“That’s very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere, and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can never be reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Look what Stanley said the other day⁠—that the House had been tinkering long enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or that voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have been sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in public agents⁠—fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That’s my text⁠—which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous upholder of the wrong.”

“That general talk about a particular case is mere question begging, Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures, it doesn’t follow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout.”