Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/394

876 HISTORY OF GREECE. one or a few; insomuch that the judgment and j.ctions of the many admit of being more clearly understood as to the past, and more certainly predicted as to the future. If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude, it will rather be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness ; and there will occur nothing in the course of this history to prove that the Athenian people changed their opinions on insufficient grounds more frequently than an unresponsible one or few would have changed. But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian democracy which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness, without the reality: First, that the manifesta- tions and changes of opinion were all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave utterance to their present inpression, whatever it was, with perfect frankness ; if their opiiJt>ns were really changed, they had no shame or scruple in a owing it. Secondly, and this is a point of capital importance in the working of democracy generally, the present impress ton, what- ever it might be, was not merely undisguised in its manifestations, but also had a tendency to be exaggerated in its intensity. This arose from their habit of treating public affairs in multitudinous assemblages, the well-known effect of which is, to inflame senti- ment in every man's bosom by mere contact with a sympathizing circle of neighbors. Whatever the sentiment might be, fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety, patriotic devotion, etc, 1 and whether well-founded or ill-founded, it was constantly 1 This is the general truth, which ancient authors often state, both par- tially, and in exaggerated terms as to degree: "Haec est nature rpultitu- dinis (says Livy) ; aut humiiiter servit aut superhe dominatur." Again, Tacitus : " Nihil in vulgo modicum ; terrere, ni paveant ; ubi pertimuerint, impune contemni." (Annal. i, 29.) Herodotus, iii, 81. udeei 6s (d 6r/.uor) kpinobv TU Trpfiyuara avev vov, x l P l l ) l )t t > ""ora/io Z/ce^of. It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Politica, takes little or no notice of this attribute belonging to every numerous assembly. He seems rather to reason as if the aggregate intelligence of the multitude was represented by the sum total of each man's separate intelligence in all the individuals composing it (Polit. iii, 6, 4, 10, 12); just as the property of the multitude, feaken collective!}', would be greater than that of the few rich. He takes na notice of the difference between a number of individuals judging jointly and judging separately: I do not. indeed, observe that such omission leads him into any positive mistake, but it occurs m some cases calculated tc