THE ACCUSATION 183 



Now, these violent alternations of opinion on the part 

 of the professional politician are intelligible and compara- 

 tively pardonable. He resists mischief or carries out 

 reforms in the face of opposition, and opposition as a rule 

 rouses passion, exaggerates issues and inflames language. 

 We make allowance for him. But we mete another 

 measure to the political philosopher : He comes before us, 

 presumably, with a calm mind, a wide outlook, and a quiet 

 hold of principles which are permanent. He has no claim 

 for allowance and makes none. All his thoughts are 

 deliberate. He cannot be permitted, and does not ask 

 permission, to constitute temporary circumstance into pre- 

 misses for universal judgments. There is only one way of 

 showing respect to him, it is that of attributing to his 

 words their full weight and undiminished value. 



It is in this spirit that I should like to examine the testi- 

 mony which Mr. Hobhouse has borne as to the condition 

 of the English people in his remarkable little book entitled 

 "Democracy and Reaction." Mr. Hobhouse has made it 

 easy for his critics to show towards his opinions that respect 

 which is implied in the careful weighing of his words. He 

 has displayed learning, diligence, disinterestedness and 

 power in other fields of enquiry. Furthermore, his 

 political opinions are ratified, though not without some 

 significant qualifications, by one whose experience in letters 

 and in practical statesmanship has the breadth and maturity 

 of Mr. Morley's. 1 



I propose, then, to take Mr. Hobhouse's arraignment 

 of the English people, and his account of the causes which, 



1 Mr. Morley commended Mr. Hobhouse's views to the attention of 

 the public in weighty articles which appeared in the Nineteenth Century 

 for March and April, 1905. 



