Evolutionary Liberalism in Britain

1. The initial concepts of liberalism
There is a variety of meanings with which the term "liberalism" is used, having little in common except for describing openness to new ideas. Some of these meanings are directly opposed to those which were originally designated by it during the nineteenth and the earlier parts of the twentieth centuries. What will alone be considered in this chapter is the set of political ideals which operated during that period, as one of the most influential intellectual forces guiding developments in western and central Europe, under the name of liberalism. …