THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



ance. Philip II., a man of mediocre ability and 

 hopelessly vulgar egoism, might yet have done 

 a good work, could he ever have been brought 

 to understand the way in which the world was 

 moving, and would move in spite of him. Yet 

 he thought to establish in Romanized Europe an 

 Oriental patriarchal despotism, and he thought 

 by mere brute force to bring over half the civi- 

 lized world to a religious system which it had 

 forever discarded. And thus, though he wielded 

 a power such as no man for centuries had wielded 

 before him, he achieved absolutely nothing. At 

 the end of his evil career, he was farther from 

 each of his cherished aims than at the begin- 

 ning. The physical power of Spain was ex- 

 hausted in the vain effort to stem the course of 

 events, and all the credit the son of Charles V. 

 ever earned was that of being one of the most 

 mischievous among the enemies of the human 

 race. 



Now our practical object in studying human 

 progress scientifically is to be able to arrive at 

 certain definite general principles of statesman- 

 ship. In every branch of speculative or practical 

 activity, men begin by reasoning from particu- 

 lars to particulars, accomplishing their results 

 by a kind of sagacious instinct which hits upon 

 the means requisite for attaining a given end. 

 But after a while, as science progresses, they 

 establish general principles of action, and work 



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