XVII.
TO bring about the greatest and most important changes in the life of man there is no need of great exploits—of the arming of millions of troops, of the construction of new railroads and machines, of the organization of exhibitions and of trade unions, of revolutions, of barricades, of upheavals, of the invention of aerial navigation, and so on; all that is necessary is a change of public opinion. To bring about a change of public opinion no efforts of thought are needed, no suppression of something existing and invention of something new and extraordinary is needed; all that is needed is not to acquiesce in the false public opinion of the past, which is already dead, but artificially kept alive by Governments; all that is needed is that every individual man should say what he really thinks and feels, or at least should not say what he does not think. And if only men, if only a small number of men would do this, the outlived public opinion would drop away at once of itself, and the new living real public opinion would show itself. And when public opinion changes, all that inner fabric of men's lives
