said in 1883, "are like the Unitarians in religion; both omit imagination in their systems, and imagination governs mankind." Sixthly, the more Disraeli saw of high-bred Tories in London society and especially in their country houses, the more obvious it became to him that there was a vacancy in their ranks which his brains could fill. With the impressionable eye of an artist, he looked on the garter and riband and golden fleece of the Duke of Wellington, and saw how he could use such trappings to govern men through their imaginations.
His choice reminds one a little of a famous philosopher who at the most radical moment of his career decided upon the most moderate course of conduct. Descartes tells us with almost impenetrable irony in his "Discourse on Method," that when he arrived at his intellectual maturity he resolved to denude himself utterly of all past beliefs and in naked simplicity to seek the truth that was in him. But he hastens to add that expediency dictated his conforming in politics, religion, etc., to those with whom he should have to live. He adopted further the maxim that he was to be as firm and resolute in his actions as he was able, and "not to adhere less steadfastly to the most doubtful opinions, when once adopted, than if they had been highly certain." In such wise and in such a mood did the emancipated Jewish intelligence of Disraeli wrap the mantle of English Toryism about the naked sincerity of his approach to power.
