which the virulence of journalism credits them, have nevertheless been
surprised at the apparent swiftness and completeness of the change in
their opinions. It would be idle to deny that, in startling the minds of
steady-going people, this change did, for the moment, weaken the
influence and weight of those who had changed. This must be so. A man
who says now what he denied six years ago cannot expect to be believed
on his _ipse dixit_. He must set forth the grounds of his conviction. He
must explain how his views altered, and why reasons which formerly
satisfied him satisfy him no longer. It may be that the Liberal party
have omitted to do this as they ought. Occupied by warm and incessant
discussions, and conscious, I venture to believe, of their own honesty,
few of its members have been at the trouble of showing what were the
causes which modified their views, and what the stages of the process
which carried them from the position of 1880 to that of 1886.

Of that process I shall attempt in the following pages to give a sketch.
Such a sketch, though mainly retrospective, is pertinent to the issues
which now divide the country. It will indicate the origin and the
strength of the chief reasons by which Liberals are now governed. And,
if executed with proper fairness and truth, it may, as a study in
contemporary history, be of some little interest to those who in future
will attempt to understand our present conflict. The causes which
underlie changes of opinion are among the most obscure phenomena in
history, because those who undergo, these changes are often only half
conscious of them, and do not think of recording that which is
imperceptible in its growth, and whose importance is not realized till
it already belongs to the past.

The account which follows is based primarily on my own recollection of
the phases of opinion and feeling through which I myself, and the