EXTENT OF THE POWER OF THE MANY 191 



the will and wishes of the average man, when these Book n 

 acts are considered as a whole ; but they may be ha P ter 4 

 forced to embody, and they generally do embody, a 

 certain element of what average men wish and will ; 

 and their character as a whole is profoundly modi- 

 fied in consequence. The question then is simply a 

 question of degree. What is the extent or rather The question is 



i . ^i MI r *_!- to what extent? 



what is the utmost possible extent ot this genuine 

 power of the many to make the faculties of the 

 exceptional few their servants? Is it great or 

 small ? 



The reader will perceive that when this question This intro- 



, , ... in i duces us to a 



is asked our inquiry is gradually taking a new new side of the 



turn, and that having started with asserting 



claims of the great man as the author and sustainer ^ ers of the 



of both intellectual and economic progress, we are 



led, when we come to consider him as an agent in 



the domain of politics, to inquire into what is done 



by the average man, as well as into what is done by 



him. And the reason for this is that in the domain This is greater 



of politics the many, so far as direct and intentional J" industry 1 ; * 



influence is concerned, are actually capable of play- 



ing a far larger part than they are in the domain 



of speculation or of advanced economic production. 



A statesman like Mr. Gladstone might, without 



absurdity, maintain that he had a mandate from the 



many to grant home-rule to Ireland ; but nobody 



could pretend that any body of mechanics had given 



Watt a mandate to invent the steam-engine, or 



that any one gave Newton a mandate to discover 



the law of gravitation. And yet the reflection will 



