POLITICS and filth are so frequently identified in the ordinary conversation of people that the thoughtful person is rather puzzled by the situation. Why should politics, one of the fundamental activities of man, one of the perpetual forms of the human spirit, alone enjoy the homage of such contemptuous language? We never describe other forms of activity as essentially filth. We do not habitually think of scientific, or artistic, or social or moral activity, in any such terms of repugnance.
We must first of all remember that the human being is by preference a lazy creature. All of us, even the hardest workers and the sturdiest and most determined fighters, have at least rapid and fleeting yearnings for peace, tranquillity, repose. In the mass of the race this longing constitutes the prevailing state of mind. Only a few people, and they too only for a few moments at a time, are really recon-
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