er the mass of mankind choose to follow
it or not.

But politics are studied, as Aristotle said, 'for the sake of action
rather than of knowledge,'[49] and the student is bound, sooner or later,
to ask himself what will be the effect of a change in his science upon
that political world in which he lives and works.

[49] _Ethics_, Bk. I. ch. iii. (6). [Greek: epeide to telos [tes
politikes] estin ou gnesis alla praxis.]

One can imagine, for instance, that a professor of politics in Columbia
University, who had just taken part as a 'Mugwump' in a well-fought but
entirely unsuccessful campaign against Tammany Hall, might say: 'The
finer and more accurate the processes of political science become, the
less do they count in politics. Astronomers invent every year more
delicate methods of forecasting the movements of the stars, but cannot
with all their skill divert one star an inch from its course. So we
students of politics will find that our growing knowledge brings us only
a growing sense of helplessness. We may learn from our science to
estimate exactly the forces exerted by the syndicated newspaper press,
by the liquor saloons, or by the blind instincts of class and
nationality and race; but how can we learn to control them? The fact
that we think about these things in a new way will not win elections or
prevent wars.'

I propose, therefore, in this second part of my book to discuss how far
the new tendencies which are beginning to transform the science of
politics are likely also to make themselves felt as a new political
force. I shall try to estimate the probable influence of these
tendencies, not only on the student or the trained politician, but on
the ordinary citizen whom political science reaches only at second or
third hand; and, with that intention, shall treat in successive chapters
their relation to our ideals of political morality, to the form and
working of the representative and official machinery of the State, and
to the possibilities of international and inter-racial understanding.

This chapter deals from that point of view with their probable influence
on political morality. In using that term I do not mean to imply that
certain acts are moral when done from political motives which would not
be moral if done from other motives, or _vice versa_, but to emphasise
the fact that there are certain ethical questions which can only be
studied in close connection with political science. There are, of
c