ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

35 6

active and constructive temperaments in everypolitical camp are ready to join the OpenConspiracy.

What, then, is it that holds them back? Itis here, I think, that Clissold is in some waydeficient and apparently lacking in insight.Why do practical men find it more amusing tomake money than to join the Open Conspiracy?I suggest that it is much the same reason as thatwhich makes them find it more amusing to playbridge on Sundays than to go to church. Theylack altogether the kind of motive, the possessionof which, if they had it, could be expressed bysaying that they had a creed. They have nocreed, these potential open conspirators, nocreed whatever. That is why, unless they havethe luck to be scientists or artists, they fall backon the grand substitute motive, the perfectErsatz , the anodyne for those who, in fact, wantnothing at all—Money. Clissold charges theenthusiasts of Labour that they have “feelingsin the place of ideas.” But he does not denythat they have feelings. Has not, perhaps, poorMr. Cook something which Clissold lacks?Clissold and his brother Dickon, the adver-tising expert, flutter about the world seekingfor something to which they can attach theirabundant libido. But they have not found it.They would so like to be Apostles. But theycannot. They remain business men.

I have taken two themes from a book whichcontains dozens. They are not all treatedequally well. Knowing the Universities much