e exercise of private
judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first
impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or
false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all;
the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the
world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the
'still, small voice' of reason. We may believe or know that what is said
is not true; but we know or fancy that others believe it,--we dare not
contradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and therefore give
up our internal, and, as we think, our solitary conviction to a sound
without substance, without proof, and often without meaning. Nay more,
we may believe and know not only that a thing is false, but that others
believe and know it to be so, that they are quite as much in the secret
of the imposture as we are, that they see the puppets at work, the
nature of the machinery, and yet if any one has the art or power to
get the management of it, he shall keep possession of the public ear
by virtue of a cant phrase or nickname, and by dint of effrontery and
perseverance make all the world believe and repeat what all the world
know to be false. The ear is quicker than the judgment. We know that
certain things are said; by that circumstance alone, we know that they
produce a certain effect on the imagination of others, and we conform
to their prejudices by mechanical sympathy, and for want of sufficient
spirit to differ with them. So far then is public opinion from resting
on a broad and solid basis, as the aggregate of thought and feeling in
a community, that it is slight and shallow and variable to the last
degree--the bubble of the moment; so that we may safely say the
public is the dupe of public opinion, not its parent. The public is
pusillanimous and cowardly, because it is weak. It knows itself to be a
great dunce, and that it has no opinions but upon suggestion. Yet it is
unwilling to appear in leading-strings, and would have it thought that
its decisions are as wise as they are weighty. It is hasty in taking
up its favourites, more hasty in laying them aside, lest it should be
supposed deficient in sagacity in either case. It is generally divided
into two strong parties, each of which will allow neither common sense
nor common honesty to the other side. It reads the _Edinburgh_ and
_Quarterly Reviews_, and believes them both--or if there