prevailing school working directly back to the condition of affairs which existed in the Athenian agora under the disapproving eyes of the father of political philosophy. Panaceas, universal cure-alls, and quack remedies—the Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall—are paraded as if these—nostrums of the mountebanks of the county fair—would surely remedy the perplexing ills of new and hitherto unheard-of social, economical, and political conditions. Democracy! What is Democracy? Democracy, as it is generally understood, I submit, is nothing but the reaching of political conclusions through the frequent counting of noses; or, as Macaulay two generations ago better phrased it, "the majority of citizens told by the head";[1] the only question at just this juncture being whether, in order to the arriving at more acceptable results, both sexes shall be "told," instead of one sex only. Moreover, I with equal confidence make bold to suggest that while conceded, and while men have even persuaded themselves that' they have faith in it, and really do believe in this "telling" of noses as the best and fairest attainable means of reaching correct results, yet in so doing and so professing they simply, as men are prone to do, deceive themselves. In other words, victims of their own cant, they preach a panacea in which they really do not believe. Nor of this is proof far to seek. Vox populi, vox Dei! If you extend the application of this principle by a single step, its loudest advocates draw back in alarm from the inevitable. They seek refuge
- ↑ This is found in a letter, dated, "Holly Lodge, Kensington, London, May 23, 1857," to Henry Stephens Randall. It may be found quoted in full in Heart and Soul (1921), by Maveric Post, pp. 330–335. (Wikisource contributor note)
