es are
perpetual and many-sided; they come from philosophers each of whom wants
some new scheme tried, from philanthropists who want some evil abated,
from revolutionists who want some old institution destroyed, from
new-eraists who want their new era started forthwith: and they all are
distinct admissions that a polity of discussion is the greatest
hindrance to the inherited mistake of human nature,--to the desire to
act promptly, which in a simple age is so excellent, but which in a
later and complex time leads to so much evil.

The same accusation against our age sometimes takes a more general form:
it is alleged that our energies are diminishing, that ordinary and
average men have not the quick determination nowadays which they used to
have when the world was younger, that not only do not committees and
parliaments act with rapid decisiveness, but that no one now so acts;
and I hope that in fact this is true, for according to me it proves that
the hereditary barbaric impulse is decaying and dying out. So far from
thinking the quality attributed to us a defect, I wish that those who
complain of it were far more right than I much fear they are. Still,
certainly, eager and violent action _is_ somewhat diminished, though
only by a small fraction of what it ought to be; and I believe that this
is in great part due, in England at least, to our government by
discussion, which has fostered a general intellectual tone, a diffused
disposition to weigh evidence, a conviction that much may be said on
every side of everything which the elder and more fanatic ages of the
world wanted. This is the real reason why our energies seem so much less
than those of our fathers. When we have a definite end in view, which we
know we want and which we think we know how to obtain, we can act well
enough: the campaigns of our soldiers are as energetic as any campaigns
ever were; the speculations of our merchants have greater promptitude,
greater audacity, greater vigor than any such speculations ever had
before. In old times a few ideas got possession of men and communities,
but this is happily now possible no longer: we see how incomplete these
old ideas were; how almost by chance one seized on one nation and
another on another; how often one set of men have persecuted another set
for opinions on subjects of which neither, we now perceive, knew
anything. It might be well if a greater number of effectual
demonstrations existed among mankind: b