The existence of a force called Public Opinion is in the main
taken for granted, and American political writers have been most
interested either in finding out how to make government express the
common will, or in how to prevent the common will from subverting the
purposes for which they believe the government exists. According to
their traditions they have wished either to tame opinion or to obey
it. Thus the editor of a notable series of text-books writes that "the
most difficult and the most momentous question of government (is) how
to transmit the force of individual opinion into public
action." [Footnote: Albert Bushnell Hart in the Introductory note to A.
Lawrence Lowell's _Public Opinion and Popular Government. _]
But surely there is a still more momentous question, the question of
how to validate our private versions of the political scene. There is,
as I shall try to indicate further on, the prospect of radical
improvement by the development of principles already in operation. But
this development will depend on how well we learn to use knowledge of
the way opinions are put together to watch over our own opinions when
they are being put together. For casual opinion, being the product of
partial contact, of tradition, and personal interests, cannot in the
nature of things take kindly to a method of political thought which is
based on exact record, measurement, analysis and comparison.
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