of the President and Senate it is easy to discern the triumph of Hamiltonian principles.

as a ground

Hamilton was a "realist" in politics. He had little faith Sentiment in the disinterestedness of people or in the enduring force of political of popular sympathies or idealistic aspirations. His "real- obedience ism" was at once his strength and his weakness. When he came to power as the first Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, he contributed mightily to the actual establishment of the new and more perfect Union. But for all his insight into the springs of human action he could not retain the power which Washington rather than the people entrusted to him. The politician cannot live by "realism" alone. He must also be something of an "idealist," if he is to retain power in a state where he is dependent in the long run upon the opinion of the broad masses of the people. If he is unwilling to put his trust to a great extent in the sympathies of the people, he must build the foundations of his authority with less dependence upon popular approval. Hamilton was not altogether unaware of this, as his plan for a federal government, happily rejected by the Convention, plainly shows. It was better understood by his great rival, Jefferson. The latter, though not ignorant of the artifices of practical politics, appreciated at more nearly their true value the force of sentiment and disinterestedness in the United States, and was thereby sustained in his authority through great vicissitudes of fortune and under the most trying circumstances.

Those who have observed most closely the actions of The grounds of men, the psychologists, are far from agreement concern- obedience in ing the springs of human conduct. But they agree on one general conclusion: political obedience is one form of a general phenomenon, characteristic of mankind. The normal man obeys many authorities. He begins as a child by learning obedience in the home. Every head of a family knows that obedience is not a natural trait of children.

Causes

But the habit is in most cases more or less rapidly and effectually acquired. Its acquisition is aided by the experience of the child in the society of other children outside the family, in the school, in the church, and, as he grows older, in the workshop or on the farm. When he reaches man's estate, he finds the world so organized that he cannot live unto himself alone. If he conducts himself well, he may escape direct contact with the policeman. In some cases he may even escape the tax collector. But he cannot escape the downright authority of an employer, or the compelling influence of patrons, or clients, or customers, or the gregarious coercion of fellow workmen, or the more subtle tyranny of neighborhood opinion. We obey fathers and mothers, teachers and masters, capitalists and labor leaders, custom and fashion; why not also obey politicians and statesmen?

There are many means of explaining this general phenomenon of obedience. Men act from various motives, and it may not be possible to ascertain in a particular case precisely what causes determine conduct. There are doubtless few cases in which any single motive operates Valone. But the various causes of obedience which together explain the phenomenon may for convenience be summarily described under a few general heads.1

(1) Inertia

First, there is inertia. Men obey because it is too much trouble to do otherwise. Disobedience entails effort and struggle. Action, even thought, is laborious. Many men are glad to let others do their thinking for them, and to act for them also, when such inaction on their own part is not itself too irksome, and the activity of the others is not too troublesome in some other way. Aristotle, the wisest man of antiquity, was no less close an observer of men than of other animals and plant life and things in

1 Cf. James Bryce, "Obedience," Essay No. 9, in his Studies in History and Jurisprudence.

general. When he noted that some men are by nature slaves, and others masters, he called attention to a form of inequality which nobody can deny. "For he who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, reason, is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend reason; they obey their instincts." Aristotle was right in recognizing the fact of inequality. He was wrong in ascribing that fact to a distinction between apprehending but not having reason. The important difference is not that in intelligence. The modern psychologists with their measurements of intelligence have demonstrated that only a small minority are definitely subnormal in mentality. A small minority also are markedly superior to the mass of mankind. But no correlation has been established between supernormality in intelligence and leadership in the organized activities of men. The actual differences in knowledge and skill, which are great, probably reflect differences in educational opportunities rather than in native endowments. The important difference between men in respect to their natural capacity is that in energy. The fact that distinguishes the masses of men from their natural leaders is their comparative inertia. Leadership is not the consequence of superior intelligence, but of superior enterprise.

The relatively inert are marked out by nature to follow their leaders. This is true in every phase of human association, whether in the home or in the workshop, in "business" or in "society," in the neighborhood or in the state. Slavery as a legal institution happily has ceased to exist. But the dependent status of a modern wage earner relative to that of the capitalist or captain of industry illustrates, often to be sure the consequences of unfavorable fortune or unjust influence, but also those of 1 Politics, Book I, chapter 5.

(2) Defer

ence

natural inequalities. Aristotle's justification of slavery in ancient Greece could not justify that institution in the modern world; but either a similar process of reasoning justifies the modern system of capitalism, or that system in its present form must stand condemned. It is not without significance that wage earners generally seek to escape the servitude of the traditional relationship between master and servant by substituting for the authority of their old masters the mastery of men who can lead them in their unions. The change marks an improvement of status, but the new relationship is no more natural or unnatural than the old. The habit of obedience in the family springs from the original inertia of the child. The foundation of parental authority continues to lie in superiority in energy until the growth of the child makes possible the development of other causes of obedience. Inertia may never be the original cause of obedience in other forms of human association, but it must always be one of the principal factors in any adequate explanation of the organized activities of men.

Secondly, there is a tendency in many men toward obedience which may be said to spring from deference or a sense of subordination. Such men not only are inferior in some respect by nature or in consequence of inequality of opportunity, but also are conscious of it. This consciousness makes them indisposed to challenge the authority of those whom they regard as their "betters." They gladly defer to the opinions of their superiors, whether the superiority consists in strength, intelligence, moral character, or social capacity, or merely in established reputation and position. The greater part of the men who follow their leaders not only submit to leadership but are proud of it. They ask only that leadership be masterful. Insubordination would be regarded by their leaders not merely with surprise as unnatural, but even with pain as ungrateful. This senti

mental relationship between leaders and followers, whether in the family, the neighborhood, the trade or industry, the political party, the church, or wherever organized action takes place, is thoroughly natural. It is also wholesome, if the leader uses his influence for the good of all, and not merely for selfish ends. But where he exploits his position for private purposes, the relationship is perverted, and cannot permanently endure. Like the first of the causes of obedience, the sense of subordination begins in the home, when rightly constituted, but it pervades all human associations. Like the first, it affects not only the relations between individuals within a group, but also the relations between groups, even such groups as nations and races.

A third cause of obedience is sympathy. The psy- (3) Symchologists and biologists do not agree concerning the pathy foundation of the fellow feeling which exists among people bound together by a common consciousness of kind. The historian, however, who observes the actions of men at longer range than the psychologist and biologist but none the less dispassionately, is familiar enough with its manifestations. Whether it originates in the instinctive gregariousness of mankind, or is acquired through the effects of association and imitation, it operates powerfully to strengthen the hold which natural leaders exert upon their followers. Clannishness, class consciousness, party spirit, patriotism, all are emotional expressions of a disposition to act in a certain way in company with our kindred, or neighbors, or fellows in some kind of association about which we feel intensely. Sympathy reaches its most exalted form in the true Christian's love of mankind. Thou shalt love thy neighbor, it is written, as thyself. Men cannot love, however, at command. They can love only when the spirit moves them. The modern development of means for the cheap and easy transmission of "news" has greatly extended the scope of people's sympathies and broadened