THE SOCIAL REFORMER 29 



persistence of a semi-conscious force which wears down 

 public wrongs by constant attrition. And it is quite 

 certain that those who desire to lead the English people 

 to better ways of life and a richer common good must 

 respect its temperament. They must possess ideals, but 

 these ideals must be the inner essence, the truth which is 

 at the same time the reality, of the facts of their social 

 experience. And that truth is not_easily attained. Pre- 

 judices intervene between us and social facts, passions 

 distort them; tne serene and open mind comes not without 

 a severe and prolonged discipline to which our present 

 untutored ways are foreign ; and, above all, in this instance 

 the object of criticism fashions the critic. But these are 

 matters which I must deal with in my next essay. 



