They were buried beneath a mountain of metaphysical right which they never related to legal facts or to political possibility.

They pursued relentlessly the logical conclusions of the doctrines they abhorred without being willing carefully to investigate the results to which their own doctrines in logic led.

They overestimated the extent to which men are willing to occupy themselves with political affairs.

They made no proper allowance for the protective armour each social system must acquire by the mere force of prescription.

Nor is there sufficient allowance in their attitude for those limiting conditions of circumstance of which every statesman must of necessity take account.