I have been told, for instance, that among the little group of women who in 1906 and 1907 brought the question of Women’s Suffrage within the sphere of practical politics, was one who had received a serious academic training in psychology, and that the tactics actually employed were in large part due to her plea that in order to make men think one must begin by making them feel.[57]

[57] Mrs. Pankhurst is reported, in the Observer of July 26, 1908, to have said, ’Whatever the women who were called Suffragists might be, they at least understood how to bring themselves in touch with the public.  They had caught the spirit of the age, learnt the art of advertising.’

A Hindoo agitator, again, Mr. Chandra Pal, who also had read psychology, imitated Lord Lansdowne a few months ago by saying, ’Applying the principles of psychology to the consideration of political problems we find it is necessary that we ... should do nothing that will make the Government a power for us.  Because if the Government becomes easy, if it becomes pleasant, if it becomes good government, then our signs of separation from it will be gradually lost.’[58] Mr. Chandra Pal, unlike Lord Lansdowne, was shortly afterwards imprisoned, but his words have had an important political effect in India.

[58] Quoted in Times, June 3, 1907.

If this mental attitude and the tactics based on it succeed, they must, it may be argued, spread with constantly increasing rapidity; and just as, by Gresham’s Law in commerce, base coin, if there is enough of it, must drive out sterling coin, so in politics, must the easier and more immediately effective drive out the more difficult and less effective method of appeal.

One cannot now answer such an argument by a mere statement that knowledge will make men wise.  It was easy in the old days to rely on the belief that human life and conduct would become perfect if men only learnt to know themselves.  Before Darwin, most political speculators used to sketch a perfect polity which would result from the complete adoption of their principles, the republics of Plato and of More, Bacon’s Atlantis, Locke’s plea for a government which should consciously realise the purposes of God, or Bentham’s Utilitarian State securely founded upon the Table of the Springs of Action.  We, however, who live after Darwin, have learnt the hard lesson that we must not expect knowledge, however full, to lead us to perfection.  The modern student of physiology believes that if his work is successful, men may have better health than they would have if they were more ignorant, but he does not dream of producing a perfectly healthy nation; and he is always prepared to face the discovery that biological causes which he cannot control may be tending to make health worse.  Nor does the writer on education now argue that he can make perfect characters in his schools.  If our imaginations ever start on the old road to