The advantages of dealing with the larger questions by more
cataclysmic methods are obvious. For, in the first place, all
composite things must have a system, or arrangement of parts, so
that some parts shall depend upon and be grouped round others, as
in the articulation of a skeleton and the arrangement of muscles,
nerves, tendons, etc., which are attached to it. To meddle with
the skeleton is like taking up the street, or the flooring of
one's house; it so upsets our arrangements that we put it off
till whatever else is found wanted, or whatever else seems likely
to be wanted for a long time hence, can be done at the same time.
Another advantage is in the rest which is given to the attention
during the long hollows, so to speak, of the waves between the
periods of resettlement. Passion and prejudice have time to calm
down, and when attention is next directed to the same question,
it is a refreshed and invigorated attention-an attention,
moreover, which may be given with the help of new lights derived
from other quarters that were not luminous when the question was
last considered. Thirdly, it is more easy and safer to make such
alterations as experience has proved to be necessary than to
forecast what is going to be wanted. Reformers are like
paymasters, of whom there are only two bad kinds, those who pay
too soon, and those who do not pay at all.



CHAPTER II

COMMON GROUND

I HAVE now, perhaps, sufficiently proved my sympathy with the