98 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



then acquire instruction if they wish to have their 

 legitimate share in the conduct of business and the 

 distribution of fortunes. But for the present — I 

 will speak the word without mincing it — the peo- 

 ple are too stupid to govern us. They have not 

 sufficient sound ideas, and they have too many 

 false ideas. . . . Incapable of improving the man- 

 agement of their own affairs, they are still more 

 incapable of managing public affairs. I did all I 

 could, when I served the Kevolution, to find among 

 the working-classes, or among the small trades- 

 men who were partisans of the Eevolution, men 

 capable of commanding or administering ; I did, I 

 repeat it, all I could. Well, I formally declare 

 that I only found capable auxiliaries in the in- 

 structed classes." 



Mr. Gladstone, I understand, makes an ex- 

 ception with regard to questions of religious tol- 

 eration. In these matters he admits that the 

 educated are more often just than the uneducated 

 classes. Mr. Gladstone, I feel sure, would also 

 except questions of financial policy. In the ar- 

 rangement of a budget, for example, or the dis- 

 tribution of the incidence of taxes, a knowledge 

 of political economy will be a safer guide than 

 ignorance led by compassion for the privations of 

 the poor. A sincere democrat would most cer- 

 tainly find it impossible to define even approxima- 

 tively the amount of education which, according 

 to his faith, unfits a man for judging fairly of 

 political questions. I recollect telling one of my 

 Red Republican friends in Paris that I thought 

 his demand for compulsory education of the work- 

 ing-classes inconsistent with his opinion that the 

 bourgeoisie were always in the wrong ; but I failed 

 in getting any answer from him, except a long 

 diatribe against " les habits noirs." A large 

 crowd of ignorant men standing silently together 

 would certainly never arrive instinctively at the 

 formation of a sound opinion in matters politic 

 without the help of a leader, whose success will 

 be equal to his eloquence. There can be no 

 doubt that a certain emotional response, which 

 has often the appearance of generosity and some- 

 times coincides with it, can be obtained from an ig- 

 norant crowd, by an eloquent speaker, with greater 

 facility than from an assemblage of enlightened 

 men. The uncultivated mind is slow, ill armed 

 with argumentative weapons, unable to detect 

 fallacies, or even to discern contradictions, and it 

 is easily carried away, whereas the cultivated 

 mind has been trained in the presence of argu- 

 ment, immediately to seek for objections and to 

 try and detect flaws in reasoning. Hence the 

 rebellious nature of a cultivated assembly, and 

 hence the preference of the professional dema- 



gogue for an ignorant audience. A Dim U veult 

 will not carry off, nowadays, a cultivated assem- 

 bly to a crusade. 



The clubs of London and the salons of Paris 

 are, by their very nature, captious, critical, keenly 

 alive to the ridiculous, and have a morbid fear of 

 being bored. They do not like earnestness or 

 enthusiasm in the conduct of public affairs, and 

 wish to dwell lightly on passing events. But it 

 would be misleading to take the clubs and salons 

 as the sole representatives of the thoughtful 

 opinion of the educated classes. A crowd of ig- 

 norant men, under the spell of a popular orator, 

 may for a time be more illuminated on some 

 special question than a gathering of stolid Peers 

 at the Carlton left entirely to their own devices ; 

 but this shows the impressionable nature of the 

 masses, not their intelligence. 



The whole history of modern society in Eng- 

 land since the peace of 1815 is the recital of the 

 efforts of the cultivated classes in favor of their 

 more ignorant brethren ; and if the popular judg- 

 ment on political questions has often been more 

 just than that of the higher orders, this has been 

 due to the education the people have received 

 through the press and in a long series of public 

 meetings from their political leaders, who without 

 knowledge could never have led, and not to the un- 

 erring and unaided instinct of the masses. To take 

 a very recent example. It is perfectly out of the 

 question, without some knowledge of geography, 

 statistics, and history, to form any sound opinion 

 on what is called " the Eastern Question." Mr. 

 Gladstone, by devoting his marvelous powers to 

 a good cause, has during more than a year en- 

 lightened and instructed the people on a difficult 

 problem, and has saved this country from drifting 

 into an unjust war for a bad cause. But without 

 guidance and instruction the masses could have 

 arrived at no opinion whatsoever on the Eastern 

 Question. The Tichborne delusion is, on the 

 other hand, a recent and striking example of pop- 

 ular opinion formed without honest and intelligent 

 guidance. Unfortunately, the doctrine of the 

 democratic school that an appeal to the sense of 

 justice and the generosity of the masses will 

 always meet with better success than an appeal 

 to their cruelty and cupidity, must be dismissed 

 as erroneous by every dispassionate student of 

 modern history. 



In answer to Mr. Gladstone's words, " The 

 question is not whether the confession is one 

 agreeable to make, but whether it is true," I have 

 come to the conclusion that there is no disagree- 

 able confession to make, as it seems to me obvious 



