purely human interests tend to disappear. Just as a surgeon must perform an operation mechanically, according to the rules of his art, and would only be unmanned if he had before him the issues at stake on the individual life, so a statesman rapidly loses sight, in a complicated matter, of the primary considerations in which that matter originated. One step leads to another, and on each occasion for action, he can merely survey the chess-board and make the best move possible.
Again, a statesman is necessarily pledged to be the representative of a cause or a party. Of course he is responsible for espousing that cause or that party. He does so at first because he agrees with its fundamental ideas; but he is soon constrained to recognise the limitations imposed upon him by party loyalty. Frequently he cannot face the problem before him simply in itself. He has to ask not only what is the best and wisest thing to do, but the further and more difficult question: How will it, if done, affect my party as a whole? It may be said that this is an unworthy attitude to assume; that a man ought to quit a position in which he feels that he cannot act up to the best he knows. This, however, is really impossible in human affairs. In accepting a post of responsibility, the true man cuts himself off from the possibility of retreat. Dante was right in holding up to exceptional shame him who "made the great refusal". We cannot refuse to do our duty to the best of our power when things wear a threatening aspect. Oft-times a statesman is bound to cling to power, not because he
