PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

slower than the rate at which action has to be taken. In the present
state of political science there is, therefore, a tendency for one
situation to change into another, before the first is clearly
understood,
and so to make much political criticism hindsight and little else. Both
in
the discovery of what is unknown, and in the propagation of that which
has been proved, there is a time-differential, which ought to, in a
much
greater degree than it ever has, occupy the political philosopher. We
have begun, chiefly under the inspiration of Mr. Graham Wallas, to
examine the effect of an invisible environment upon our opinions.
We do not, as yet, understand, except a little by rule of thumb, the
element of time in politics, though it bears most directly upon the
practicability of any constructive proposal. [Footnote: _Cf_. H. G.
Wells in the opening chapters of _Mankind in the Making._] We
can see, for example, that somehow the relevancy of any plan depends
upon the length of time the operation requires. Because on the length
of time it will depend whether the data which the plan assumes as
given, will in truth remain the same. [Footnote: The better the
current analysis in the intelligence work of any institution, the less
likely, of course, that men will deal with tomorrow's problems in the
light of yesterday's facts.] There is a factor here which realistic
and experienced men do take into account, and it helps to mark
them off somehow from the opportunist, the visionary, the philistine
and the pedant. [Footnote: Not all, but some of the differences
between reactionaries, conservatives, liberals, and radicals are
due, I think, to a different intuitive estimate of the rate of change
in social affairs.] But just how the calculation of time enters into
politics we do not know at present in any systematic way.
Until we understand these matters more clearly, we can at least
remember that there is a problem of the utmost theoretical difficulty
and practical consequence. It will help us to cherish Plato's ideal,
without sharing his hasty conclusion about the perversity of those who
do not listen to reason. It is hard to obey reason in politics,
because you are trying to make two processes march together, which
have as yet a different gait and a different pace. Until reason is
subtle and particular, the immediate struggle of politics will
continue to require an amount of native wit, force, and unprovable
faith, that reason can neither provide nor control, because the facts
of life are too undifferentiated for its powers of understanding. The
methods of social science are so little perfected that in many of the
serious decisions and most of the casual ones, there is as yet no
choice but to gamble with fate as intuition prompts.
But we can make a belief in reason one of those intuitions. We can use
our wit and our force to make footholds for reason. Behind our