to sit down under. If the majority has decided, the matter (we are told) is beyond argument.
That is the fetich, the superstition on which, in theory, government rests to-day.
In other times there were other fetiches, quite as respectable. "The King can do no wrong," was one of them. And we have had staged before our eyes, in due order, the divine right—or the divine sanction; it is all the same—of Kings, of Property, of Inheritance, of Slavery, and of War.
All these have been maintained as necessities of government—infallible doctrines, based on Scripture and the will of God.
Some of them present rather a battered front to-day. The fetich which has taken their place is the "Right of Majorities."
We do not exactly say "Majorities can do no wrong." But we do incline to say (often for the sake of a quiet life, and for no better reason) "Majorities must be allowed to do as they please." And that means in effect—those must be allowed to do as they please who can pull the wires by which majorities are manipulated.
I need hardly remind you that to-day the wire-pullers are the statesmen, the leaders of party, who have secured more and more the control of the party-machine, and with it the control of the education of the electorate.
Having secured this control, they let loose upon you the astonishing doctrine that, if you
