But it is only congruous with the trend of democratic thought that
everything should come under the censorship of the crowd, and the only
wonder is that long ere this the vexed questions of our troubled time
have not been solved by _plebiscite_.
A leading New York paper is commended for its patronage of literature,
because it offers large prizes for stories, the prizes to be awarded by
the votes of its readers. If the crowd is capable of appraising
literature, there is no reason why it should not take science and art
similarly into its hands, nor why the counting of heads should not
replace the marshalling of arguments in philosophy and ethics. In
politics the mob has a right to be heard, because it has a right to
express its grievances. Could an aristocracy be trusted to do justly by
Demos, democracy would have no reason to be. But this right of the
many-headed monster to a control of the governmental agencies that affect
its own happiness, does not involve the ability to decide less selfish
problems; and when, as rarely happens, abstract problems find themselves
in the witness-box, then the "Palladium of British liberty" becomes a
mockery of justice. "Legal judgment of his peers," says Magna Charta; but
when an exceptional man blunders into the dock, is he ever accorded a
panel of his equals? Things are no better in France.
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