P REFAC E 



IT is not difficult to be virtuous in a clois- 

 tered and negative way. Neither is it 

 difficult to succeed, after a fashion, in active 

 life, if one is content to disregard the consid- 

 erations which bind honorable and upright 

 men. But it is by no means easy to combine 

 honesty and efficiency; and yet it is absolutely 

 necessary, in order to do any work really 

 worth doing. It is not hard, while sitting in 

 one's study, to devise admirable plans for the 

 betterment of politics and of social condi- 

 tions; but in practice it too often proves very 

 hard to make any such plan work at all, no 

 matter how imperfectly. Yet the effort must 

 continually be made, under penalty of con- 

 stant retrogression in our political life. 



No one quality or one virtue is enough to 

 ensure success; vigor, honesty, common-sense, 

 all are needed. The practical man is mere- 

 ly rendered more noxious by his practical 

 ability if he employs it wrongly, whether from 



(15) 



