Mill is strangely ambivalent and toward the end of this study, Cumming seems to be more fascinated with the stages of Mill's development and his mental crisis rather than with the integrity and coherence of his political philosophy. Liberal political thought has recently come in for a severe polemical thrashing and Cumming's study might have been a detailed, eloquent defense of this tradition. But the study is deficient in attempting to show how liberal thought can directly meet the numerous criticisms that have been raised from many sides. In the preface, Cumming reports that the manuscript was on the way to the typesetters during the upheaval at Columbia when police arrived on campus. This episode symbolizes the strange feeling one has that the book is dated by the time it appeared. Despite its weaknesses as an apology for liberal thought, it excels in making us sensitive to its long and vital history.--R. J. B.