This book relates the political history of mid-nineteenth-century Britain to the assumptions which then prevailed about the abstract moral purposes of political activity. A great number of mid-Victorian writers and politicians expressed far-reaching hopes for the future development of British society, indeed for its regeneration; and such hopes were inspired by their religious outlook. They contended that these aims would be promoted by the pursuit, by governments, of particular educational, ecclesiastical, Irish and other policies. Part I of this book examines at length the varying aspirations, in this direction, of the different elements of Gladstone's Liberal party. In addition to Gladstone's own views, those of whigs, broad churchmen, theist intellectuals, high churchmen's interests are all analysed, in an account which ranges far beyond the time limits suggested by the book's title. Part II recounts the disputes within the party which these conflicting aims provoked between 1867 a
