A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW 235 



the citizens. In extraordinary times, in times of 

 national peril, when there is a real strain upon the 

 state, and the instinct of self-preservation comes 

 into play, then fate itself brings forward the ablest 

 men. The great crisis makes or discovers the great 

 man, — discovers Cromwell, Frederick, Washington, 

 Lincoln. Carlyle leaves out of his count entirely 

 the competitive principle that operates everywhere 

 in nature, — in your field and garden as well as in 

 political states and amid teeming populations, — 

 natural selection, the survival of the fittest. Under 

 artificial conditions the operation of this law is 

 more or less checked; but amid the struggles and 

 parturition throes of a people, artificial conditions 

 disappear, and we touch real ground at last. What 

 a sorting and sifting process went on in our army 

 during the secession war, till the real captains, the 

 real leaders, were found; not Fredericks, or Wel- 

 lingtons, perhaps, but the best the land afforded! 



The object of popular government is no more to 

 find and elevate the hero, the man of special and 

 exceptional endowment, into power, than the object 

 of agriculture is to take the prizes at the agricultural 

 fairs. It is one . of the things to be hoped for and 

 aspired to, but not one of the indispensables. The 

 success of free government is attained when it has 

 made the people independent of special leaders, and 

 secured the free and full expression of the popular 

 will and conscience. Any view of American poli- 

 tics, based upon the failure of the sufl'rage always, 

 or even generally, to lift into power the ablest men. 



