That system, whenever it was competent and honest, had to assume that
no man could have more than a very partial experience of public
affairs. In the sense that he can give only a little time to them,
that assumption is still true, and of the utmost consequence. But
ancient theory was compelled to assume, not only that men could give
little attention to public questions, but that the attention available
would have to be confined to matters close at hand. It would have been
visionary to suppose that a time would come when distant and
complicated events could conceivably be reported, analyzed, and
presented in such a form that a really valuable choice could be made
by an amateur. That time is now in sight. There is no longer any doubt
that the continuous reporting of an unseen environment is feasible. It
is often done badly, but the fact that it is done at all shows that it
can be done, and the fact that we begin to know how badly it is often
done, shows that it can be done better. With varying degrees of skill
and honesty distant complexities are reported every day by engineers
and accountants for business men, by secretaries and civil servants
for officials, by intelligence officers for the General Staff, by some
journalists for some readers. These are crude beginnings but radical,
far more radical in the literal meaning of that word than the
repetition of wars, revolutions, abdications and restorations; as
radical as the change in the scale of human life which has made it
possible for Mr.
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