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The Commoner.
3
JULY 3, 1903.
mon mind winnows opinions; It is the sieve which
separates error from certainty. The exercise by
many of the same faculty on the same subject
would naturally lead tfc the same conclusions. But
if not, the very differences of opinion that arise
prove the supremo judgment of the general mind.
Truth is one. It never contradicts itself. One
truth cannot contradict another truth. Hence
truth is the bond of union. But error not only
contradicts truth, but may contradict Itself, so
that there may be many errors and each at var
iance with the rest Truth is thc;efore of neces
sity an element of harmony; error aa necessarily
an element of discord. Thus there can be no
continuing universal judgment but a right one.
Men cannot agree in an absurdity; neither can
they agree in a falsehood.
If wrong opinions have often been cherished
Tjy the masses, the cause always lies in the com
plexity of the ideas presented. Error finds Its way
Into the soul of a nation only thrpugh the chan
nel of truth. It Is to a truth that men listen;
and if they accept error also it is only because
error Is for the time so closely interwoven with
the truth that the one cannot readily be separated
from the other.
Unmixed error can have no existence in the
public mind. Wherever you' sec men clustering
together to form a party you may be sure that
however much error may be there truth is there
also. Apply this principle boldly, for it contains
a lesson of candor and a voice of encouragement
There never was a school of philosophy nor a
clan in the realm of opinion but carried along
with it some important truth. And therefore ev
ery sect that has over flourished has benefitted hu
manity; for the errors of a sect pass away and
are forgotten; Its truths are received into the
.common inheritance. To krow the seminal
thought of every prophet and leader of a sect is
together all the wisdom of manklna.
'By heaven! there should not be a seer who left
The world one doctrine, but d task his lore,
And commune with his spirit All the truth
Of all the tongues on earth; I'd have them all,
Had I the powerful spell to raise their ghosts."
The sentiment of beauty as it exists in the
hrman mind is the criterion in works of art, in
spires the conceptions of genius and exercises a
final judgment on its productions. For who are
the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think
the cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but
the collective mind. The public Is wiser than the
wisest critic. In Athens the arts were carried to
perfection when the "fierce democracy" was in the
ascendant; the temple of Minerva and the works
of Phidias were planned and perfected to please
the common people. When Greece yielded to tyr
ants, her genius for excellence in art expired, or
rather the purity of taste disappeared, because
the artist then endeavored to gratify a patron
and therefore , humored his caprice, while before
lie had endeavored to delight the race.
When after a long eclipse the arts again burst
into a splendid existence It was equally under the
popular influence. During the rough contests and
feudal tyrannies of the middle age religion had
opened in the church an asylum for the people.
There the serf and the beggar could kneel; there
the pilgrim and the laborer were shrived, and the
children of misfortune not less than the prosper
ous were welcomed .to the house of prayer. The
church was consequently at once the guardian of
equality and the nurse of the arts; and the souls
of Giotto, of Perugino, and Raphael, moved by an
Infinite sympathy with the crowd, kindled into
divine conceptions of beautiful forms. Appealing
to the sentiment of devotion In the common mind,
they dipped their pencils in living colors to dec
orate the altars where man adored. By degrees
the wealthy nobility desired, in like manner, to
adorn their palaces; but at the attempt the quick
familiarity of the artists with the beautiful de
clined. Instead of the brilliant works which spoke
to the soul a school arose which appealed to the
senses; and in the land which had produced the
most moving pictures addressed to religious feel
ing and instinct with the pur'at beauty, the ban
quet halls were covered with grotesque forms such
as float before t-e imagination when excited and
bewildered by sensual indulgence. Instead of holy
families the ide ' representations of the virgin
and the godlike Child, of the enduring faith of
.martyrs and the blessed benevolence of evangelic
love, there came the motley group of fauns, and
-satyrs of Diana stooping to Bndymlon, of voluptu
ous, beauty and the forms of licentiousness, hu
manity frowned on the desecration of the arts, and
painting no longer vivified by a fellow-feeling
with the multitude, lost its greatness in the at
tempt to adapt Itself to personal humors.
If with us rrts are destined to a brilliant
careen the inspiration must spring from the vigor
of tho people. Genius will not crcato to flatter
patrons or decorate saloons. It yearns for larger
influences, it feeds on wider sympathies, and its
perfect display can nover oxist except in an ap
peal to the gcnoral sentiment for lae beautiful.
Again. Italy is famed for Its musical compo
sitions, its inimitablo operas. It is a well-known
fact that tho br-t critics are often deceived in
their judgment of them, while tho pit, composed
of tho throng, does without fail render a true ver
dict But tho taste JTor music, It may bo said, is
favored by natural organization. Precisely a state
ment that sets In a clearer light the natural ca
pacity of the race, for tasto is then not an ac
quisition, but In part a-jjift But lot us pass to
the works of literature
Who are by way of emlncnco the poets of all
mankind? Surely Homer and Shakespeare. Now
Homer formed his tasto as ho wandered from
door to door a vagrant minstrel paying for hos
pitality by song, and Shakespeare wroto for an
audience composed in a great measuro of the
common people.
The little story of Paul and Virginia is a uni
versal favorites When it was first written the
author read It aloud to a circle in Paris, composed
of the wife of the prime minister and the choicest
critics of France. They condemned It as dull
and Insipid. Tho author appealed to tho public,
and tho children of all Europe rovorsed the de
cree of tho Parisians. The judgment of children,
that is the judgment of the common mind undor
its most innocent and least imposing form, was
more trustworthy than tho criticism of the select
refinement of tho most polished city in the world.
Demosthenes of old formed himself to tho
perfection of eloquence by means of addresses to
the crowd. The great comic poet of Greece, em
phatically the poet of tho vulgar mob, is distin
guished above all others for tho incomparable
graces of his diction; and it is related of one of
the most skillful writers in the Italian that when
inquired of where ho had learned the purity and
nationality of his style, he replied: from listening
to country people as they brought their produce
to market
At tho revival of letters a distinguished fea
ture of the rising literature was the employment of
tho dialect of t.o vulgar. .Dante used the lan
guage of the populace and won immortality Wy
cliffe, Luther, and at a later day Descartes, each
employed his mother tongue and carried truth di
rectly to all who were familiar with its accents.
Every beneficent revolution in letters has tho
character of popularity; every great reform among
authors has sprung from the power of the people
in its Influence on the development and activity
of mind.
The same influence continues unimpaired.
Scott, In spite of his reverence for the aristocracy
spurned a drawing-room reputation; the secret
of Byron's superiority lay in part In tho agree
ment which existed between his muse and tne
democratic tendency of tho age. German litera
ture Is almost entirely a popular creation. It was
fostered by no monarch; it was dandled by no
aristocracy. It was plebeian in its origin ana
therefore manly in Its results.
In like manner the best government rests on
the people and not on the few, on persons and not
on property, on the free development of public
opinion and not on authority; because the munif
icent Author of our being has conferred the gifts
of mind upon every member of the human race
without distinction of outward circumstances.
Whatever of other possessions may bo erigrossed
the mind asserts Its own independence. Lands,
estates, the produce of minds, the prolific abund
ance of the seas may be usurped by a privileged
class. Avarice assuming the form of ambitious
power may grasp realm after realm, subdue con
tinents, compass the earth in Its aggrandizement,
and sigh after worlds, but m'nd eludes the power
of appropriation; it exists only in its own indi
viduality, It Is not a property which can be
confiscated and cannot be torn away. It laughs
at chance, it bursts from imprisonment, it defies
monopoly. A government of equal rights must,
therefore, rest upon mind, not wealth, not brute
force; some of the moral intelligence of the com
munity should rule the state. Prescription can no
more assume to be a valid plea tor political injus
tice; society studies to eradicate established
abuses and to bring social institutions and laws in
to harmony with moral right; not dismayed by
the natural and necessary Imperfections of all
human effort, and not giving way to dispalr be
cause every hope does not at once ripen into fruit.
The -public happiness Is the true object of leg
islation and can be secured only by the masses of
mankind, themselves awakened to a knowledge
and care of their own interests. Our free inatitu-
tions havo reversed the falso and Ignoble distinc
tions between men; and, rofuslng to gratify tha
prldo of caato, havo acknowledged tho common
mind to bo tho true material for a commonwealth.
Everything has hitherto been dono for tho happy
fow. It Is not possible to endow an aristocracy
with greater benoflts than they have already en
joyed; thero is no room to ho. i that individuals
will bo more highly gifted or more fully developed
than tho greatest sages of past times. The world
can advance only through the culture of the
moral and Intellectual powers of the people. To
accomplish this end by means of the t people
thomsolves is tho highest purpose or government
If it bo tho duty of tho Individual to strive after
a perfection llko tho perfection of God, how much
more ought a nation to be tho imago of duty. Tho
common mind Is tho truo Parian marble fit to bo
wrought into tho lllencaa of a God. Tho duty of
Amorica Is to secure the culturo and the happi
ness of the masses by their rellanco on themselves.
Tho absence of the prejudices of the old world
leaves us hero tho opportunity of consulting inde
pendent truth, and man Is left to apply the in
stinct of freedom' to every social relation and pub
lic Interest We havo approached so near to na
ture that we can hear her gentle whispers; wo
have made humanity our lawgiver and our oracle;
and therefore the nation receives, vivifies and ap
plies principles which in Europe the wisest accopt
with distrust Freedom of mind and of con
science, freedom of the seas, freedom and Indus
try, equality of franchise each great truth Is
firmly grasped, comprehended and enforced, for
the multitude is neither rash nor fickle. In truth
It is less fickle than those who profess to be Its
guides. Its natural dialectics surpass the logic
of tho schools. Political action has never been
so constant and so unwavering as when It re
sults from a feeling or a principle diffused through
socloty Tho people Is firm and tranquil In ita
movement and necessarily acts with moderation
because it becomes but slowly Impregnated with
new Ideas, and effects no changes except In har
mony with tho knowledgo which It has acquired.
Besides where it is permanently possessed of
power thero exists neither the occasion nor the
desire for frequent change. It is not the parent
of tumult; sedition is bred In tho lap of luxury,
and Its chosen emissaries are tho beggared spend
thrift and tho Impoverished libertine. Tho gov
ernment by tho people Is In very truth the strong
est government In tho wbrld. Discarding the im
ple'ments of terror It drtres to rule by moral force
and has its citadel in tho heart
Such Is the political system which rests on
reason, reflection, and tho free expression of de
liberate choice. Thero may be thoso who scoff
at the suggestion that the decision of the whole
is to bo preferred to the judgment of tho enlight
ened few. They say In their hearts that the
masses are ignorant; that farmers know nothing
of legislation; that mechanics should . not quit
their workshops to join in forming public opin
ion. But true political science does Indeed ven
erate the masses. It maintains not as has been
perversely asserted that "the people can make
right," but that the people can discern right In
dividuals are but shadows, too often engrossed by
tho pursuit of shadows, the race is Immortal;
individuals are of limited sagacity, the common
mind is infinite in its experience; individuals are
languid and blind, the many are ever wakeful; In
dividuals are corrupt, the race has been re
deemed; individuals are time-serving, the masses
are fearless; Individuals maybo false, the masses
are ingenious and sincere; individuals claim tho
divine sanction of truth for the decitful concep
tions of their own fancies; the Spirit of God
breathes through the combined Intelligence of the
people. Truth is not to be ascertained by the im
pulse of an Individual; it emerges from the con
tradictions of present opinions; It raises Itself in
majestic serenity above the strifes of parties and
the conflict of sects; It acknowledges neither the
solitary mind ncr the separate faction as Its or
acle, but owns as its only faithful Interpreter the
dictates of pure reason itself proclaimed by the
general voice of mankind. The decrees of the uni
versal conscience are the ncr.rest approach to the
presence of God In the soul of man.
Thus the opinion which wp respect Is Indeed
not the opinion of one 6Y 61 tew, mil the capac
ity of the many. It Is hard for tho pride of culti
vated philosophy to put It" ear to tho crround
and listen reverently to the voice of lowly hu
manity, yet the people collectively are wiser than
the most gifted Individual frr all his wisdom con
stitutes but a part of others'. When the great
sculptor of Greece was endeavoring to fashion th
perfect model of beauty .he did not passively Iml-
(Continued on Fags 5J
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