Human Nature in Politics - Third Edition by Graham Wallas
page 15 of 260 (05%)
page 15 of 260 (05%)
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formulation and acceptance of those methods which will not have to be
unlearned. Such a conscious change is already taking place in the work of Royal Commissions, International Congresses, and other bodies and persons who have to arrange and draw conclusions from large masses of specially collected evidence. Their methods and vocabulary, even when not numerical, are nowadays in large part quantitative. In parliamentary oratory, however, the old tradition of over-simplification is apt to persist. _(PART II.--Chapter I.--Political Morality, page 167)_ But in what ways can such changes in political science affect the actual trend of political forces? In the first place, the abandonment by political thinkers and writers of the intellectualist conception of politics will sooner or later influence the moral judgments of the working politician. A young candidate will begin with a new conception of his moral relation to those whose will and opinions he is attempting to influence. He will start, in that respect, from a position hitherto confined to statesmen who have been made cynical by experience. If that were the only result of our new knowledge, political morality might be changed for the worse. But the change will go deeper. When men become conscious of psychological processes of which they have been unconscious or half-conscious, not only are they put on their guard |
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