The English sociologist and philosopher Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864-1929), one of the major theoreticians of liberalism in England before World War I, advocated a modified form of state socialism tempered by traditional liberal principles.

Born Sept. 8, 1864, at St. Ives, Cornwall, L.T. Hobhouse was the son of a prominent Anglican family. He entered Oxford in 1883 and later taught at Corpus Christi and Merton colleges until 1897. His many works in a variety of disciplines are unified by a commitment to the idea of social reform according to the criteria of morality and reason.

Hobhouse's first important work, The Labour Movement (1893), outlined his program to unite the forces of trade unionism with those of reform liberalism. The core of his program was the demand for collective control of industry and agriculture in order to secure efficiency and the equitable distribution of life's necessities. His next work, The Theory of Knowledge...