prescribe for his own disease. The solution, I venture to think, will come along the lines upon which the only solution of any problem has ever before been found—along the lines of exact and scientific thought and piecemeal investigation. The recognition of this combined with attention to the apparent power of public opinion in modern politics has led many to suppose that the ultimate remedy lies in the dissemination of education, of exact and scientific thought throughout our great democracies. But, personally, I doubt the possibility of disseminating anything, least of all scientific habits or attitudes of mind. It would seem to violate the rule of differentiation. Nor can I bring myself to believe that there ever was or is ever likely to be a democracy in any important sense. It is sufficient if this scientific spirit be exploited by those who hold the reins of power, and it is because it seems that they are beginning to see the possibilities of this that I think the really significant revolution is to come. What is called ‘Public Opinion’ is now-a-days a carefully manufactured article produced by firms entirely outside the scope of the Factory Acts. Of course, even a despotism is a ‘democracy’ in the unimportant sense that the despot’s rule depends upon a certain kind of consent. What has happened lately is that a new kind of leader has been evolved. The old leader ruled by certain kind of obvious strength. The new ruler practices an art. He is moreover, a student of the science of persuasion. He appeals through various media directly to the masses, and does not so much inspire confidence as suggest that he is only a more articulate spokesman of their will. The contrast is rather like that between coercion and hypnotism, two obvious ways of making people do as you wish; and the transition from one to the other does not seem to me to be adequately described as a passage to democracy.
The future, it seems, will see these powers scientifically employed. Much has been learnt by crude empirical methods. The newspapers, the advertising agencies, and the publicity departments have a store of knowledge upon which politicians are wisely beginning to draw. Soon they may attend to Mr Bertrand Russell, who in his prophetic volume,