264 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
varied and at first conflicting opinions; and is an entirely different sort of thing from the unity which is induced by the inhibition of free rational processes and the emotional fusion of individuals.
It is true, however, that the method of reaching collective or group decisions is undergoing a profound change. That change is the result of the enormous development of inter communication. Now-a-days the discussion of questions in which a large body of people are interested is carried on in the press, and the people reach their conclusions on the basis of their reading, supplemented by correspondence and pri vate conversation, for which the increasingly numerous per sonal contacts of modern life afford a large opportunity. The result is that the deliberative assembly, so-called, is com ing to be less and less an organ of collective discussion and deliberation, and more and more a means of simply register ing the decisions of the group. At the same time it is not able that the deliverances of such assemblies no longer im press the people with the sense of authority and finality, as they did in the days in which they were, far more than they now are, the organs through which the public made up its mind. The tendency is to bring such bodies more di rectly under the control of public opinion to revise, criti cise and perhaps nullify their acts more freely in the larger forum of the press, in which the people are assembled not in body but in mind. It is a singular paradox that along with the vast growth and complication of social organization the direct control by the people of their affairs is growing at the expense of the indirect method. Legislative and quasi- legislative bodies of every description, in all spheres of life, are compelled to act more and more as the mere registering organs of the public will and to refer their acts back to the people for their approval or disapproval.
�� �
