growth, the examination of these counters forms a gymnastic at
once amusing and fortifying to the mind.

Because I have reached Paris, I am not ashamed of having
passed through Newhaven and Dieppe. They were very good
places to pass through, and I am none the less at my
destination. All my old opinions were only stages on the way
to the one I now hold, as itself is only a stage on the way to
something else. I am no more abashed at having been a red-hot
Socialist with a panacea of my own than at having been a
sucking infant. Doubtless the world is quite right in a
million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to
convince you of the fact. And in the meanwhile you must do
something, be something, believe something. It is not
possible to keep the mind in a state of accurate balance and
blank; and even if you could do so, instead of coming
ultimately to the right conclusion, you would be very apt to
remain in a state of balance and blank to perpetuity. Even in
quite intermediate stages, a dash of enthusiasm is not a thing
to be ashamed of in the retrospect: if St. Paul had not been a
very zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder Christian.
For my part, I look back to the time when I was a Socialist
with something like regret. I have convinced myself (for the
moment) that we had better leave these great changes to what
we call great blind forces: their blindness being so much more
perspicacious than the little, peering, partial eyesight of
men. I seem to see that my own scheme would not answer; and
all the other schemes I ever heard propounded would depress
some elements of goodness just as much as they encouraged
others. Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with