The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation

and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to
Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness
The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation
and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to
Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same
varieties may be traced in the Individual; the "despotized" mind is
the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.

He adduces a number of illustrations to show that reason alone is

insufficient to make a moral sentiment
He adduces a number of illustrations to show that reason alone is
insufficient to make a moral sentiment. He bids us examine Ingratitude,
for instance; good offices bestowed on one side, ill-will on the other.
Reason might say, whether a certain action, say the gift of money, or
an act of patronage, was for the good of the party receiving it, and
whether the circumstances of the gift indicated a good intention on the
part of the giver; it might also say, whether the actions of the person
obliged were intentionally or consciously hurtful or wanting in esteem
to the person obliging. But when all this is made out by reason, there
remains the sentiment of abhorrence, whose foundations must be in the
emotional part of our nature, in our delight in manifested goodness,
and our abhorrence of the opposite.

Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English

public school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard
of the duty of telling the truth
Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English
public school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard
of the duty of telling the truth. I know there does still
linger among maiden ladies in remote country houses a notion
that English schoolboys are taught to tell the truth, but it
cannot be maintained seriously for a moment. Very occasionally,
very vaguely, English schoolboys are told not to tell lies,
which is a totally different thing. I may silently support
all the obscene fictions and forgeries in the universe,
without once telling a lie. I may wear another man"s coat,
steal another man"s wit, apostatize to another man"s creed,
or poison another man"s coffee, all without ever telling a lie.
But no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the
very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth.
From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about whether
a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can
be used on his 'side' when he is engaged in 'playing the game.'
He takes sides in his Union debating society to settle whether
Charles I ought to have been killed, with the same solemn
and pompous frivolity with which he takes sides in the cricket
field to decide whether Rugby or Westminster shall win.
He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion of the truth,
that the match is a matter of what may happen, but that Charles I
is a matter of what did happen--or did not. He is Liberal or Tory
at the general election exactly as he is Oxford or Cambridge
at the boat race. He knows that sport deals with the unknown;
he has not even a notion that politics should deal with the known.
If anyone really doubts this self-evident proposition,
that the public schools definitely discourage the love of truth,
there is one fact which I should think would settle him.
England is the country of the Party System, and it has always
been chiefly run by public-school men. Is there anyone
out of Hanwell who will maintain that the Party System,
whatever its conveniences or inconveniences, could have been
created by people particularly fond of truth?