VII 

 THE ACCUSATION 



"DISCUSSION about democracy," says Mr. Morley, "is 

 apt to be idle, unfruitfiil and certainly tiresome, unless it is 

 connected with some live, temporary issue." Profitable 

 thinking upon political, as upon other matters, usually 

 arises from the direct compulsion of circumstance. When 

 in the course of a nation's practical life a problem arises 

 the political thinker will do well to assume that the cir- 

 cumstances which set the problem contain the terms of its 

 solution ; indeed, the solution of a problem is nothing but 

 the problem itself with its elements distinguished and their 

 relation to one another made plain. If the political thinker 

 is also a legislator, or even some fragment of a legislator, 

 he enjoys those further advantages which his laboratory 

 brings to the physical investigator he can test his ideas. 

 And nothing tests ideas so thoroughly, or so ruthlessly 

 corrects their abstractions, as the attempt to carry them 

 out, that is, to fit them into the complex system of forces 

 which, at any moment, makes up a nation's life. 



On these grounds, amongst many others, the practical 

 politician is in a far better position for effective thought 

 upon the condition of a people than the political philo- 

 sopher. His point of view may not be so elevated, nor 



