d him say that
fortune favours the brave. He assumes it.

3

[Sidenote: _INTELLECTUAL TYRANNIES_]

As one grows more democratic in feeling, as one's faith in the people
receives shock after shock, yet on the whole brightens--so does one's
mistrust of the so-called democratic programmes increase. One becomes
at once more dissatisfied and less, more reckless and much more
cautious. One sees so plainly that the three or four political parties
by no means exhaust the political possibilities. The poor, though
indeed they have the franchise, remain little more than pawns in the
political game. They have to vote for somebody, and nobody is prepared
to allow them much without a full return in money or domination. They
pay in practice for what theoretically is only their due. Justice for
them is mainly bills of costs. The political fight lies still between
their masters and would-be masters; not so much now, perhaps, between
different factions of property-owners as between the property-owners
and the intellectuals. Out of the frying-pan into the fire seems the
likely course; for the intellectuals, if they have the chance, enslave
the whole man; they are logical and ruthless. The worst tyrannies have
been priestly tyrannies, whether of Christians, Brahmins or negro
witch-doctors; and those priests were the intellectuals of their time.
I wonder when we shall have a party of intellectuals content to find
out the people's ideals and to serve them faithfully, instead of trying
to foist their own ideals upon the people.

Law-makers, however, will probably continue to work for the supposed
benefit of the people rather than on the people's behalf; and equally,
the supposed welfare of the people will continue to be the handiest
political weapon; for the property-owning, articulate classes are
better able to prevent themselves being played with. To those two facts
one's political principles must be adjusted. The articulate classes,
moreover, are actually so little acquainted with the inner life of the
poor that there is no groundwork of general knowledge upon which to
base conclusions, and it is impossible to do more than speak from one's
own personal experience. I don't mind confessing that, though I should
prefer justice all round, yet, if injustice is to be done--as done it
must be no doubt--I had rather the poor were not the sufferers. There
is no reason to believe that present conditions cannot be bettered--to
believe, with Dr