plied with its political opinions
for the next five years, its leaders--who, I am told, all pursue the
vocation of sharpening axes--name a man whom they wish chosen for the
office of _Tnediserp_. He is usually an idiot from birth, the Tamtonians
having a great veneration for such, believing them to be divinely
inspired. Although few members of the _ytrap_ have ever heard of him
before, they at once believe him to have been long the very greatest idiot
in the country; and for the next few months they do little else than quote
his words and point to his actions to prove that his idiocy is of entirely
superior quality to that of his opponent--a view that he himself,
instructed by his discoverers, does and says all that he can to confirm.
His inarticulate mumblings are everywhere repeated as utterances of
profound wisdom, and the slaver that drools from his chin is carefully
collected and shown to the people, evoking the wildest enthusiasm of his
supporters. His opponents all this time are trying to blacken his
character by the foulest conceivable falsehoods, some even going so far as
to assert that he is not an idiot at all! It is generally agreed among
them that if he were chosen to office the most dreadful disasters would
ensue, and that, _therefore_, he will not be chosen.

To this last mentioned conviction, namely that the opposing candidate
(_rehtot lacsar_) cannot possibly be chosen, I wish to devote a few words
here, for it seems to me one of the most extraordinary phenomena of the
human mind. It implies, of course, a profound belief in the wisdom of
majorities and the error of minorities. This belief can and does in some
mysterious way co-exist, in the Tamtonian understanding, with the deepest
disgust and most earnest disapproval of a decision which a majority has
made. It is of record, indeed, that one political _ytrap_ sustained no
fewer than six successive defeats without at all impairing its conviction
that the right side must win. In each recurring contest this ytrap was as
sure that it would succeed as it had been in all the preceding ones--and
sure _because_ it believed itself in the right! It has been held by some
native observers that this conviction is not actually entertained, but
only professed for the purpose of influencing the action of others; but
this is disproved by the fact that even after the contest is decided,
though the result is unknown--when nobody's action can have effect--the
leaders (ax-sh