Where shall we find language innocent enough, how
shall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to
enable us to say to the political Englishmen that the British
Constitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such a
magnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculative
side,--with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory,
its studied avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our
august Constitution sometimes looks,--forgive me, shade of Lord
Somers![41]--a colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How
is Cobbett[42] to say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is
with the smoke of a lifelong conflict in the field of political
practice? how is Mr. Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, after
his furious raid into this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets?_[43]
how is Mr. Ruskin,[44] after his pugnacious political economy? I say,
the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in the
political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he wants to make a beginning
for that more free speculative treatment of things, which may perhaps
one day make its benefits felt even in this sphere, but in a natural and
thence irresistible manner.
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