POLITICS and filth are so frequently identified in the ordinary conversation of people that the thoughtful person is rather puzzled by the situation. Why should politics, one of the fundamental activities of man, one of the perpetual forms of the human spirit, alone enjoy the homage of such contemptuous language? We never describe other forms of activity as essentially filth. We do not habitually think of scientific, or artistic, or social or moral activity, in any such terms of repugnance.

We must first of all remember that the human being is by preference a lazy creature. All of us, even the hardest workers and the sturdiest and most determined fighters, have at least rapid and fleeting yearnings for peace, tranquillity, repose. In the mass of the race this longing constitutes the prevailing state of mind. Only a few people, and they too only for a few moments at a time, are really reconciled to the truth: that there is no rest for man on this earth except rest in struggle and through struggle; that there is no peace except in war and through war. Hence the continuous negation of politics which this longing implies. For politics offer the greatest and most conspicuous display of human combativeness; and in place of politics we are ready to take anything however meaningless so long as it makes verbal denial of struggle and pays verbal homage to the ideal of inertia: “social justice,” “international justice,” “equality,” “fraternity,” “co-operation of classes,” “leagues of nations.” And what is political action? Factional and party strife, government by factions and parties, law-making which represents prosperity for one group and disaster for other groups, diplomatic jockeying and fencing, commercial compromises, tariff wars—wars of armies and navies! Contradiction, at every point, of the ideal of peace and tranquillity, of the aspiration to repose and inertia!

But this is not enough, as yet, to account for such a filthy epithet. We must add, therefore, one other point: that politicians and statesmen are of course unable to effect rapid changes in the feelings of their publics; so they accept those feelings as they find them, humouring them in words and thwarting them in deeds, covering their tracks with sophistries, diversions, and oratorical buncombe of various kinds. They cannot, however, cover their tracks always, nor from everybody. Their lies and deceits are detected; and since nothing else in particular can be done about it, we console ourselves by muttering a word of scorn. And there is something more curious still! Politicians hardly ever possess the higher faculty of dialectic—of synthesising and harmonising contraries—which is the peculiar province of the philosopher. To a greater or lesser extent they share in the feelings of their publics, though their political scent leads them to frustrate these popular aspirations every hour of the day and every day of the week. In these circumstances they feel as though they were being forced to do wrong against their will: they have to lie when they would far rather tell the truth—they have to declare war, when they would far rather make peace. So they are tormented with a feeling (a mistaken one, it may be added) that they are living an unnatural and an immoral life. And they too angrily hiss through their teeth an epithet that was first used against themselves. They too say that politics is filth; and they look forward to a time when they will be permitted to retire procul negotiis to cultivate cabbages in a garden (when they are well advised), or to dabble in literature, arts, and sciences (when they are not so well advised). Is there any escape from this contradiction between political words and political deeds? Is there a way to soothe the conscience of the statesman and to sweeten the bad temper of the citizen? There is, in theory, though the measure is hardly a practicable one: statesmen might learn to think philosophically, and the public might cease to be an unthinking mob. This would not do away with struggle, nor would it make combat any less bitter and intense. But it would produce something of which mediaeval chivalry furnished a tiny and partial example: struggle with the realisation of its necessity, with consideration for adversaries, and with good faith in trickery, since trickery would still have to be regarded as a legitimate measure of warfare in politics. Or, leaving chivalry aside, we could introduce into politics something of the spirit and manner of thinking that prevails in a field not far removed from politics: in economic life—in commerce and industry. There everybody knows that les affaires sont les affaires, that business is business; and that a competitor who tries to run his business on a basis of morality and justice, will certainly do nothing moral or just, and quite as certainly will ruin his enterprises and do harm to himself and society.

I say there is no hope of any change, at least for the present. And I am thinking of the fate of Machiavelli. In a devotedly religious spirit (only in such a spirit can new and unwelcome truths be discovered and proclaimed) Machiavelli divined and formulated the true theory of the nature of politics. But among all the great men who have obtained, as they could not fail to obtain, a glory proportionate to the grandeur of their intellects, he is the only one to be accorded a glory darkened under a cloud: his name has given rise to a common noun which is taken as a synonym for perfidy and wickedness.