law-courts made larger allowances than they do for the exigencies of public-spirited policy.
Our first duty, therefore, seems to be to make allowances for the spirit of the age. But, after we have done so, we begin to have an uncomfortable feeling that our view of the spirit of the age has been constructed from no better grounds than our hero's actions. He did such and such a thing; it succeeded; men applauded his success; therefore they saw nothing to blame in the moral ideas from which he acted. But men's moral ideas have always been much the same. Advance in morality only means stricter enforcement of the moral law, not a greater knowledge of its contents. The hero knew the moral law, but dispensed himself from its observance for his own purposes.
We cannot determine the condition of the popular conscience before he acted; and, indeed, the conception of any organised expression of the popular conscience is a very modern idea, and is still peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race. But, this I think we may say, that if a man was superior to his fellows in wisdom, we may demand that he should be also superior in virtue. If not, we can scarcely be justified in counting him a great man, except on the bald assumption that anything that is done is great simply because it is done, and, consequently, that the acquisition and use of force for any purpose whatever constitutes the sole title to greatness.
This brings me to a question concerning great men which must be answered before we can determine their position. Do we call men great because they
