666 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



thing needful is the checking of international antagonisms 

 and the diminution of those armaments which are at once 

 cause and consequence of them. With the repression of 

 militant activities and decay of militant organizations, \s ill 

 come amelioration of political institutions as of all other insti 

 tutions. Without them, no such ameliorations are permanently 

 possible. Liberty overtly gained in name and form will be 

 unobtrusively taken away in fact. 



It is not to be expected, however, that any very marked 

 effects are to be produced by the clearest demonstration 

 of this truth even by a demonstration beyond all question. 

 A general congruity has to be maintained between the social 

 state at any time . necessitated by circumstances, and the 

 accepted theories of conduct, political and individual. Such 

 acceptance as there may be of doctrines at variance with the 

 temporary needs, can never be more than nominal in degree, 

 or limited in range, or both. The acceptance which guides 

 conduct will always be of such theories, no matter how 

 logically indefensible, as are consistent with the average 

 modes of action, public and private. All that can be done 

 by diffusing a doctrine much in advance of the time, is to 

 facilitate the action of forces tending to cause advance. The 

 forces themselves can be but in small degrees increased; 

 but something may be done by preventing mis-direction of 

 them. Of the sentiment at any time enlisted on behalf of a 

 higher social state, there is always some (and at the present 

 time a great deal) which, having the broad vague form of 

 sympathy with the masses, spends itself in efforts for their 

 welfare by multiplication of political agencies of one or other 

 kind. Led by the prospect of immediate beneficial results, 

 those swayed by this sympathy are unconscious that they 

 are helping further to elaborate a social organization at 

 variance with that required for a higher form of social life, 

 and are, by so doing, increasing the obstacles to attainment 

 of that higher form. On a portion of such the foregoing 

 chapters may have some effect by leading them to con- 



