the 'dogma' of universal suffrage
means the assertion that all men who have votes are thereby made
identical with each other in all respects, and that universal suffrage
is the one condition of good government, then, and then only, is his
attack on it valid. If, however, the desire for universal suffrage is
based on the belief that a wide extension of political power is one of
the most important elements in the conditions of good government--racial
aptitude, ministerial responsibility, and the like, being other
elements--then the speech is absolutely meaningless.

But Prince Buelow was making a parliamentary speech, and in
parliamentary oratory that change from qualitative to quantitative
method which has so deeply affected the procedure of Conferences and
Commissions has not yet made much progress. In a 'full-dress' debate
even those speeches which move us most often recall Mr. Gladstone, in
whose mind, as soon as he stood up to speak, his Eton and Oxford
training in words always contended with his experience of things, and
who never made it quite clear whether the 'grand and eternal
commonplaces of liberty and self-government' meant that certain elements
must be of great and permanent importance in every problem of Church and
State, or that an _a priori_ solution of all political problems could be
deduced by all good men from absolute and authoritative laws.

PART II

_Possibilities of Progress_

CHAPTER I

POLITICAL MORALITY

In the preceding chapters I have argued that the efficiency of political
science, its power, that is to say, of forecasting the results of
political causes, is likely to increase. I based my argument on two
facts, firstly, that modern psychology offers us a conception of human
nature much truer, though more complex, than that which is associated
with the traditional English political philosophy; and secondly, that,
under the influence and example of the natural sciences, political
thinkers are already beginning to use in their discussions and inquiries
quantitative rather than merely qualitative words and methods, and are
able therefore both to state their problems more fully and to answer
them with a greater approximation to accuracy.

In this argument it was not necessary to ask how far such an
improvement in the science of politics is likely to influence the actual
course of political history. Whatever may be the best way of discovering
truth will remain the best, wheth