We have in this chapter considered some of the limitations which are set by the conditions of society on the duty of trying to realise our principles in action. The general conclusion is in perfect harmony with that of the previous chapters. A principle, if it be sound, represents one of the larger expediencies. To abandon that for the sake of some seeming expediency of the hour, is to sacrifice the greater good for the less, on no more creditable ground than that the less is nearer. It is better to wait, and to defer the realisation of our ideas until we can realise them fully, than to defraud the future by truncating them, if truncate them we must, in order to secure a partial triumph for them in the immediate present. It is better to bear the burden of impracticableness, than to stifle conviction and to pare away principle until it becomes more hollowness and triviality. What is the sense, and what is the morality, of postponing the wider utility to the narrower? Nothing is so sure to impoverish an epoch, to deprive conduct of nobleness, and character of elevation.
FOOTNOTES:
The Study of Sociology, p. 396.
No one, for instance, has given more forcible or decisive expression than Mr. Spencer has done to the duty of not passively accepting the current theology. See his First Principles, pt. i. ch. vi, § 34; paragraph beginning,—'Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal point of view,' etc.