dence. But he who has the
courage of existence will put it triumphantly, crying "yea" as Nietzsche
did, and recognizing that all the passions of men are the motive powers
of a fine life.

For the roads that lead to heaven and hell are one until they part.

CHAPTER III

THE CHANGING FOCUS

The taboo, however useless, is at least concrete. Although it achieves
little besides mischief, it has all the appearance of practical action,
and consequently enlists the enthusiasm of those people whom Wells
describes as rushing about the country shouting: "For Gawd's sake let's
_do_ something _now_." There are weight and solidity in a policeman's
club, while a "moral equivalent" happens to be pale like the stuff of
which dreams are made. To the politician whose daily life consists in
dodging the thousand and one conflicting prejudices of his constituents,
in bickering with committees, intriguing and playing for the vote; to the
business man harassed on four sides by the trust, the union, the law, and
public opinion,--distrustful of any wide scheme because the stupidity of
his shipping clerk is the most vivid item in his mind, all this
discussion about politics and the inner life will sound like so much
fine-spun nonsense.

I, for one, am not disposed to blame the politicians and the business
men. They govern the nation, it is true, but they do it in a rather
absentminded fashion. Those revolutionists who see the misery of the
country as a deliberate and fiendish plot overestimate the bad will, the
intelligence and the singleness of purpose in the ruling classes.
Business and political leaders don't mean badly; the trouble with them is
that most of the time they don't mean anything. They picture themselves
as very "practical," which in practice amounts to saying that nothing
makes them feel so spiritually homeless as the discussion of values and
an invitation to examine first principles. Ideas, most of the time, cause
them genuine distress, and are as disconcerting as an idle office boy, or
a squeaky telephone.

I do not underestimate the troubles of the man of affairs. I have lived
with politicians,--with socialist politicians whose good-will was
abundant and intentions constructive. The petty vexations pile up into
mountains; the distracting details scatter the attention and break up
thinking, while the mere problem of exercising power crowds out
speculation about what to do with it. Personal jealousies interrupt
co