Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/249

Rh best, considered a sort of Utopian dream that no one was bound to realise. Human interest will always mingle with human motive. To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage: still, no one can deny the vast advance that has been made. Our views are loftier, because more general; and individual selfishness is corrected by the knowledge, that good is only to be worked out on a large scale. The many have taken the place of the few; and a great principle gives something of its own strength to the mind that entertains it. The union of philanthrophy and of political science belongs to our own age: every hour the conviction is gaining ground, that happiness should be the object of legislation; and that power is given for responsibility, not for enjoyment. Power is a debt to the people: but as yet we walk with the leading-strings of prejudice, strong to confine the steps, which they never should attempt to guide. Let the child and the nation alike feel their own