Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/57

 PUBLIC OPINION 43

such for not having been reasoned out by each individual for himself.

This much-abused term is also used as synonymous with social conscience, M. Hanotaux says/ "Public opinion is the conscience of the social body." It is said that Vox populi est vox del is untrue unless vox populi or public opinion be taken as the social conscience. We have already noticed the danger of using a terminology which assumes the organic theory of the state. If by social conscience is meant the consciences of all the individuals composing a public, then this usage is quite impossi- ble. It is entirely inconceivable that conscience should form a bond between individuals. Individuals whose consciences pro- nounce certain things wrong may be linked together through common sentiment, opinion, or desire; but in the same group, urging the same action with equal earnestness, would be also included those who had reached the same opinion, sentiment, or desire by some other process — prejudice or reason perhaps. Much better admit the invalidity of the ancient saying than bolster it up by such arguments. If by social conscience is meant the defi- nition or content which society at any given time gives to the formal ethical norm which we call abstract right, then it is not public opinion, but law, using the word not in the lawyer's sense, but in its wider signification. Just as the individual gives a con- tinually progressive definition to the abstract ethical norm — morality, so society, lagging behind the most advanced indi- viduals, but far in advance of the morally backward classes, also gives a progressive definition to this ethical norm within the sphere of social relationships. This is law and in no sense public opinion; to call it social conscience is only confusing, in that it substitutes for a term with which we are at least somewhat familiar another which requires to be defined at the outset.

Another usage of public opinion which is widespread, even among writers of note on political science, is that which identifies public opinion with one of its organs. The press or the elector- ate is often confused with public opinion. This, in the first place, entirely ignores the numerous public opinions with which the

^Contemporary France, Vol, II, p, 6i8.