Or—is the leading statesman’s task to consist not so much in producing a creative thought or plan as in the art with which he makes the genius of his proposal comprehensive to a flock of silly sheep for the purpose of imploring their final consent ? Must it be the criterion of a statesman that he must be as strong in the art of persuasion as in that of statesmanlike skill in the selection of great lines of conduct or decision ?
Do we believe that progress comes in this world from the combined intelligence of the majority and not from the brain of an individual ? Or do we imagine that in future we can dispense with this conception of human Kultur ?
Does it not, on the contrary, appear even more necessary to-day than ever before ?
By its denial of the authority of the individual and its substitution of the sum of the mass present at any given times, the parliamentary principle of the consent of the majority sins against the basic aristocratic prin¬ ciple in nature, in which connection its