Page:Notes on democracy - 1926.djvu/43

 it embraces those more intelligent yokels who have had the wit to escape from the dreadful drudgery of the dunghill. Well, give a glance at the theology and politics prevailing on the land. The former, in all countries and all ages, has kept contact with the primitive animism of savages: it bristles everywhere with demons, witches and ghosts. In its public aspect it is as intolerant of heresy as Thibetan lamaism. The yokel not only believes that all heretics are doomed to be roasted in hell through all eternity; he also holds that they should be harassed as much as possible on this earth. The anti-evolution laws of the South afford an instructive glimpse into the peasant mind. They are based frankly upon the theory that every man who dissents from the barnyard theology is a scoundrel, and devoid of civil rights. That theory was put very plainly by the peasant attorney-general during the celebrated Scopes trial, to the visible satisfaction of the peasant judge.

In politics the virtuous clod-hopper, again speaking for inferior man, voices notions of precisely the same sort. The whole process of government, as he views it, is simply a process of promoting his private advantage. He can