[1] has a remarkable page, illustrating this point.  “The nearer the people,” he writes, “are drawn to a common level of an equal and similar condition the less prone each man becomes to place implicit faith in a certain man or certain classes of men.  But his readiness to believe the multitude increases and opinion is more than ever the mistress of the world.  Not only is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains among democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere.  At periods of equality men have no faith in one another by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.  The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power which aristocratic nations cannot conceive of; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it impresses them and infuses them in the intellect by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.”

To this prestige of vast numbers Bryce has given a name.  “Out of the mingled feelings that the multitude will prevail and that the multitude, because it will prevail, must be right, there grows a self-distrust, a despondency, a disposition to fall into line, to acquiesce in the dominant opinion, to submit thought as well as action to the encompassing powers of numbers.”

“This tendency to acquiescence and submission, this sense of insignificance of individual effort, this belief that the affairs of men are swayed by large forces whose movements may be studied but cannot be turned, I have ventured to call it “The Fatalism of the Multitude.”  It is often confounded with the tyranny of the majority, but is at the bottom different though, of course, its existence makes tyranny by the majority easier and more complete. . . .  In the fatalism of the multitude there is neither legal nor moral compulsion; there is merely a loss of resisting power, a diminished sense of personal responsibility of the duty to battle for one’s own opinion, such as has been bred in some people, by the belief of an over mastering fate.” [2]

One can readily grasp the dangers of Public Opinion at the mercy of blatant agitators and unscrupulous leaders.  They have no idea to promote, but only a feeling to exploit.  They flatter Public Opinion to gain it.  They appear to consult it when in reality they are creating and directing it.  They catch the restless and undirecting currents of popular feeling when they are seeking an outlet and swing them slowly at first but with a growing impetus in the channels of their own interest or of the party they represent.  The people are deluded into thinking that they are their own leaders and masters.  The feeling of unrest that now prevails is due to this abuse of Public Opinion.  Like children the leaders of nations have been playing with this wire of high voltage.  Should we be surprised to see the world suffer deadly shocks from whence it should receive light and power?