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.r VOLUME 7. NUMBER 24
,.-v.
:: The Average Thought of the Average Mass. of Meii :
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In a rocont wcstorn magazine, a proralnont
member of tho Qrogon bar laid down and main
tained tlio proposition that tho controlling opin
ion among mon is based, not upon the thought
or no-called loadors, but upon tho average
thought of tho avorago mass qf men.
This idea so strongly appealed to investi
gation to doormlno its accuracy, that I have ,
thought along, several linos indicated by it, and
to somowhat surprising conclusions. True, my
deductions aro particular applications of a, prop
osition not laid down as a principle, and do
no't prove it, but. I beg leave to submit somo
ovldonco sustaining tho contention- of tho
loarnod Oregon jurist. It is difficult to arrange
this ovldenco, either with reference to sequen
tial chronology; or in tho logic of language to
lit a climax as a conclusion without suggesting
the dramatic, and certainly I were at sea in such,
an attompt.
That tho loaders of men aro not often those
who.. think out tho propositions that give occa
sion for leaderships, Is not to tho point, though
horo set down for tho oxpross purpose of putting
It aside as, having 'nothing to do with the
question.
But a closely allied idea, having much to
do with it, is, that those who are, recognized
leaders of thought aro often not accrddited such
In thoir own timo, and' oven though iley bo es
tablished, their full merit is deferred to future
generations fpr appreciation and that then ils
force is spent. Thus -they seldom benefit their
people or country by either the greatness or
Independence of thought, in their own age and,
wherefore, other thought is necessary to the
accomplishment of such benefit. -
The most notable exception of this fact that
I have discovered is the late "William E. Glad
stone It would seem that he did all his work
and attained the full measure of reputed great
ness, of thought long before he died. To my
mind, Mr. Gladstone possessed the greatest fund
of knowledge ever attained by a human being'.
He was npt the most learned man of his tfmo ,
In any one "branch qf learning,' yet his quantity .
of knowledge1 covered so great an area of hu
man wisdom, and, to a general extent, was so
yast that he seemed to have traversed the en
"tire field of human knowledge, in every direc
tion, to its limits. Of course thiB Ib an exagr
geratlon of his knowledger but I can not other
wise give a proper idea of my humble judgment
of the extent of hiB understanding as distinct
from his specific knowledge of particular
Bubjeots.
Arifljyet, possibly, everything he stood for,
in one of the longest and mest intimate public
lives known to our civilization, has bo adjusted
itself to the affairs of men by virtue of the
opinions of tho mass of men, that he is unidenti
fied :as the ono who thought out a single
problem accepted by the controlling mass of
thought. He led among the thinkers of his
day, but the average mass of men dismembered
and readjusted his great thoughts to suit them
selves. Indeed, his greatest repute was gained
in adapting his own thought to the moral force
of tho mass of thought which he had provoked
by sincere and honest opposition, but that is"
nothing to the present purpose.
Cato led tho thought and thinkers of Rome.
Cato tho shrewd and keenly observant, the poli
tician, statesman, economist and phllosopher;
absolutoly honest and truthful; whom Caesar
feared and Pompey courted, and who was the
often ungentle master of Cicero and whom
Brutus emulated in private character. Ho led
all Homo in thought, and yet, notwithstanding
that upon every occasion of, apprehension or dis
tress all eyes were turned to him, as though
ho wore tub only one upon whose guidance and
advice they could with security rely, when he
could have saved Rome he had no following.
Truly tho fate of the prophet in his own land
never had so patont an illustration of its truth.
His thought was no part of that of the mass of
mon; ho stood apart from men, mentally, bo
far that tho superiority of life Very wisdom loft
him alone, without support even to the purpose
that all desired; and from the beginning at
Pharsalia, with his death to itho end qt aljr at
haphazard Philippl, that leadership of thought
among the greatness of all ,Tlonie looked tttto
support of the men whose thought constituted
the mass that furnished the" average that led
to ruin. Had it supported the thinker. Rome
had heen saved, as had tuo thinker as well.
The czar of all the Russlas proposed 'the
peace of nations resulting 'in The Hague con
ference of 1899, andyet his diplomacy, or
lack of it, precipitated .him into a losing war
with a nation without then accredited lead
ership among men. Further, ho stands, in a
sense, sponsor for the general proposition of
peace among the nations of tho -world, -whilst
unable to influence his own .dominions to even
a disposition for peace under the conditions he
is willing td grant or accept. He is the accred
ited loader in tho thought, and yet, what does
he lead? The proposition he advances meets
with tho approval of the majority1 of the leading
thinkers of tho world, and 'yet, never before
in all human history were nations so heavily
armed, both for offensive and defensive war
fare; nor Is there the slightest evidence of
any physical effort towards disarmament.
On the contrary, tho thought of many of
the leaders is at this moment concentered upon
some contrivance that will make warfare so
terrible and questionable a method rof adjusting
differences as may leave the' possibilities of
"destruction so chaotic, that new schemes are
earnestly being thought out to overcome it.
This again leaves the thinkers at sea and tho
average opinion of .the" average mass of men
must determine the outcome. And of a verity
it will.
We, in America, are only now beginning
to appreciate the. statesmanship of Abraham
Lincoln, whom E. M. Stanton refused to be
associated with in an ordinary law suit, as
humiliating to hiB professional dignity. Nor
did the groat ability of tho latter much help
the former in adjusting circumstances in con
sonance with the voice that expressed the opin
ion of the average mass; and without a states
manship to appreciate which on Lincoln's part
who can say what would have been the result?
Indeed, it was Lincoln's full appreciation of the
average opinion of the average mass of men
that made him so Ntruly great; and the lack
of which has made us so tardy In appreciation
of that greatness. His faith was absolute in
the ability of the people to "wobble -right." He
thought greatly, but adjusted his thought to the
controling Opinion of those who, in the end; must
determine; Such greatness -bf thought lias sel
dom been noted In man, and by that' fact we
may the better understand how great Lincoln
was.
Tom Paine, on the other hand, led the
people of Paris into an anti-christian mass of
thought, and the leaven of the imaBS worked
out the French revolution. Today we' have a
Clemenceau working along somewhat similar
lines, and we learn that the thought of the
leaders of France tends towards u nihilism, the
which lacks danger only in the absence of a
sustaining average in the thought of the mass,
and which, once centralized, may produce' an
other upheaval, the character of which no man
can determine.
Francis Bacon Was esteemed a highly
learned man in his time and Shakespeare but
a vulgar player, and yet the wisdom of tho one
and the literary product of the other lead today
in the world of thought and literature. The
thought of Bacon lives In proper influence
among the thinkers of the world today; and,
- possibly, " no man has interpolated the philos
ophy of, Aristotle with, more pregnant meaning;
and"et, In his day, the average thought of the
mass of men controlled all human effort, to
the all but total exclusion of this great thinker
.. from participation in the solution of questions
that 4ils thought might have aided in solving
The application of the thoughts of Bacon
to men has been made by Shakespeare, and the
wonderful accuracy with which he clothes them
with virtues and vices, with weakness and with"
.strength, with dispositions to respond to moral
suasion as well as to resist its influence, places
him also among the leaders of thought without
a following. Destitute .of all power to influ-
ence in his time, can it 'be truly said that liis
Influence as a thinker is felt now?
- Bearing in mind the natural susceptibility
of great thinkers to the impress of the environ
ment of their time, how may we estimate the"
worth of thought that depends, oiOt-e often than'
not, upon succeeding iages, not controlled by
similar influences, for an appreciation of its
merit, And even then, how may Sire afllx; the
great thought of a century or longer past to
ah adjustment of, Our affairs? "And Jills neces
, sitates the existence of a controlling thought
i as- tho necessary influence among men, and it
gives virtue to the idea that not the thoughts
of leading thinkers, except as they may be con
tributory, but the averaire 'tlinncrht. nf ti nvm..
ago mass of mankind determines all human
affairs, and necessarily such Intervening ques-?
..tions. as interweave themselves with such do
termination. .
Napoleon, dealing with men. and bending
them as a sacrifice to his purpose, more sug
gestive of a vanity than the porker out of a
great thought, accomplished, all in drawing
about him -and centering in himself the un
formed mass of thought that, labking cohesion,
was as clay 'in the hands of a moulder. With
out that unthinking mass Napoleon was all but
a nonentity. A great thinker, a man of great
mind, or, even"of great mental purpose, could
not have lived six years at St. Helena and left
not one single thought of benefit to the world.
Neither his successes nor his defeats left him
with thought great enough to teach the world
the simplest lesson. Cpuld it be that between
1792 and 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte had learned
nothing? Is it pojiles that he alone, stripped
of all opportunity "to lead others, In the pnysical
sense, was helpless to advice others how to
avail themselves of one condition or to avoid
another? And yet, so it- seems. Without"
something to physically work out his
-thought, he apparently had no thought. This
leaves to Alexander as great thoiight as Na
poleon, for -we have no evidence of .ny thought
contributory to the benefit of mankind, to even
the putting of one ;stone upon another, that--wo
had not known the science of before. Thus the
greatest and most successful military genius of '
modern times, dependent wholly upon himself,,
seems bereft of all thought, and we must deny
fruit to a tree that -will not yield. , -
Mohammed .fled irom Mecca with a hand
ful of nls faithful followers, and in the depres? I
sion succeeding the loss of opportunity to work
upon the ;Saracen mass and, possibly, the effect
of his physical disability, contemplated uicla;
But when his nephew' All hrougjbt to his-sup-?
port those whose opinion gave strength to his.
purpose, though indifferent to his thought, the
Koran "became a "possibility. And when the
thought of the mass sustained the prophet's -thought,
through the reigns of Caled and All,;
and was made conformable to other characterise
tics of the Saracen,,, it was , then that Moham-; . ,
medanlsm became a fact. The prophet did hot
create Jfaat thought in the minds of- the mass:
but after a sufficiency of throat cutting among
themselves, they enmassed under the accepted
thought of the prophet as their thought; and
for over seven hundred years, as a, .mass, held
Christianity in check, whilst for nearly one-half!
of thafc time they battled with -each other to
determine which mass should be entitled to," y
the credit of the thought, almost wholly ignore
ing the thinker.
Alexander filled the minds of his followers
with the vanity of victory and he stood for not
one single thought of either .good or benefit to
mankind. He was the champion military prize
fighter of his age. As he sat upon the throne'
of Cyrus, at the height of his career of .success,
his whole army was controlled by but one im
pulse, the acquisition of gold and slaves, their
previous supply having been dissipated that they
might desire more, nor did their great leader
resent such interpretation of purpose. His
thoughts were Idle, and, though schooled by'
Aristotle, ho laughed him to scorn when his
philosophy interfered with his lack of purpose
and w.ould give direction to his'conduct of gov
ernment and affairs. Thus the mass of thought
controlled Alexander, and when it7 'Varied from"
his wisnes lie fell helpless before it and "begged'
for favor.
Today the purest philosophy known to
man is that which we identify In origin with',.
ATistotle,' over twenty-five centuries' ago, ana
whilst Alexander threatened him -with death be
cause of arguments that reasoned against the
warrior's lack of thought and purpose, we seeTc
at that font for an understanding of the prin
ciples of- human knowledge that were then
ignored. ATistotle is the recognized leading
thinker in all the world's wisdom, and yet it
was the average mass of thought that led 1n M
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'" vWasit the dead Nelson who -was the Teal"
victor at Trafalgar? Truly he was the figure
atouhd which was formed and which concen
trated that quality of mass of thought that
pfrobably made the victory all it was. And yet
Who will dare say that the noble and generous'
Callingwood had not been the victor had .Nelson
never left the bay of Gibraltar? ;.--."
The army of Greece, in ignorance of their
loss, sailed safely home under the leadership
orthe body of the dead Cimon, for thirty days ;i"
and yet, once orrlvedrand their loss wag'-ramd
known, there was none 'to whom they could look
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