impossible that he should acquire a commanding grasp of principles. And
a commanding grasp of principles, whether they are public or not, is at
the very root of coherency of character. It raises mediocrity near to a
level with the highest talents, if those talents are in company with a
disposition that allows the little prudences of the hour incessantly to
obscure the persistent laws of things. These persistencies, if a man
has once satisfied himself of their direction and mastered their
bearings and application, are just as cogent and valuable a guide to
conduct, whether he publishes them _ad urbem et orbem_, or esteems them
too strong meat for people who have, through indurated use and wont,
lost the courage of facing unexpected truths.

One conspicuous result of the failure to see that our opinions have
roots to them, independently of the feelings which either majorities or
other portions of the people around us may entertain about them, is that
neither political matters nor any other serious branches of opinion,
engage us in their loftiest or most deep-reaching forms. The advocate of
a given theory of government or society is so misled by a wrong
understanding of the practice of just and wise compromise in applying
it, as to forget the noblest and most inspiring shape which his theory
can be made to assume. It is the worst of political blunders to insist
on carrying an ideal set of principles into execution, where others have
rights of dissent, and those others persons whose assent is as
indispensable to success, as it is impossible to attain. But to be
afraid or ashamed of holding such an ideal set of principles in one's
mind in their highest and most abstract expression, does more than any
one other cause to stunt or petrify those elements in character to which
life should owe most of its savour.

If a man happens to be a Conservative, for instance, it is pitiful that