42-i GOVERNMENT ix 



ration were likely to attain their end, I should 

 think what remains to me of life well spent in 

 furthering it. But my interest in these questions 

 did not begin the day before yesterday ; and. 

 whether right or wrong, it is no hasty conclusion 

 of mine that we have small chance of doing v 

 in this matter (or indeed in any other), unless we 

 think* rightly. Further, that we shall never 

 think rightly in politics until we have cleared our 

 minds of delusions; and, more especially, of the 

 philosophical delusions which, as I have en- 

 deavoured to show, have infested political thought 

 for centuries. My main purpose has been to contri- 

 bute my mite towards this essential preliminary 

 operation. Ground must be cleared and levelled 

 before a building can be properly commenced ; 

 the labour of the navvy is as necessary as that of 

 the architect, however much less honoured ; and 

 it has been my humble endeavour to grub up 

 those old stumps of the a pinion, which stand in 

 the way of the very foundations of a sane political 

 philosophy. To those who think that questions 

 of the kind I have been discussing have merely 

 an academic interest, let me suggest, once more, 

 that a century ago Robespierre and St. Just 

 proved that the way of answering them may have 

 (xtivmely practical consequent 



The task which I set before myself, thru, \vas 

 simply a destructive criticism of n priori political 

 philosophy, whether regimental or individualistic. 



