Both these qualities--his disposition to revise his opinions in the light of new arguments and changing conditions, and the silence he maintained till the process of revision had been completed--exposed him to misconstruction. Commonplace men, unwont to give serious scrutiny to their opinions, ascribed his changes to self-interest, or at best regarded them as the index of an unstable purpose. Dull men could not understand why he should have forborne to set forth all that was passing in his mind, and saw little difference between reticence and dishonesty. In so far as they shook public confidence, these characteristics injured him in his statesman's work. Yet the loss was outweighed by the gain. In a country where opinion is active and changeful, where the economic conditions that legislation has to deal with are in a state of perpetual flux, where the balance of power between the upper, the middle, and the poorer classes has been swiftly altering during the last seventy years, no statesman can continue to serve the public if he adheres obstinately to the doctrines with which he started in life. He must--unless, of course, he stands aloof in permanent isolation--either subordinate his own views to the general sentiment of his party, and be driven to advocate courses he secretly mislikes, or else, holding himself ready to quit his party, if need be, must be willing to learn from events, and to reconsider his opinions in the light of emergent tendencies and insistent facts. Mr. Gladstone's pride as well as his conscience forbade the former alternative; it was fortunate that the tireless activity of his intellect made the latter natural to him. He was accustomed to say that the capital fault of his earlier days had been his failure adequately to recognise the worth and power of liberty, and the tendency which things have to work out for good when left to themselves. The application of this principle gave room for many developments, and many developments there were. He may have shown less than was needed of that prescience which is, after integrity and courage, the highest gift of a statesman, but which can seldom be expected from an English minister, too engrossed to find time for the patient reflection from which alone sound forecasts can issue. But he had the next best quality, that of remaining accessible to new ideas and learning from the events which passed under his eyes.