"Max Weber defended the social utility of the politician's calling and identified three qualities required for success: devotion to a cause; a sense of responsibility; and judgment, or being attuned to the consequences of one's actions. These usefully define Lincoln's own qualities as a politician. Yet Weber concluded by noting the symbiotic relationship between political action and moral agitation. "What is possible," he wrote, "would not have been achieved, if, in this world, people had not repeatedly reached for the impossible."8"