experimented with that task. And certainly it is wiser to prevent somnambulism in politics by salutary ministration than to try to cure it by sudden shock. But we shall cure where we have not been able to prevent, only if we resolutely face the facts. The most sternly effective encounter for the somnambulist of the day-time in politics—and he is ever with us—would, we may be sure, be a meeting with Machiavelli. But we are anticipating.
The chief and never-ending task of the political historian is the study and estimate of policy and of the instruments for the conduct of policy the study and estimate of statesmanship. By ‘policy’ we mean a reasoned line of action taken in relation to conditions as present, and as seen and understood, with a view to improving them. It is the application of mind and means to conditions for an object, immediate or distant, or both. Both the immediate means and the immediate object may at times seem to conflict with a larger and ultimate object, and yet be sound and necessary: we do not appraise by the same standard the Tudor body politic and modern parliamentarianism. We must never separate the study of policy whether it be the statesman's study of policy in prospect, or the historian's in retrospect from the appreciation of the instruments on the understanding and the use
‘Foreign Policy’ in Practical Politics (1881), 81. ‘Much of the good, however, that might result from the increased knowledge of statesmen about foreign affairs will be lost, if they do not take more pains to spread their own knowledge and ideas amongst their countrymen. If they do not do so, their hands may be forced at any moment, and they may be driven into courses which will be equally disagreeable to sane Liberals and sane Conservatives, by some sudden enthusiasm, which would never have taken hold on the popular mind if men in the front rank of politics had been wise in time, and had kept their countrymen a little more au courant of their thoughts.’—Ibid. 87. Further, ‘in dealing with a democracy you must not only be right, but seem right.’—Ibid. 79.
