Modesty and
toleration are as important as positiveness to the man who is to make a
mark in the world.
Arguments of policy are of endless variety, for we are all of us making
them all the time, from the morning hour in which we argue with
ourselves, so often ineffectually, that we really ought to get up when
the clock strikes, to the arguments about choosing a profession or
helping to start a movement for universal peace. It would be a weariness
to the flesh to attempt a classification of them that should pretend to
be exhaustive; but there are certain major groups of human motive which
will be a good basis for a rough, but convenient, sorting out of the
commoner kinds of arguments of policy. In practical affairs we ask first
if there is any principle of right or wrong involved, then what is best
for the practical interests of ourselves and other people, and in a few
cases, when these other considerations are irrelevant, what course is
dictated by our ideas of fitness and beauty. I will briefly discuss a
few of the main types of the argument of policy, grouping them according
as they appeal chiefly to the sense of right and wrong, to practical
interests, or to aesthetic interests.
There are many arguments outside of sermons which turn on questions of
right and wrong.
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