actically wrong; or
that what is right for the one shall be wrong for the other. Again,
some common standing-ground may be found, where the right of each,
converted into the rights of both, may so far overlap as substantially
to coincide.

The idea is held by a vigorous few, and incessantly expressed,
that the American people, through force of arms, is holding in
subjection and depriving of liberty another people; that this
state of affairs is wrong, bad for both sides, and should come to
an end by an immediate grant of full independence to the Filipino
people, because no one nation is good enough to hold any other
in subjection. It is pertinent to remark, that these ideas so far
have found no nation-wide expression: as already said, they are the
expression of only a few, but they may be the private opinions of
many. Taken together, they constitute what may be called the purely
abstract view of the case. This view takes no account of attendant
conditions; it asserts that the right is one and only one thing,
and can not be anything else; that is to say, it defines the right
and refuses to admit that any other definition will hold, or that
any elements can enter into the definition other than those which it
has seen fit to include. If no other aspect of the case be correct,
our duty is indeed plain. But it is conceivable that this view may
not be correct, or at least that so many other factors have to be
considered that what might be true in the abstract is subject to very
considerable modification when applied to things as they are.

Of this, no better illustration can be given here than the error
committed when it is asserted that we, one people, are holding another
people, the Filipino, in subjection. As a matter of fact, there is no
Filipino people. A certain number of persons, about eight millions,
inhabit, the Philippine Archipelago, but it is no more correct to call
these one people than it is to call the Europeans one people, because
they happen to inhabit the European continent. It is well to keep
this point in mind, because, unless a grave error is here committed,
the impression prevails that it is one single, homogeneous people
whom we are unjustly depriving of independence. At any rate, if not
categorically expressed, the connotation of the idea of homogeneity
exists. How far this is from the truth is so evident to any person
having the slightest real acquaintance with the Philippines, that
it would hardly