ndent
community. Many of these notions are radically inconsistent with one
another. The dogma, for example, of the supremacy of the majority, or
the conviction that legislation ought to aim at the greatest happiness
of the greatest number, each belong to a different order of ideas from
the principle of nationality, and may easily come into conflict with it.
This inconsistency does not lessen the influence exerted by the mass of
democratic feeling. We may, however, well note that democratic ideas at
the present day produce their effect far less by exciting enthusiasm
(for they now kindle nothing like the fiery fervour which the doctrines
of popular sovereignty or of human equality excited a century ago
throughout the length and breadth of Europe), than by their singular
capacity for dissolving the convictions which oppose the claims of
revolutionists. Of this solvent power recent events have given us more
than enough examples. One may suffice. The argument that because Irish
householders have received votes therefore the majority of the electors
of the United Kingdom must concede to the majority of Irish householders
anything whatever having reference to Ireland which Irish householders
desire, is logically absurd. But (combined, no doubt, with other causes)
it convinced the Conservative Government of 1885 that the executive in
Ireland was bound to bow to the will of the Irish people, and was
relieved from the obligation of enforcing at all costs the law of the
land. Popular sympathies, moreover, blend in the minds of modern
Englishmen with feelings of a much less generous and much less
respectable order. Dislike of trouble, hatred to the performance of
arduous public duties, a growing indifference to ordinary commonplace
ideas of law and justice, contempt for the legal rights of individuals
whenever these rights clash for a moment with the ease or interest of
the public, exert an incalculable influence on the conduct, and in truth
upon the convictions, both of Members of Parliament and of electors. It
is not too much to say that the favour or acquiescence with which
so-called practical politicians are prepared to accept Home Rule is
grounded to a far greater extent than any one who respects the character
of England likes to confess upon the _naive_ but intense conviction that
it is too much to expect from five hundred and more English gentlemen
that they should take the trouble of withstanding the continuous
pressure exe