Right and Wrong in Politics [pp. 265-293]

THE PR ICE TON RE VIE W.
political acts of citizens, and to the executive, legislative, and
international acts of states, it will have been sufficiently seen
where the main difficulty lies in applying in detail the best
acknowledged general principles. In all policy there must be a
certain element of conjecture, of calculation, of comparison of
ends, of the adjustment of means to ends, and, in a word,
of quantitative measurement, which, in the more simple and
spontaneous domain of individual life and action, would be
irrelevant, and might seem even base. But at the best, and
when the state is idealized to the utmost as an independent and
responsible moral being, it still retains certain of the qualities
and conditions of an artificially constructed machine. It can
only be called into dynamical action by a concert of forces to be
brought about by a more or less complex series of casually cooperating and frequently conflicting agencies. Much of the
healthiest part of political life is concerned with bringing the
latent opposition of persons and parties face to face, and with reducing the points of final divergence to such an extent that a clear
line of common and united action may be discovered. But all
this process implies delay, hesitation, uncertainty, and, even in
some way, concessions and compromises. There are mental
conditions which, on the face of them, are alien to the prompt
and, as it were, intrusive as well as decisive suggestions, which,
in the individual person of healthy moral organization are never
lacking, and are deferred to with unquestioning obedience. But
because prudence and calculation, as well as a peculiar complexity
of action, distinguish the conduct of a state from that of ally
one of its citizens when dealing with his own private affairs, this
is only an aggravation of the difficulty of the moral problem so
soon as it is presented, and is no reason for ignoring its existence,
and still less for a precipitate and nugatory attempt to solve it.
The triumphs of Christian morality have, after centuries of
ecclesiastical vagaries, been finally vindicated in the region of
individual life and existence, for which it is now pretty universally confessed that no distinguishing line can be drawn between
the consummated perfection of nature, for which the pagan
moralist longed and longs, and the spotless holiness of the
Christian who deems himself bound to be perfect as his Father
in heaven is perfect. The last triumphs of the same morality
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