Editing Samuel Taylor Coleridge (section)

==Political thinking==
Coleridge was also a political thinker. Early in life he was a political radical, and an enthusiast for the [[French Revolution]]. However, he subsequently developed a more conservative view of society, somewhat in the manner of [[Edmund Burke]].<ref>D Daiches ed., ''Companion to Literature 1'' (1963) p. 110</ref> He was critical of the [[Constitution of the Year VIII|French Constitution of 1799]], adopted following the [[Coup of 18 Brumaire]], which he regarded as [[oligarchy|oligarchic]].<ref name="Morrow JHI 1986">{{cite journal |last1=Morrow |first1=John |title=The National Church in Coleridge's Church and State: A Response to Allen |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=October 1986 |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=640–652 |doi=10.2307/2709723|jstor=2709723 }}</ref>

Although seen as cowardly treachery by the next generation of Romantic poets,<ref>D Hay, ''Young Romantics'' (London 2011) p. 38 and p. 67</ref> Coleridge's later thought became a fruitful source for the evolving [[Philosophical Radicals|radicalism]] of [[J. S. Mill]].<ref>E Halevy, ''The Triumph of Reform'' (London 1961) p. 158</ref> Mill found three aspects of Coleridge's thought especially illuminating:

# First, there was Coleridge's insistence on what he called "the Idea" behind an institution – its social function, in later terminology – as opposed to the possible flaws in its actual implementation.<ref>A Ryan, ''J S Mill'' (London 1974) p. 70; A Hamilton, 'Coleridge and Conservatism: Contemplation of an Idea', in ed. P Cheyne, ''Coleridge and Contemplation'' (Oxford: OUP 2017)</ref> Coleridge sought to understand meaning from within a social matrix, not outside it, using an imaginative reconstruction of the past (''[[Verstehen]]'') or of unfamiliar systems.<ref>J Skorupski, ''Why Read Mill Today?'' (London 2007) p. 7-8</ref>
# Secondly, Coleridge explored the necessary conditions for social stability – what he termed Permanence, in counterbalance to Progress, in a polity<ref>J S Mill, ''On Liberty Etc'' (Oxford 2015) p. 192</ref> – stressing the importance of a shared public sense of community, and national education.<ref>A Ryan, ''J S Mill'' (London 1974) p. 57-8</ref>
# Coleridge also usefully employed the organic metaphor of natural growth to shed light on the historical development of British history, as exemplified in the common law tradition – working his way thereby towards a sociology of jurisprudence.<ref>P Edwards, ''The Statesman's Science'' (2004) p. 2-3</ref>
Coleridge also despised [[Adam Smith]].<ref>''Samlaren'': Tidskrift för forskning om svensk och annan nordisk litteratur, Årgång 137, 2016 – ''Myt och metall: Värdemodeller i litteratur och ekonomisk prosa under tidigt 1800-tal'', Jonas Asklund ISBN 9789187666360</ref>