2i 4 IDEALISM AND POLITICS 



or to limit individual enterprise, or to abolish competition, 

 or otherwise to turn the citizens of the ideal State into 

 blameless sheep, fed, herded and shorn by "a power not 

 themselves," and not " making for righteousness." We 

 can give the individual a firmer standing in the State, place 

 better industrial weapons in his hands, if he can wield them, 

 bid him contend to the uttermost, and expect thereby a 

 stronger State with stronger, freer and therefore more loyal 

 citizens. 



Thus, once the logic of exclusion is discredited by 

 Idealism in the sphere of politics, we should no longer be 

 the victims of abstractions. "Socialism" and "Indi- 

 vidualism" would be recognised as empty cries, and we 

 should neither do anything, nor refrain from doing 

 anything, in the name of either. We should not even 

 endeavour to compromise between them or fix their 

 boundaries : for they overlap. The best State is that which 

 both does most for the individual and enables him to do 

 most for himself. The most free individual and the best 

 servant of himself is the man who, whether as capitalist 

 or labourer, as lord or peasant, as theoretical thinker or 

 merchant-prince, contributes most of the article he happens 

 to produce, and thereby best meets the wants of his 

 neighbours and best uses his station to serve the State. 



Now, it evidently follows from all this that Idealism 

 does not lend itself easily to the purposes of the party 

 politician. There is no doubt that its doctrines can be 

 used by the reformer ; but there is as little doubt that they 

 can be used by his opponent. Hence it is like the bat, 

 the victim of both birds and beasts. It cannot utterly 

 reject the past, for it applies the idea of evolution to human 

 affairs : hence it appears " to throw a gloss over stupidity, 



