to divide off crudely the sheep from the goats, and to say that those who
voted to back Mr. Hughes were, and those who did not, were not equally
exposed to being fooled about themselves. Mr. Hughes and his followers
were probably men who are more on their guard, who have regular and
standing arrangements with themselves against themselves and who acted
more quickly than others in this case in the way they should wish they
had acted in three weeks, three years or three lifetimes.

In the extraordinary struggle our nation is now making in the next four
years to justify democracy--to justify the power of the human spirit to
be free, generous, noble and just in self-government, the power of men of
differing classes, of differing groups and interests to live in orderly
good will and mutual understanding together, until we make at last a
great nation together in the sight of nations that say we cannot do
it,--all this is going to turn for this country, not upon our not being a
blind people, or on our not being a prejudiced people, or upon our not
being full of the liability to be deceived about ourselves, but on what
we do about it when we are, upon our making arrangements beforehand for
seeing through ourselves in time, upon our putting forward men to
represent us who shall not be demagogues, who shall lead us as we are,
with clear eyes to what we are going to be, men who shall lead us by
opening our imaginations by touching, or our vision instead of petting us
in our sins.

XV

TECHNIQUE FOR NOT BEING FOOLED BY ONESELF

The next twenty-eight pages of this book might be entitled: "An Article
that Expected to Appear in the _Saturday Evening Post_."

When the twenty-eight pages, which had been conceived and written to be
read in this way, were completed, they were too late to submit to the
_Post_, and too late to change.

The reader is therefore requested to bear in mind (as I do) that he is
getting the next eleven chapters for nothing--that they have not been
paid for and it can only be left to people's imaginations whether the
_Saturday Evening Post_ would approve or believe what I believe, or
feel hurt if other people believe it.

* * * * *

The suggestion that before the new profession of being a lawyer backwards
is started we shall all try in the present crisis of the nation, doing
what we can as amateurs, putting in at once any little odd jobs of
criticism on ours