It might be said that this [necessity for newspapers and statesmen of following the crowd] is only one of the results of that tyranny of commonplace which seems to accompany civilization.  You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.  What law is so cruel as the law of doing what he does?  What yoke is so galling as the necessity of being like him?  What espionage of despotism comes to your door so effectually as the eye of the man who lives at your door?  Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits.  Of course, if we do not, no formal ban issues; no corporeal pain, no coarse penalty of a barbarous society is inflicted on the offender; but we are called “eccentric”; there is a gentle murmur of “most unfortunate ideas,” “singular young man,” “well-intentioned, I dare say; but unsafe, sir, quite unsafe.”

Whatever truth there may be in these splenetic observations might be expected to show itself more particularly in the world of politics:  people dread to be thought unsafe in proportion as they get their living by being thought to be safe.  Those who desire a public career must look to the views of the living public; an immediate exterior influence is essential to the exertion of their faculties.  The confidence of others is your fulcrum: you cannot—­many people wish you could—­go into Parliament to represent yourself; you must conform to the opinions of the electors, and they, depend on it, will not be original.  In a word, as has been most wisely observed, “under free institutions it is necessary occasionally to defer to the opinions of other people; and as other people are obviously in the wrong, this is a great hindrance to the improvement of our political system and the progress of our species.”

HOW TO BE AN INFLUENTIAL POLITICIAN

From ‘Bolingbroke’

It is very natural that brilliant and vehement men should depreciate Harley; for he had nothing which they possess, but had everything which they commonly do not possess.  He was by nature a moderate man.  In that age they called such a man a “trimmer,” but they called him ill:  such a man does not consciously shift or purposely trim his course,—­he firmly believes that he is substantially consistent.  “I do not wish in this House,” he would say in our age, “to be a party to any extreme course.  Mr. Gladstone brings forward a great many things which I cannot understand; I assure you he does.  There is more in that bill of his about tobacco than he thinks; I am confident there is.  Money is a serious thing, a very serious thing.  And I am sorry to say Mr. Disraeli commits the party very much:  he avows sentiments which are injudicious; I cannot go along with him, nor can Sir John.  He was not taught the catechism; I know he was not.