In plato's Theaetetus Socrates develops the character of the philosopher, the man of knowledge, in contrast to the atheoretical, practical man.* He endeavors to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of the philosopher by emphasizing his peculiar attitude towards the political sphere.

First, the philosopher has no political ambitions, and he does not care about what is going on in the political sphere.

When the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into its second world war, the immediate concern of political leaders and public opinion alike was to train its manpower and to mobilize its industrial resources as the fisrst step in the long up-hill climb from initial defeat to decisive victory, first against Germany, then against Japan. Its prime political aim was to forge and maintain an effective working alliance with its major allies, Britain and the Soviet Union. If either faltered or failed in the joint effort, the road to victory and postwar security would stretch out beyond the horizon. After almost two decades of selfimposed isolation, American power was now to be concerned intimately with decisions, taken or not taken, which would in turn affect all parts of the world. Neither possessing the British tradition of continuity in its diplomacy nor possessed by the ruthless Soviet drive for expansion, impsrovised American policy-making toward many areas, including East Central Europe, sometimes mistook sympathy for policy, hope for action.

Two ancient symbols—public opinion and the middle class— have nearly always been associated in some degree. Public opinion has stood, first of all, for participation in the government of a society. Such participation has raised the issue of the quality of opinion or the quality of the participation in the government of res populi. From the time of the Greeks at least, the middle class has been regarded by certain conservatives, or let us say, Aristotelians, as having moderate, intelligent, and balanced opinion.

Though public opinion and the middle class idea have been often associated, they have each had different and divergent lines of emergence; different theoretical problems have been presented, and some of this development is to be outlined here. Yet at the tense moments of the eighteenth-century revolution, the French Revolution and its children, they were joined together in close doctrinal union at the height of an historical crisis.

“I am not a politician, and my other habits are good.” This statement appeared almost twenty years ago in a serious book about The American Political Scene, and it reflects a widespread opinion in the United States today. The term “politician” widely connotes evil, corruption, and crass self-aggrandisement at public expense. Politics is frequently looked upon as a disreputable profession; and political history is often considered dull, meaningless, and insignificant, especially when compared with economic history, intellectual history, or that unpredictable mosaic called social history. This state of things appears curious in view of these facts: that government plays a larger role in our lives than ever before and that politics is the process by means of which governmental policies are formulated. Indeed, it might well be argued that it is a regrettable and even an indefensible state of things if, as seems likely, “big government” is here to stay.

Of all the liberal arts no two would appear to be more closely and naturally interrelated than literature and history. Doubtless one can enjoy and appreciate much in belles-lettres even though handicapped by a limited knowledge of history, but the serious study of any body of literature would generally be admitted to presuppose a reasonable mastery of the historical milieu. In some instances, even a superficial understanding of a literary work would be impossible without the ability to place it in proper historical context. That literature is closely akin to history can be vouched for by the many who have been exposed to literature courses in college wherein the “background” seemed to outweigh in importance the creative achievements under study.