many centuries, and reflected habits of thought characteristic of
very diverse stages of man's intellectual and moral development. No one
conception of the nature of the gods could possibly afford the clue to
all parts of that motley complex of rites and ceremonies which the later
paganism had received by inheritance, from a series of ancestors in
every state of culture from pure savagery upwards. The record of the
religious thought of mankind, as it is embodied in religious
institutions, resembles the geological record of the history of the
earth's crust; the new and the old are preserved side by side or rather
layer upon layer. The classification of ritual formations in their
proper sequence is the first step towards their explanation, and that
explanation itself must take the form, not of a speculative theory, but
of a rational life-history.

4. The Nature of Public Opinion[269]

"_Vox populi_ may be _vox Dei_, but very little attention shows that
there has never been any agreement as to what _vox_ means or as to what
_populus_ means." In spite of endless discussions about democracy, this
remark of Sir Henry Maine is still so far true that no other excuse is
needed for studying the conceptions which lie at the very base of
popular government. In doing so one must distinguish the form from the
substance; for the world of politics is full of forms in which the
spirit is dead--mere shams, but sometimes not recognized as such even by
the chief actors, sometimes deceiving the outside multitude, sometimes
no longer misleading anyone. Shams, are, indeed, not without value.
Political shams have done for English government what fictions have done
for English law. They have promoted growth without revolutionary change.
But while shams play an important part in political evolution, they are
snares for the political philosopher who fails to see through them, who
ascribes to the forms a meaning that they do not really possess. Popular
government may in substance exist under the form of a monarchy, and an
autocratic despotism can be set up without destroying the forms of
democracy. If we look through the forms to observe the vital forces
behind them; if we fix our attention, not on the procedure, the extent
of the franchise, the machinery of elections, and such outward things,
but on the essence of the matter, popular government, in one important
aspect at least, may be said to consist of the control of political
affairs by pub