104 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



their minute but agile brains by which they were steering their 

 course, tremendously exceeding in proportion the brains of the 

 giant reptiles whose variant forms constituted the majority and 

 made them masters of earth and air and sea — whose gigantic 

 physique and fleshly lusts had outstripped the early promise of 

 their cephalic ganglia and left them hopelessly decephalized. Insig- 

 nificant in size and number, but equipped with the vigor of phyletic 

 youth, agile adaptability, locomotive independence left unimpaired 

 through excessive food supply, with such equipment, good balance 

 between cephalic and motor nerve centers, these inconspicuous and 

 feeble folk started on their career of triumph over an overwhelming 

 majority. Time passed and the deed was done. The agile-witted 

 founders of the race had spread abroad through the earth. They 

 grew vast in number and variety, adapted to all media of earth and 

 air and sea. To them at last came the temptations of the flesh pots ; 

 they grew great in bulk, slow in body, weaker in locomotion and 

 feebler in proportion. They too had met their impasse and there 

 was nothing beyond. The majority had arrived, but the majority 

 had fed itself fat on the spoils of the conquest and was moribund. 

 Once more out of this majority arose the protest of the minority 

 and again the keener w^itted, better cephalized, unimpaired, but 

 obscure and diminutive minority, strong always at the head, 

 emerged from the welter of self-indulgence to save the race. 

 Robbed of luxuriant food supply by a mantle of ice, its vitality 

 quickened and stimulated by the invigorating cold, imperiously com- 

 pelled by a world chill which hung upon the earth unknown years 

 to purge itself of indirection and seek the straightest way to 

 physical salvation through the practice of simple virtues ; from out 

 of such conditions came the human stock. 



If we do not recognize fully the fact that a majority control in 

 our governments is purely a matter of expediency in the handling 

 of civic affairs, let us remind ourselves of it on this occasion. We 

 need only the reminder, for however often the man in the ward 

 and the voter at the polls conceive that a majority is the paramount 

 issue at stake, it is too often forgotten that the majority is purely 

 numerical while wisdom and truth may rest with the minority. 

 Amidst the inevitable expediencies of government this is its salva- 

 tion — that the minority, if clear and strong at the head, like an ante- 

 cedent river, will cut down mountains of opposition. 



'' The triumphs of liberty have been due to minorities " said 

 Lord Acton. " The rule of the tyrant is tyranny whether he have 



