into consideration the meanness, vacillation, changeability of the mob, its inability to appreciate and respect the conditions of its own existence and of its own well-being. It is necessary to realize that the power of the masses is blind, unreasoning, and void of discrimination, prone to listen to right and left. The blind man cannot guide the blind without bringing them to the abyss; consequently, members of the crowd, upstarts from the people, even were they men of genius but incompetent in politics, cannot step forward as leaders of the mob without ruining the entire nation.
Only the person prepared from childhood to autocracy can understand the words which are formed by political letters.
The people left to themselves, that is to upstarts from among them, are ruined by party dissensions created by greed for power and honors, and by the disorders resulting therefrom. Is it possible for the masses of the people to direct the affairs of the state without rivalry, and without