ater temperateness
and wise deliberation as his part in affairs became more and more prominent
and responsible, and was at the last as little like an agitator as any man
that served the Queen.

It is not that such men lose courage when they find themselves charged with
the actual direction of the affairs concerning which they have held and
uttered such strong, unhesitating, drastic opinions. They have only learned
discretion. For the first time they see in its entirety what it was that
they were attempting. They are at last at close quarters with the world.
Men of every interest and variety crowd about them; new impressions throng
them; in the midst of affairs the former special objects of their zeal fall
into new environments, a better and truer perspective; seem no longer
susceptible to separate and radical change. The real nature of the complex
stuff of life they were seeking to work in is revealed to them--its
intricate and delicate fiber, and the subtle, secret interrelationship of
its parts--and they work circumspectly, lest they should mar more than they
mend. Moral enthusiasm is not, uninstructed and of itself, a suitable guide
to practicable and lasting reformation; and if the reform sought be the
reformation of others as well as of himself the reformer should look to it
that he knows the true relation of his will to the wills of those he would
change and guide. When he has discovered that relation he has come to
himself: has discovered his real use and planning part in the general world
of men; has come to the full command and satisfying employment of his
faculties. Otherwise he is doomed to live forever in a fools' paradise, and
can be said to have come to himself only on the supposition that he is a
fool.

Every man--if I may adopt and paraphrase a passage from Dr. South--every
man hath both an absolute and a relative capacity; an absolute in that he
hath been endued with such a nature and such parts and faculties; and a
relative in that he is part of the universal community of men, and so
stands in such a relation to the whole. When we say that a man has come to
himself, it is not of his absolute capacity that we are thinking, but of
his relative. He has begun to realize that he is part of a whole, and to
know _what_ part, suitable for what service and achievement.

It was once fashionable--and that not a very long time ago--to speak of
political society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an
ir