Conservatism joins liberalism and socialism as the third of three rival ideological movements spreading throughout the Western countries following the American and French Revolutions. They are three separate bodies of thought, three separate views of the individual in relation to the state, and three separate sources of party, program and policy.

The conservatism matrix has to be constructed around the organic society and the relation of each individual to it. The vertical axis is concerned with the reaction of conservatism against rationalism, secularism and the romance with individualism. The horizontal axis concentrates on the nature and character of social cohesion. At one extreme is order, so important as to be canonic, “transcendent order.” On the opposite point of the horizontal axis is trust. Once there is established order, change can be accepted, if there is demonstration that it has already become a part of the community. This is the essence of trust.