104 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



If it were not for this confidence, I should 

 "despair of the republic," recant most things I 

 have said since I entered Parliament, cry peccavi 

 with reference to all the more important votes I 

 have given, and look out for an enlightened despot. 



Where I think Lord Arthur is in error is in 

 supposing that Mr. Gladstone attributes anything 

 like the same importance to the "unaided and un- 

 erring instinct of the masses," as do certain the- 

 orists beyond the Channel, under whose eloquence 

 both Lord Arthur and I have occasionally suf- 

 fered. I once heard one of these worthies say, 

 " I prefer equality to liberty, and the worst possi- 

 ble republic to the best possible constitutional 

 monarchy." If the choice lies between nonsense 

 of this sort and the nonsense which is talked in 

 drawing-rooms by the "party of the roses and 

 the nightingales," "entrefripon etfripon" I pre- 

 fer the latter. 



Turning to Mr. Hutton's paper, I do not find 

 much to object to in his ideas, if I understand 

 them aright, any more than I do in those of Lord 

 Arthur or of Mr. Gladstone. My only quarrel is 

 with those who uphold the views which are com- 

 bated by Colonel Rossel, in the passage cited by 

 Lord Arthur, and which are, to my mind, wholly 

 detestable. 



Badly as one must admit the " higher orders " 

 to have managed the government of men, in all 

 countries, until very recently, I do not think 

 there is the shadow of a reason to suppose that 

 the masses would have done it better, or even 

 nearly so well. 



The force which has lifted man from the first 

 humble beginnings in a far, far-off time, which 

 the science — hardly yet a generation old — of pre- 

 historic archaeology has revealed to us, has been 

 the power of the intellect. That power has grad- 

 ually separated itself into two very distinct influ- 

 ences, or methods, of acting upon public affairs, 

 to the first of which we may give the name of 

 genius, enthusiasm, spiritual insight ; to the sec- 

 ond that of cultivated intelligence. 



No good influence comes from the mass either 

 of those who are rich in this world's goods, or 

 of those who are poor in them. All good influ- 

 ences come from " the minority of the minority," 

 or from gifted personalities who spring up here 

 and there — quite as often among the latter as 

 among the former. 



The question whether a particular class at a 

 particular time docs, or does not, come to wiser 

 decisions in politics than another, depends wholly 

 upon whether it is, or is not, more affected by the 

 ideas of those gifted individuals, and more teach- 



able by cultivated intelligence. For a time these 

 two great forces often act in different directions, 

 but the work of the men of genius only becomes 

 a possession forever in so far as it is ratified by 

 cultivated intelligence. 



Now, for some generations, in the west of 

 Europe the mass of the people has been more 

 affected by these forces than have the " higher 

 orders," and has consequently had a far larger 

 share in shaping the state of things in which we 

 are living, and that toward which we are moving, 

 than have the "higher orders." But this has 

 been the case not the least in virtue of any innate 

 superiority, such as their flatterers and deceivers 

 speak of, but solely because from a variety of 

 reasons they have been more under the guidance 

 of the "minority of the minority." 



People are in the habit of finding it strange 

 that the majority of the electorate in our genera- 

 tion has so often been right, when what is called 

 " society " has been wrong. 



But, after all, how should " society " have 

 particularly sound opinions about public affairs, 

 or indeed any affairs except its own trifles ? " So- 

 ciety " contains a certain number of persons who 

 are as hard-working and as able to form sound, if 

 not sounder, judgments than any persons in the 

 country ; but they constitute but a small fraction 

 of "society," and are, indeed, rather in it than 

 of it. Their opinions are not what Mr. Hutton 

 means by the opinions of " society." What is 

 " society ? " " Society " is a collective name for 

 a large number of men and women, sufficiently 

 well off to be idle, who spend their time for the 

 most part in amusing themselves and each other. 

 What is there in their pursuits to cultivate their 

 intelligence more highly than — if as highly as — 

 the intelligence of the. artisan is cultivated by his 

 handicraft ? What is, so to speak, the life-histo- 

 ry of these people ? For the first few years of 

 their existence they are, both boys and girls, 

 brought up, in these latter days, pretty sensibly ; 

 then the boys are sent to school, where they are 

 largely occupied in pretending to obtain an infini- 

 tesimal acquaintance with two ancient languages, 

 and that science which has least to do with the 

 ordinary duties of the citizen. Nearly the whole 

 of the time 'which is not occupied in these but 

 slightly-cultivating pursuits is given to out-of-door 

 amusements ; the whole public opinion of the lit- 

 tle world in which they live is against study and 

 in favor of idleness, and the ardent desire of all 

 except a mere fraction is to arrive at that happy 

 period when they, too, will be masters of hounds, 

 or have moors and rivers in Scotland ; unless, 



