The truth is that the men of “principle” are a pretty dangerous class, generally speaking—and they are generally speaking. It is they that hamper us in every war. It is they who, preventing concentration and regulation of unabolishable evils, promote their distribution and liberty. Moral principles are pretty good things—for the young and those not well grounded in goodness. If one have an impediment in his thought, or is otherwise unequal to emergencies as they arise, it is safest to be provided beforehand with something to refer to in order that a right decision may be made without taking thought. But spirits of a purer fire prefer to decide each question as it comes up, and to act upon the merits of the case, unbound and unpledged. With a quick intelligence, a capable conscience and a habit of doing right automatically, one has little need to burden one’s mind and memory with a set of solemn principles formulated by owlish philosophers who do not happen to know that what is right is merely what, in the long run and with regard to the greater number of cases, is expedient. Principle is not always an infallible guide. For illustration, it is not always expedient—that is, for the good of all concerned—to tell the truth, to be entirely just or merciful, to pay a debt. I can conceive a case in which it would be right to assassinate one’s neighbor. Suppose him to be a desperate scoundrel of a chemist who has devised a means of setting the atmosphere afire. The man who should go through life on an inflexible line of principle would border his path with a havoc of human happiness. What one may think perfect one may not always think desirable. By “perfect” one may mean merely complete, and the word was so used in my reference to Socialism. I am not myself an advocate of “perfect Socialism,” but as to government ownership of railways, there is doubtless a good deal to be said on both sides. One argument in its favor appears decisive; under a system subject to popular control the law of gravitation would be shorn of its preëminence as a means of removing personal property from the baggage car. VI When M. Casimir-Perier resigned the French presidency there were those who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise censurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong one—not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly know where to look in history for an act more entirely gratifying to my sense of the “fitness of things” than this dignified notification to mankind that in consenting to serve one’s country one does not relinquish the right to decent treatment—to immunity from factious opposition and abuse—to at least as much civil consideration as is due from the church to the devil.