believe the average man to be the normal man, exhibiting the normal laws:
but a very abnormal man, diseased and crippled, but even if their method
were correct, it could work in practice, only if the destinies of men
were always decided by majorities: and granting that the majority of men
have common sense, are the minority of fools to count for nothing? Are
they powerless? Have they had no influence on History? Have they even
been always a minority, and not at times a terrible majority, doing each
that which was right in the sight of his own eyes? You can surely answer
that question for yourselves. As far as my small knowledge of History
goes, I think it may be proved from facts, that any given people, down to
the lowest savages, has, at any period of its life, known far more than
it has done; known quite enough to have enabled it to have got on
comfortably, thriven, and developed; if it had only done, what no man
does, all that it knew it ought to do, and could do. St. Paul's
experience of himself is true of all mankind--'The good which I would, I
do not; and the evil which I would not, that I do.' The discrepancy
between the amount of knowledge and the amount of work, is one of the
most patent and most painful facts which strikes us in the history of
man; and one not certainly to be explained on any theory of man's
progress being the effect of inevitable laws, or one which gives us much
hope of ascertaining fixed laws for that progress.

And bear in mind, that fools are not always merely imbecile and
obstructive; they are at times ferocious, dangerous, mad. There is in
human nature what Goethe used to call a demoniac element, defying all
law, and all induction; and we can, I fear, from that one cause, as
easily calculate the progress of the human race, as we can calculate that
of the vines upon the slopes of AEtna, with the lava ready to boil up and
overwhelm them at any and every moment. Let us learn, in God's name, all
we can, from the short intervals of average peace and common sense: let
us, or rather our grandchildren, get precious lessons from them for the
next period of sanity. But let us not be surprised, much less
disheartened, if after learning a very little, some unexpected and truly
demoniac factor, Anabaptist war, French revolution, or other, should toss
all our calculations to the winds, and set us to begin afresh, sadder and
wiser men. We may learn, doubtless, even more of the real facts of