ABSTRACT
The first indication of a gulf between the personal and the political modes of acting lies in their respective forcefulness to effect change in people. The author conducts himself by a conception of the other or the others which immediately classifies him as a personal or a political change-agent. In the personal service professions certainties, such as they are, are cultivated tentatively, and single-minded avowals are suspect. The preconceived certainties implied in the psychological and sociological premises of the personalists are not the ones which characterize the major political ideologies: while the personalists first principles of theory are strongly held, their constant self-review and self-critique pre-empts their ossification. Political morality suffers, and has always suffered, from an endemic Machiavellism. The degree of amorality, of ruthlessness, and the extent to which people are used as means to achieve some often abstract end, varies according to the political philosophy professed by the actor and according to his personality.
