that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic
occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become
a mere egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is
a means and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds.
Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out
of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce
the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order
to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself,
to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist.
Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.
Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness;
forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious
life is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises.
We talk of nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is,
we only think of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs.
Instead of seeking to breed our ideal bird, the eagle
of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want,
we talk entirely in terms of the process and the embryo.
The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes doubtful
and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything;
and our politics are rotten eggs.

Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence.
Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference
to poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating;
that we should ask if an egg is good enough for practical
poultry-rearing before we decide that the egg is bad enough
for practical politics. But I know that this primary pursuit
of the theory (which is but pursuit of the aim) exposes one
to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning.