So a Tory can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, if he knows
what is Socialism. But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit,
a sublime atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps
out of its way; and quite right too. One can meet an assertion
with argument; but healthy bigotry is the only way in which one can
meet a tendency. I am told that the Japanese method of wrestling
consists not of suddenly pressing, but of suddenly giving way.
This is one of my many reasons for disliking the Japanese civilization.
To use surrender as a weapon is the very worst spirit of the East.
But certainly there is no force so hard to fight as the force which it
is easy to conquer; the force that always yields and then returns.
Such is the force of a great impersonal prejudice, such as possesses
the modern world on so many points. Against this there is no weapon
at all except a rigid and steely sanity, a resolution not to listen
to fads, and not to be infected by diseases.

In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice
in an age of prejudices, just as it armoured itself with logic in
an age of logic. But the difference between the two mental methods
is marked and unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this:
that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision.
Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's
way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable.
A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic.
So it is with our existing divisions. They keep out of each other's way;
the Tory paper and the Radical paper do not answer each other;
they ignore each other. Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust
before a common audience, has become in our special epoch very rare.
For the sincere controversialist is above all things a good listener.
The really burning enthusiast never interrupts; he listens to the enemy's