s they
that hamper us in every war. It is they who, preventing concentration
and regulation of un-abolishable evils, promote their distribution and
liberty. Moral principles are pretty good things--for the young and
those not well grounded in goodness. If one have an impediment in his
thought, or is otherwise unequal to emergencies as they arise, it is
safest to be provided beforehand with something to refer to in order
that a right decision may be made without taking thought. But "spirits
of a purer fire" prefer to decide each question as it comes up, and to
act upon the merits of the case, unbound and unpledged. With a
quick intelligence, a capable conscience and a habit of doing right
automatically one has little need to burden one's mind and memory with
a set of solemn principles formulated by owlish philosophers who do not
happen to know that what is right is merely what, in the long run and
with regard to the greater number of cases, is expedient Principle
is not always an infallible guide. For illustration, it is not always
expedient--that is, for the good of all concerned--to tell the truth,
to be entirely just or merciful, to pay a debt. I can conceive a case in
which it would be right to assassinate one's neighbor. Suppose him to
be a desperate scoundrel of a chemist who has devised a means of
setting the atmosphere afire. The man who should go through life on an
inflexible line of principle would border his path with a havoc of human
happiness.

What one may think perfect one may not always think desirable. By
"perfect" one may mean merely complete, and the word was so used in
my reference to Socialism. I am not myself an advocate of "perfect
Socialism," but as to Government ownership of railways, there is
doubtless a good deal to be said on both sides. One argument in its
favor appears decisive; under a system subject to popular control the
law of gravitation would be shorn of its preeminence as a means of
removing personal property from the baggage car, and so far as it is
applicable to that work might even be repealed.

IV.

When M. Casimir-Perier resigned the French Presidency there were
those who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise
censurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong
one--not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly
know where to look in history for an act more entirely gratifying to
my sense of "the fitness of thin