So also the State is bound to undertake trades which are essential for the protection of the nation against foreign enemies. Our dockyards and arsenals may, and doubtless do, often make mistakes and turn out expensive work; but we could not safely leave the building of ironclads and supply of cannon solely to private enterprise, for there is no such large and steady demand for such articles as would induce a number of private firms to erect works and keep up establishments adequate to supply the wants which might arise in an emergency. In all such matters, therefore, of national defence we must put up with a certain amount of drawbacks incidental to State management, and confine ourselves to endeavouring to reduce them to a minimum. And this is to a great extent within the power of the nation and its Parliament, by applying common-sense principles of business to national expenditure, and seeing that while on the one hand we get as nearly as possible a pound’s worth of work for every pound spent, on the other hand we do not spend nineteen shillings uselessly, because some Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to gain momentary popularity by the ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ economy of docking the extra shilling off the necessary estimates. In private life a man gets on by knowing when to spend as well as when not to spend, and true economy has no greater foe than spasmodic parsimony alternating almost certainly with spasmodic extravagance. It would be easy to multiply instances, for there are few phases of political and practical life to which the principle of polarity does not apply, where extremes are not false, and where there is not a good deal to be said on both sides of the question. But the very obviousness of the principle makes it difficult to deal with it generally without degenerating into commonplace, while to trace its application exhaustively in any one instance would require a volume. Those who wish to pursue the subject further will do well to study the works of Herbert Spencer, where they will find the application of general principles to all the problems of sociology treated with a depth of philosophic insight and an abundance and aptness of illustration which I cannot pretend to equal. My ambition is of a humbler nature. I do not expect to set the Thames on fire, or to produce a revolution in modern thought; but I do hope that the views which I have endeavoured to express may do somewhat to make some readers more tolerant and charitable in their judgments, less bitter and one-sided in controversy; and that whatever truth there may be in my ideas will contribute to form a small part, neither more nor less than it deserves, of the great body of truth which is handed down from the present to succeeding generations, and which becomes, long after I am there to witness it, the inheritance of the human race in the course of its evolution.
And now, before I take my final leave of the reader, let me for a few moments throw the reins on the neck of fancy, and suppose myself standing with that group of Parsees by the shore of the Indian Ocean, listening to its murmured rhythm, inhaling the balmy air, watching the silver crescent of the new moon, and musing on the wise sayings of the ancient sage; the sum of the reflections which I have tried to embody in the preceding pages would take form and crystallise in the following sonnet:—
Hail! gracious Ormuzd, author of all good,
Spirit of beauty, purity, and light;
Teach me like thee to hate dark deeds of night,
And battle ever with the hellish brood
Of Ahriman, dread prince of evil mood—
Father of lies, uncleanness, envious spite,
Thefts, murders, sensual sins that shun the light,
Unreason, ugliness, and fancies lewd—