take it, in the first place, that every man is a product as
well as a producer; that there is no such thing as the imaginary
individual with fixed properties, whom theorists are apt to take for
granted as the base of their reasoning; that no man or group of men is
intelligible without taking into account the mass of instincts
transmitted through their predecessors, and therefore without referring
to their position in the general history of human development. And,
secondly, it is essential to remember in speaking of any great man, or
of any institution, their position as parts of a complicated system of
actions and emotions. The word "if," I may say, changes its meaning.
"If" Harold had won the battle of Hastings, what would have been the
result? The answer would be comparatively simple, if we could, in the
old fashion, attribute to William the Conqueror all the results in which
he played a conspicuous part: if, therefore, we could make out a
definite list of effects of which he was the cause, and, by simply
"deducting" them, after Coleridge's fashion, from the effects which
actually followed, determine what was the precise balance. But when we
consider how many causes were actually in operation, how impossible it
is to disentangle and separate them, and say this followed from that,
and that other from something else, we have to admit that the might have
been is simply indiscoverable. The great man may have hastened what was
otherwise inevitable; he may simply have supplied the particular point,
round which a crystallisation took place of forces which would have
otherwise discovered some other centre; and the fact that he succeeded
in establishing certain institutions or laws may be simply a proof that
he saw a little more clearly than others the direction towards which
more general causes were inevitably propelling the nation. Briefly, we
cannot isolate the particular "cause" in this case, and have to remember
at every moment that it was only one factor in a vast and complex series
of changes, which would no doubt have taken a different turn without it,
but of which it may be indefinitely difficult to say what was the
precise deflection due to its action.

In trying to indicate the importance, I have had to dwell upon the
difficulty, of applying anything like scientific methods to political
problems. I shall conclude by trying once more to indicate why, in
spite of this, I hold that the attempt is desirable, and may be