Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/374

360 that the hearers be in order, that they remain seated, that they forbear to interrupt, that they patiently listen to all speakers regularly recognized, and that their signs of approval or disapproval be decorous—are not these so many guard-rails that help the assembly get safely by certain vertiginous moments?

The highest association of presence is seen in the representative body, exemplified by legislatures, party conventions, church councils, trade parliaments, and congresses composed of delegates from various sections, professions, or interests. Here not only are the members homogeneous in character, but, being answerable to their constituents, they are less liable to be swept off their feet by gusts of feeling. The dumb-bell form of many of these bodies works to the same effect. Polarized into majority and minority parties, a legislature rarely exhibits the unanimity of the crowd, because an engulfing vortex of agreement is almost impossible. So long as domestic affairs are up, a wave of contagion is shattered on the division of parties. It is in dealing with foreign affairs that a legislature unified for the nonce by a common pride or wrath is likely to show mob-characteristics.

"The Roman Assembly," says Freeman, "died of the disease of which every primary assembly in a large country must die. It became too large for its functions; it became a mob incapable of debate, and in which the worst elements got the upper hand." Now, the representative body through its power to fix the basis of representation is able to control its size, and thus remove one source of danger. Recognizing that numbers breed confusion, that the oratory addressed to a large assemblage is apt to be exaggerated in matter and manner, and that the signs of approval or dissent arising from a great body are likely to affect the judgment disastrously, most legislatures wisely restrict their number to four or five hundred. It is a pity the lesson was learned so late. The earlier parliaments were too big, and so brought discredit on the beginnings of popular government. In France and elsewhere the representatives of the people showed imbecility, no doubt, but their aristocratic and clerical critics would have acquitted themselves no better had they undertaken to deliberate