SOCIOLOGY AND HERO-WORSHIP 



siderations do not enter, any more than they 

 enter into the study of political economy. Polit- 

 ical economy deals with the actions of men in 

 great masses in so far solely as the production 

 and distribution of wealth are concerned, and 

 its conclusions remain equally true, no matter 

 whether a genius or a dunce presides over the 

 national finances. That a protective tariff is an 

 indirect tax levied upon an entire community, 

 for the personal benefit of a few members of 

 the community, is an economical truth that is 

 quite independent of the particular financial 

 schemes or legislative acts of particular great 

 men. So to take one from that class of facts 

 in political history with which the student of 

 sociology is especially concerned it is very- 

 clear that if a primary assembly, like the New 

 England town meeting, is confined within nar- 

 row geographical limits, so that people can easily 

 attend to it, it will be likely to remain a.folkmote y 

 or primary assembly ; but if it is spread over a 

 wide area, so that people cannot conveniently 

 come to the meetings, it will tend either to 

 shrink into a witanagemote, or assembly of nota- 

 bles, or to develop into a representative assem- 

 bly. This is a proposition derived from our 

 general experience of the way in which people 

 behave under given conditions, and confirmed 

 by a wide historical induction. Yet the implica- 

 tions of this simple proposition, when once fully 

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