200 IDEALISM AND POLITICS 



excused in their consciences for professing beliefs which on 

 the meaning ordinarily attached to them they do not hold " ; 

 that " the edges of all hard contrasts between right and 

 wrong, truth and falsity are softened " ; that " a gloss is 

 thrown over stupidity, and prejudice, and caste, and tradi- 

 tion ; that the bases of reason are weakened " ; and so 

 forth, along the whole list of the most deadly moral and 

 intellectual sins. From the second of them follows ' ' a 

 lightened intellectual conscience both for those who wish 

 to revert to the easy rule of authority and faith, and for the 

 society which has become afraid of further progress and is 

 lusting after the delights of barbarism." From the last 

 come the policy and methods of Bismarck, ' ' blood and 

 iron " in modern politics, " the disappointment of those 

 who identified liberty with national self-government," 

 " the setting of national efficiency above freedom," and so 

 on further. 



One could reasonably desire that Mr. Hobhouse had 

 given some indication of the idealistic treatises where these 

 maleficent doctrines may be found. We could then get 

 them burnt by the public hangman. Still more desirable 

 is it that his rendering of a doctrine which has filled so 

 many volumes and led so large a section of humanity along 

 the primrose road had been less meagre. But I think we 

 may "ken his meanin' frae his mumpin'." He is repeating 

 charges frequently made against Hegel by men who have 

 never read a page of his writings. I shall endeavour to 

 deal with them in another article. 



