Shortly before leaving home, I had concluded
the preface to a collection of criticisms with these words: "My
watchword has been: As flexible as possible, when it is a question of
understanding, as inflexible as possible, when it is a question of
speaking," and I had regarded this watchword as more than the motto of a
little literary criticism. Now I had met a grand inflexibility of ideas
in human form, and was impressed for my whole life long.
Unadapted though I was by nature to practical politics, or in fact to
any activity save that of ideas, I was far from regarding myself as mere
material for a scholar, an entertaining author, a literary historian, or
the like. I thought myself naturally fitted to be a man of action. But
the men of action I had hitherto met had repelled me by their lack of a
leading principle. The so-called practical men at home, lawyers and
parliamentarians, were not men who had made themselves masters of any
fund of new thoughts that they wished to reduce to practical effect;
they were dexterous people, well-informed of conditions at their elbow,
not thinkers, and they only placed an immediate goal in front of
themselves. In Mill I learnt at last to know a man in whom the power of
action, disturbance, and accomplishment were devoted to the service of
modern sociological thought.
Pages:
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421