|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: And, be it always remembered, that in introducing these men into the
"balance of the Constitution," we introduce no unknown quantity.
Statesmen ought to know them, if they know themselves; to judge what
the working man would do by what they do themselves. He who imputes
virtues to his own class imputes them also to the labouring class.
He who imputes vices to the labouring class, imputes them to his own
class. For both are not only of the same flesh and blood, but, what
is infinitely more important, of the same spirit; of the same race;
in innumerable cases, of the same ancestors. For centuries past the
most able of these men have been working upwards into the middle
class, and through it, often, to the highest dignities, and the
|