CHAPTER XVI 



MODERN POLITICS 



THE vicissitudes of politics interest us so keenly 

 because they give play to so great a variety of 

 impulses. We admire our political leaders : were 

 an impulse to admire or respect not innate in us, 

 social life would have no centres around which to 

 gravitate. We are moved by the success or 

 failure of the party to which we have attached 

 ourselves, because, having identified ourselves 

 with it, we are excited by the feelings of emulation 

 which set man to race against man, horse against 

 horse, dog against dog. The daily changes in the 

 political barometer gratify our passion for variety. 

 We may be interested in the programme of under- 

 takings to which our party commits itself, because 

 it enlists the provident impulses that stimulate 

 us to use our reason to ameliorate the conditions 

 of the future : moreover, our kindly feelings may 

 be appeased by the assurance that these under- 

 takings will give happiness to persons or classes 

 that have attracted our sympathy. The bitterness 

 which is permissible in party politics affords a 

 canalized outlet for our unkindly feelings. Finally, 

 our self-conscious pride is soothed by the reflection 

 that, in however moderate a degree, we can assist 

 our party and its objects by our vote, and that 

 we are actors, and not merely spectators, in the 

 drama which each morning's newspaper unfolds 

 before us. 



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