Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/557

Rh to the modern workman one of these magical and synthetic formulas capable of ruling the mind.

We may discuss the value of an idea from a philosophical point of view; but from the point of view of its influence such discussion is without interest. The thing to be determined is not its value, but the action it exerts upon minds. In scientific affairs, the idea may have in itself a value independent of the time when it originated, and may preserve it beyond that time. In questions of institutions, creeds, morals, and government, the idea never having any but a relative value, its success depends primarily on the enthusiasm it inspires, and secondarily on the race and epoch in which it originated. Christianity could never have propagated itself till a particular epoch and among particular peoples. When the idea represented by the word Cæsarism dawned upon the Roman world, it had become necessary, because it survived its creator and every one of the persons who took his place, notwithstanding most of them died violent deaths. Two or three centuries earlier every effort to carry out such an idea would have miscarried. In this age representative governments, which are strongly rooted among some of the peoples of Europe, could not subsist among others.

The absolute truth of an idea is not, therefore, the thing to be considered. The value of an idea is measured by its success, its utility, or its danger, and these elements depend upon circumstances, media, and races. Only experience can demonstrate whether an idea is opportune. The notion of national unity, which is fundamental in modern politics, is very old, for Charlemagne tried to put it in operation. It could not be carried into the domain of facts, and the work of the great man perished with him. The idea of absolute religious submission to a representative of divinity, residing in the capital of Christianity, was for a long time an excellent one, but there came a time when, in the face of the advance of knowledge, it was no longer acceptable, and Philip II exhausted the force of his genius and the might of Spain, then predominant, in vain contentions with the spirit of free inquiry, which was then prevailing in Europe under the name of the Reformation.

The power of ideas, once fixed in the mind, is so great that no person is able to arrest their progress. Their evolutions must then inevitably be carried out, and all their consequences suffered. Most frequently, as with the socialists of the present time, their defenders are the ones marked to become their first victims. They are no better than sheep which docilely follow their leader to the slaughterhouse. We have to bow to the power of the idea. When it has reached a certain period of its evolution, no reasoning or demonstration can prevail against it. Centuries or