In this remark you may see how far deeper his reflections take him than what passes for reflection among the propagandists of hate.  Abuse of Germany never occupied his mind, which was sorrowfully engaged in striving to comprehend the spiritual conditions of the German people:  he realized, that is to say, that we were not fighting an enemy who could be shouted down or made ashamed by abusive epithets, but that we were opposing a spirit whose anger and temper were entirely different from our own, and therefore a spirit which must be understood if we were to conquer it.  It was not merely the armies of Germany which must be defeated, it was the soul of Germany which had to be converted.  He saw this clearly:  he never ceased to work to that end; but he failed to take the nation into his confidence and the public never understood what he was after.  A fanatic would have left the nation in no doubt of his purpose.

Every now and then he has half let the nation see what was in his mind.  For example, he has taken those illuminating, those surely inspired, words of Edith Cavell as the text for more than one address—­Patriotism is not enough.  But beautiful and convincing as these addresses have been, their spirit has always had the wistful and piano tones of philosophy, never the consuming fervour of fanaticism.  He knows, as few other men know, that without a League of Nations the future of civilization is in peril, even the future of the white races; but he has never made the world feel genuine alarm for this danger or genuine enthusiasm for the sole means that can avert it.  He has not preached the League of Nations as a way of salvation; he has only recommended it as a legal tribunal.

It is apparently difficult for a politician, however statesmanlike his qualities, to realize that politics cannot be even divorced from morality, much less to comprehend that morality is the very sinew of politics, being in truth nothing more than the conscience of a nation striving to express itself in State action.  Because of this politics become degraded and sink to the lowest levels of a mere factional manoeuvring for place.  They engage the attention of the attorney, and earn nothing but the contempt of the wise.  They become like the perversions of art in the hands of those who assert that art has nothing to do with morals; they interest only a handful of experts.

But a man like Lord Robert Cecil does surely apprehend that the essence of politics is morality and, therefore, his unwillingness to use moral weapons in the political arena is hard to understand.  He debates where he should appeal; he criticizes where he should denounce; and he accepts a compromise where he should lead a revolt.  He is also altogether too civil for the rogues with whom he has to do.