ife and movement at all costs, and that buying or selling,
consistency or inconsistency were neither here nor there.

The prominent capitalist is often open to this particular charge. On
Wednesday, says the adversary, he was all for this great scheme; on
Friday he has forgotten all about it and has another one. This is
perfectly true--but then between Wednesday and Friday the weather has
changed completely. Is the barometer fickle or inconsistent because it
registers an alteration of weather?

Nevertheless, the men of affairs who follow facts to success rather than
consistency to failure must expect to pay the penalty. Or at least, if
they are to avoid the punishment for being right they must take enormous
precautions.

The principle penalty is the prompt criticism that although the
successful business man plays the game with vigour, nerve, and sinew,
yet he plays it according to his own rules. The truth is that there is
no other way in which to play the game. Fluidity of judgment, adversely
described as fickleness and inconsistency, is the essence of success.

But the criticism is damaging. There are only two ways of combating it,
the wrong one and the right one. The wrong method is that of
hypocrisy--claiming a consistency which does not exist. The right one is
to cultivate the art of pleasing, so that inconsistency may be forgiven.
Friends may thus be retained though business policies vary. This is the
highest art of financial diplomacy.

Those who by some misfortune of character or upbringing are incapable of
this practice must make up their minds to face the abuse which their
successful practice of inconsistency will entail. They will not, if they
are wise, cultivate hypocrisy, not because the practice will damage them
in the esteem of their colleagues and neighbours, for, on the contrary,
it will enhance their repute, but because it will damage their own
self-respect. They would know that they were right in following fact and
fortune, and yet would be making a public admission that they were
wrong.

XIII

PREJUDICE

The most common, and, perhaps, the most serious of vices is prejudice.
It is a thing imbibed with one's mother's milk, fortified by all one's
youthful surroundings, and only broken through, if at all, by experience
of the world and a deliberate mental effort.

Prejudice is, indeed, a vice in the most serious sense of the term. It
is more damaging and corroding in its effects than mos