Statesman

I am, in this very practical sense,entirely for trusting the government… It is this—that we are not trusting them as extraordinary men, but as ordinary men. Strength is the great weakness of politicians. They are haunted by the decayed Carlylean fancy that a nation in peril must be saved by a Great Man; and each of them is always trying to prove that he was the Great Man and all his colleagues were impiously blind to the fact. They are wrong from the very root. A great nation in peril is saved by a great nation, or else it is not saved at all. Napoleon could have done nothing without Revolutionary France. Finding a Napoleon is a strength; but looking for a Napoleon is invariably a weakness. General Joffre, in an anecdote which may not be true, but which would be very creditable to his strong humour and sense, is reported as having said that Napoleon “would probably have thought of something.” This is true; it is also useless. Merely trying to think of something leads to thinking of anything. We see it in the sterile violence of the new schools of art, which say “I am going to do something original,” when they have not thought of anything to do. Here is the great snare for the statesmen. And we, who are supporting their sane authority against sedition and panic, must warn them against this great temptation. They must be cured of being strong men. They must be saved from saving the State. Serving the State is all that is asked of them, and this they are quite competent to do. 327