IX GOVERNMENT 425 



But I am aware that the modesty of the purely 

 critical attitude is not appreciated as it ought to 

 be. There is a prevalent idea that the construc- 

 tive genius is in itself something grander than the 

 critical, even though the former turns out to 

 have merely made a symmetrical rubbish heap in 

 the middle of the road of science, which the 

 latter has to clear away before anybody en- 

 forward. The critic is told : It is all very well to 

 show that this, that, or the other is wrong ; what 

 we want to know is, what is right ? 



Now, I submit that it is unjust to require a 

 crossing sweeper in Piccadilly to tell you the road 

 to Highgate ; he has earned his copper if he has 

 done all he professes to do and cleaned up your 

 immediate path. So I do not think any one has 

 a claim upon me to make any positive suggestions, 

 still less to commit myself to any ambitious 

 schemes of social regeneration such as are now as 

 common as blackberries. Reading and experience 

 have led me to believe that the results of political 

 changes are hardly ever those which their friends 

 hope or their foes fear ; and, if I were offered a 

 free hand by Almighty power, I should, like 

 Hamlet, shudderingly object to the responsibility | 

 of attempting to set right a world out of joint. ( 

 But I may perhaps, without presumption, set 

 forth some reflections, germane to the subject, 

 which have now and again crossed my mind. 



About this question of government, for example ; 



