Chastening of Herbert Spencer 2 I 7
and execution of the other man, we call his act private revenge or justifiable homicide, etc. If he is acting with many others, through organised instruments, we call this united action, "public justice."
The difference between condemnation made by him who thus recognises the universal force of one Power, from that made by him who thinks he believes in many wills, lies chiefly within the respective breasts of the critics. In the first case, there cannot exist anything of bitterness; in the second it may exist. Having thus by a little discursive philosophising taken away the sting from my quarrel with British-Tibetan policy, lest the Government die of it, we may set ourselves to an inquiry into this most interesting and important question.
As the brute power to execute its will against Tibet undoubtedly exists in the British Government, it is important to determine what are the motives actuating British policy. The question is not stated because of a conviction that national policies are always clearly conceived and systematically followed by any government. Generally this is not the case ; haphazard and awkwardness probably play a larger part in the affairs of state than they do in the affairs of John Smith. Yet in the case we now consider, the territory in question lies so far beyond the world's general movement that the existence of any policy whatever, in its regard, would suggest that such a policy must have definite beginnings and direction.
If we turn to the past—to the spectacular days of Warren Hastings, we need not hesitate to interpret
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