practical Statesmen, and particularly such as are high
in office, are more than other men subject;--as containing an answer to
that question, so interesting at this juncture,--How far is it in our
power to make amends for the harm done?

After the view of things which has been taken,--we may confidently
affirm that nothing but a knowledge of human nature directing the
operations of our government, can give it a right to an intimate
association with a cause which is that of human nature. I say, an
intimate association founded on the right of thorough knowledge;--to
contradistinguish this best mode of exertion from another which might
found _its_ right upon a vast and commanding military power put forth
with manifestation of sincere intentions to benefit our Allies--from a
conviction merely of policy that their liberty, independence, and
honour, are our genuine gain;--to distinguish the pure brotherly
connection from this other (in its appearance at least more magisterial)
which such a power, guided by such intention uniformly displayed, might
authorize. But of the former connection (which supposes the main
military effort to be made, even at present, by the people of the
Peninsula on whom the moral interest more closely presses), and of the
knowledge which it demands, I have hitherto spoken--and have further to
speak.

It is plain _a priori_ that the minds of Statesmen and Courtiers are
unfavourable to the growth of this knowledge. For they are in a
situation exclusive and artificial; which has the further disadvantage,
that it does not separate men from men by collateral partitions which
leave, along with difference, a sense of equality--that they, who are
divided, are yet upon the same level; but by a degree of superiority
which can scarcely fail to be accompanied with more or less of pride.
This situation therefore must be eminently unfavourable for the
reception and establishment of that knowledge which is founded not upon
things but upon sensations;--sensations which are general, and under
general influences (and this it is which makes them what they are, and
gives them their importance);--not upon things which may be _brought_;
but upon sensations which must be _met_. Passing by the kindred and
usually accompanying influence of birth in a certain rank--and, where
education has been pre-defined from childhood for the express purpose of
future political power, the tendency of such education to warp (and
therefore w