No electoral device, no manipulation of areas, no change in the system
of property, goes to the root of the matter. You cannot take more
political wisdom out of human beings than there is in them. And no
reform, however sensational, is truly radical, which does not
consciously provide a way of overcoming the subjectivism of human
opinion based on the limitation of individual experience. There are
systems of government, of voting, and representation which extract
more than others. But in the end knowledge must come not from the
conscience but from the environment with which that conscience deals.
When men act on the principle of intelligence they go out to find the
facts and to make their wisdom. When they ignore it, they go inside
themselves and find only what is there. They elaborate their
prejudice, instead of increasing their knowledge.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC
1
IN real life no one acts on the theory that he can have a public
opinion on every public question, though this fact is often concealed
where a person thinks there is no public question because he has no
public opinion. But in the theory of our politics we continue to think
more literally than Lord Bryce intended, that "the action of Opinion
is continuous," [Footnote: _Modern Democracies_, Vol. I, p. 159.]
even though "its action... deals with broad principles only."
[Footnote: Id.
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