Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/36

xxxii of yielding to the opinion of others with whom the elector has been led to associate by the existence of some mutual basis of sympathy or harmony, he is, in the case supposed, obliged, in order to succeed, to give up his own opinions to those who form the most numerous portion of his co-electors, the greater number being, as one of the conditions of nature, the lower in capacity, and he is obliged also to take into account all the disturbing and corrupting influences which may prevail. He is,—to refer again to the analogy of party,—in the position that a member of Parliament would be in,—if, instead of attaching himself to the party with which he sympathises and is content to act,—he found himself indissolubly bound to a section,—say of fifty other members whom he has had no part in selecting,—and unable to take any step in which he cannot persuade the majority of the fifty to concur. If he does not remain inactive, his objects must be lowered to, and measured by, theirs. This condition is parallel to that of the elector who is forced to act on the answer to the second question, instead of the first and true one.

The necessity of obtaining a majority involves the necessity of creating a party, adopting a party name, and putting forward some party tenet, or dogma, to all of which the majority must lend itself. It is not usually the political tenet which has caused the party, but the party which has created the tenet. In none of these things, any more than in the choice of their representative, can the members of the majority usefully ask themselves what they ought to do,—the only practical question is, what will be successful? Thus, the process of creating the majority demoralises most of those who compose it: it demoralises them in this sense, that it excludes the action of their higher moral attributes, and brings into operation the lower motives. They are compelled to disregard all individuality, and, therefore, all genuine earnestness of opinion, to discard their political knowledge,—their deliberate judgment,—their calm and conscientious reflection,—