viii PREFACE 



my own mind might have some real value for others 

 and even gain vitality from the changing contexts in 

 which they stand. And, after all, while an author has 

 no right to be monotonous, it is not necessarily a defect 

 to be like Socrates "always saying the same things about 

 the same things." Neither life, nor the theoretic exposi- 

 tion of it, depends for its worth upon the multiplicity of 

 its principles. We do best with very few. I am not 

 sure that we need more than one, provided it will bear 

 the articulation of practice. 



Apart from that articulation, I am well aware, an 

 ethical or social principle is a very shallow and poor 

 thing. It is like the love of humanity which does not 

 recognize a neighbour in the man who has fallen amongst 

 thieves and has been robbed of his raiment and wounded, 

 and which is not the force that is regenerating the world. 

 Insistence on principle cannot be a substitute for the 

 practical application of it, in ways that may often appear 

 to be inconsistent, to the ever varying demands of cir- 

 cumstances. Nevertheless insistence on principle may, 

 under certain conditions, be the most urgent of all a 

 people's needs. If, on the one side, the best escape from 

 the doubt and hesitation which reflexion brings is to 

 follow Carlyle's maxim and " Do the duty next to hand/' 

 there are times, on the other side, where the " Duty next 

 to hand " is just to reflect. 



Observing our own circumstances at present as best 

 I can, the conclusion is forced upon me that there 

 is no need so imperative, none from whose fulfilment 

 our social welfare would flow so full and free, as 

 the convincing enunciation of a few principles which 

 have the intrinsic right to be dominant. 



