i 9 4 IDEALISM AND POLITICS 



again. For to him it is lost to all forms of good so heed- 

 less of right, and so greedy for bad principles that it has 

 perverted science into fatalism, philosophy into moral and 

 intellectual obscurantism, humanitarianism into a ridiculous 

 sentiment, and religion into a thing without fervour or 

 sincerity. He has deprived the British people both of the 

 means and of the desire of recovery ; and, if the nature of 

 things be veritably moral the end of such a nation cannot 

 be distant. The British Empire, vast as it is, circles within 

 a universe which is sound at heart ; and if the Empire be 

 corrupt, there is more against it than there is for it. It 

 will sink inwards, as unsound things do, crashing through 

 the crusts of its ancient faiths turned into hypocrisy. To 

 such a nation, according to a once-revered authority, Mr. 

 Hobhouse having put on his prophetic mantle could have 

 but one brief message : ' ' The Lord shall smite thee with 

 madness and blindness and astonishment of heart ; and 

 thou shalt grope at noon-day, as the blind gropeth in dark- 

 ness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways, and thou shalt 

 be oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save 

 thee." 



But I pass from the condition of the British nation in 

 general. Mr. Hobhouse' s own political party is at last in 

 power. It is now the turn of the prophets of Conservatism 

 to predict the ruin of the Empire from adopting principles 

 which he would probably call the principles of virtue and 

 peace and progress. And, in these days of the hurtling 

 wars of opprobrious epithets there is little evidence that 

 they will forget their message. I turn to the testimony 

 which Mr. Hobhouse has tendered against Idealism, a 

 matter which is more within my province, and, though in 

 a sense limited, has still its public significance. 



