at once disclosed and
magnified, like the figures thrown by a magic lantern on a screen, to a
scale which it is impossible to overlook. No one, for example, can study
the anonymous press without perceiving how large a part of it is
employed systematically, persistently and deliberately in fostering
class, or race, or international hatreds, and often in circulating
falsehoods to attain this end. Many newspapers notoriously depend for
their existence on such appeals, and more than any other instruments
they inflame and perpetuate those permanent animosities which most
endanger the peace of mankind. The fact that such newspapers are
becoming in many countries the main and almost exclusive reading of the
poor forms the most serious deduction from the value of popular
education. How many books have attained popularity, how many seats in
Parliament have been won, how many posts of influence and profit have
been attained, how many party victories have been achieved, by appealing
to such passions! Often they disguise themselves under the lofty names
of patriotism and nationality, and men whose whole lives have been spent
in sowing class hatreds and dividing kindred nations may be found
masquerading under the name of patriots, and have played no small part
on the stage of politics. The deep-seated sedition, the fierce class and
national hatreds that run through European life would have a very
different intensity from what they now unfortunately have if they had
not been artificially stimulated and fostered through purely selfish
motives by demagogues, political adventurers and public writers.

Some of the very worst acts of which man can be guilty are acts which
are commonly untouched by law and only faintly censured by opinion.
Political crimes which a false and sickly sentiment so readily condones
are conspicuous among them. Men who have been gambling for wealth and
power with the lives and fortunes of multitudes; men who for their own
personal ambition are prepared to sacrifice the most vital interests of
their country; men who in time of great national danger and excitement
deliberately launch falsehood after falsehood in the public press in the
well-founded conviction that they will do their evil work before they
can be contradicted, may be met shameless, and almost uncensured, in
Parliaments and drawing-rooms. The amount of false statement in the
world which cannot be attributed to mere carelessness, inaccuracy, or
exagge