THE RIGHTS OF THE FEW AND THE MANY 375 



teach them. So it is in economic production, so it Book iv 

 is in political government. The power of democracy 

 is not only an actual power ; it is a power from 

 which no society can ever wholly escape ; but never 

 not even when nominally it reaches its extreme 

 development is it, or can it be, or does it ever tend 

 to be, a power which is self-existent. It always 

 implies and rests upon the corresponding power of 

 the few, as one half of an arch implies and rests upon 

 the other. The whole object of the democratic 

 formulas popular to-day is to deny or to obscure 

 this fundamental truth ; and no greater obstacle to 

 general progress exists than the prevalence of the 

 spirit which the acceptance of these formulas en- 

 genders. If there is anything sacred in the rights of 

 the poorest wage-earners, there is something equally 

 sacred in those of the greatest millionaires; and if whose rights 

 the latter are capable of abusing their power, so also and^ose^' 

 are the former ; but nothing will tend to prevent j^f 1S ^ . 



t. gi 63.1, cis tncir 



their abuse of it so much as the recognition that such own - 

 an abuse on either side is possible. If there is any 

 wisdom and power in the cumulative opinions of 

 ordinary men, there is another kind of wisdom and 

 another kind of power in the ideas, the insight, the 

 imagination, and strength of will which belong to 

 exceptional men ; and these last, though they may 

 give effect to what the many wish, do so only be- 

 cause they represent what the many do not possess. 

 What is required to bring our political philosophy 

 and not only our political philosophy but our political 

 temper into correspondence with facts is not to 



