Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (born Sept. 8, 1864, St. Ives, Cornwall, Eng.—died June 21, 1929, Alençon, France) was an English sociologist and philosopher who tried to reconcile liberalism with collectivism in the interest of social progress. In elaborating his conception of sociology, he drew on his knowledge of several other fields: philosophy, psychology, biology, anthropology, and the history of religion, ethics, and law. Interested in the process of social change, Hobhouse tried to correlate such change with its contribution to the general advance of the community; he also studied the history of knowledge, morals, and religions in relation to social change.

Hobhouse taught at the University of Oxford (1887–97) and at the University of London (1907–29), served as secretary of the Free Trade Union (1903–05), and arbitrated several labour disputes. He also wrote for the Manchester Guardian and was political editor of the Tribune (1905–07). Questioning the social theories most frequently advocated in England in his time, he rejected the idea of laissez-faire, because he believed that a certain degree of universal cooperation is necessary to the fulfillment of the potentialities of individual men. At the same time, he disapproved of Fabian socialism because it fostered a kind of cooperation that might lead to a mere bureaucracy, hindering progress.

Among Hobhouse’s works are The Theory of Knowledge (1896), Development and Purpose (1913), intended as a full statement of his philosophy, and four books collectively entitled The Principles of Sociology. They are The Metaphysical Theory of the State (1918), The Rational Good (1921), The Elements of Social Justice (1922), and Social Development (1924).