340 



The Journal of Heredity 



On the level plain of routine, where 

 most of us pass our lives, intelligent 

 men are agreed that in material affairs 

 human progress is best served by ex- 

 pert knowledge and firm leadership, 

 held by the few and by them em- 

 ployed to direct the energy of the mass. 

 The recognition of this fact is, indeed, 

 the regulating principle of commerce, 

 of industry, and of agriculture. In the 

 field of conduct the same principle is 

 accepted — the rare man of high moral- 

 ity as the guide and inspiration for the 

 common run of men. The priest does 

 not poll his flock as to the sinfulness 

 of nuirder, nor the captain his crew 

 as to the vessel's course, nor the archi- 

 tect his workmen as to the span of the 

 arch, nor the farmer his hands as to the 

 rotation of the crops. 



Yet the moment w^e enter the field of 

 politics we are asked to reverse the 

 whole process of reasoning which has 

 been our guide in the familiar round of 

 duty, and to apply to the most com- 

 plicated, the most technical, the most 

 pressing problem ever presented to 

 man's genius — the problem of modern 

 government — a method no one has ever 

 applied to his sim|)le, personal affairs; 

 the control of the expert by the inex- 

 pert. 



Take a simple case. If I, a student 

 of government, attempt to advise two 

 axmen as to the felling of a tree, the 

 humor of the situation strikes them a', 

 once. But if they, the axmen, differ 

 with me as to the comparative merits 

 of a tax levy and a bond issue, of an 

 appointive and an elective judiciary, of 

 specific and ad valorem customs duties, 

 no one's sense of humor intervenes to 

 prevent the axmen making their view 

 prevail at the next ejection. 



The assumption in the former case is 

 that their judgment is better than mine, 

 in the latter that mine is better than 

 theirs. But, whereas, in the former 

 case their rightness and not their num- 

 ber is projjcrly accepted as the deter- 

 mining cause of action, in the latter the 

 issue is held to be properly decided by 

 their number and not by luy rightness. 



The explanation of this phenomenon 

 is, in fact, simple. The principles 

 upon which we act in our non-political 

 capacities have been gradually evolved 

 through a process of trial and error, 

 and they represent a qualitative found- 

 ation for authority. The determining 

 principles of modern political action 

 were on the contrary, evolved in the 

 heat of revolutions, and represent a 

 quantitative foundation for authority. 

 They were given their currency by 

 rhetoric and not by reason ; and they 

 were surrounded, through the violence 

 attending their birth, with a sanctity 

 which has imparted to all criticism 

 of their eternal truth the odium of 

 sacrilege. 



From these causes, and from our 

 blind acceptance of a religious doctrine 

 — the natural rights of man — as a prac- 

 tical political principle, we have fallen 

 into a rhapsodical posture toward the 

 democratic form of government. That 

 this posture reflects the influence of an 

 ultra-rational sanction is suggested by 

 the circumstance that when, after a 

 century or two of democratic control, 

 democracy finds its public affairs be- 

 smirched by corruption and bedevilled 

 by incompetence, the cry ascends to 

 heaven "Give us more democracy, and 

 all will be well !" 



This is precisely the reaction of the 

 drug-fiend. The worse his symptoms 

 become, the louder does he call for a 

 larger allowance of his drug. We have, 

 in a word, brought ourselves to regard 

 democracy as a magic elixir which, if 

 we take enough of it, will transmute the 

 base metal of human frailty into a 

 glittering amalgam of virtue, wisdom, 

 and gentleness. 



So general opinion has taken up a 

 |K)sition behind two points of defense, 

 one that mental and moral habits ac- 

 quired during the lifetime of the par- 

 ents can be transmitted to offspring, the 

 other that the law of heredity applies 

 only to physical traits. That these 

 theories are mutually destructive has 

 not in any way affected their popularity 

 amongst those who do not know that 

 each of them is false. 



