-the-wisps and the
shadows which divert us from our real purpose. Each man carries within
himself the cause of his own mirages. Whenever we accept an idea as
authority instead of as instrument, an idol is set up. We worship the
plough, and not the fruit. And from this habit there is no permanent
escape. Only effort can keep the mind centered truly. Whenever criticism
slackens, whenever we sink into acquiescence, the mind swerves aside and
clings with the gratitude of the weary to some fixed idea. It is so much
easier to follow a rule of thumb, and obey the constitution, than to find
out what we really want and to do it.

* * * * *

A great deal of political theory has been devoted to asking: what is the
aim of government? Many readers may have wondered why that question has
not figured in these pages. For the logical method would be to decide
upon the ultimate ideal of statecraft and then elaborate the technique of
its realization. I have not done that because this rational procedure
inverts the natural order of things and develops all kinds of theoretical
tangles and pseudo-problems. They come from an effort to state abstractly
in intellectual terms qualities that can be known only by direct
experience. You achieve nothing but confusion if you begin by announcing
that politics must achieve "justice" or "liberty" or "happiness." Even
though you are perfectly sure that you know exactly what these words mean
translated into concrete experiences, it is very doubtful whether you can
really convey your meaning to anyone else. "Plaisante justice qu'une
riviere borne. Verite, au deca des Pyrenees, erreur au de la," says
Pascal. If what is good in the world depended on our ability to define it
we should be hopeless indeed.

This is an old difficulty in ethics. Many men have remarked that we
quarrel over the "problem of evil," never over the "problem of good."
That comes from the fact that good is a quality of experience which does
not demand an explanation. When we are thwarted we begin to ask why. It
was the evil in the world that set Leibniz the task of justifying the
ways of God to man. Nor is it an accident that in daily life misfortune
turns men to philosophy. One might generalize and say that as soon as we
begin to explain, it is because we have been made to complain.

No moral judgment can decide the value of life. No ethical theory can
announce any intrinsic good. The whole speculation