Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For, having lived long [he was then in his eighty-second year], I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. . . . Thus I consent, Sir," addressing Washington, who was presiding, "to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best." Ungenerous critics. among Franklin's associates in the Convention ascribed his cautious endorsement less to the humility of the sage than to the prudence of the politician, who wished to preserve his reputation in the eyes of posterity in the event that the Constitution should fare either well or ill. Be Franklin's lack of confidence in his own opinion genuine or feignedhis long training in the art of diplomacy makes doubts on that point permissible-the normal man has little reason for greater confidence in his opinions.

This becomes very evident when one considers how Defective opinions are often formed. First, there is the fabrication information of opinion by controlling the sources of information upon which opinion must be founded. The peoples of the world have had many illustrations of this method during the Great War. In the United States, to take the illustration that lies nearest home, the government set up a Committee on Public Information. The duty of this Committee was to furnish the public with such information as would enable them most effectively to assist in the prosecution of the war. All information which might, if generally known, give aid and comfort to the enemy was sedulously withheld. There was no censorship of the press, in the technical sense of an official examination of printed matter prior to

Imperfect reasoning

publication, with a view to the suppression of statements believed by the authorities to be injurious to the public interests. But there was an understanding between the government and the press to the effect that certain kinds. of news should not be published. Much of it could not be published, because not divulged by the military and diplomatic authorities who alone had the power to reveal it. Other information was "played up" by the skillful press agents of the government with a view to the production of certain emotional reactions among the public just as the dramatist produces the sought-for effects in his audience or the motion-picture director among his spectators. Such manipulation of the press was re-enforced by the employment of public speakers. notably the Four Minute Men, to secure a unanimity and intensity of opinion in support of the government perhaps unparalleled in the history of warfare. It was effective, but it was also artificial. Thus for a time the authority of our rulers was sustained by the help of artifices ordinarily reserved for the support of a market for soap or chewing gum. These artifices were never more energetically and systematically employed than during the war, but they are always used to some extent, not only by statesmen but by all kinds of persons who wish to influence the opinion of mankind. The advantages of such methods to the leaders of men are obvious. The dangers will be considered in another place.1

Secondly, opinion may be fabricated by a variety of methods, when there is no actual concealment or overemphasis of any of the facts upon which opinion must be founded. One of the most insidious of these methods is what Wallas has termed the exploitation of subconscious non-rational inference. When a baseball pitcher throws

1 Cf. Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News.

2 Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics. See especially chapter III, "Non-Rational Inference in Politics."

a curved ball at the batter's head, he does not intend to hit the batter but to put the ball over the plate. He also intends to stimulate the instinct of self-preservation, so that the batter will involuntarily dodge the ball or at least hesitate until it is too late to strike at it successfully. The experienced batter knows the pitcher's purpose and by an effort of will can resist the impulse to dodge. That impulse is dangerous to him as a batter, because it can act although he is not conscious of it, and because it causes action which, though not irrational, is at the same time incorrect. An unscrupulous pitcher can, of course, throw a straight ball at the batter's head. Such a ball will hit him unless he does dodge, and such pitching is designed to intimidate the batter, not to exploit his propensity for subconscious nonrational inference. On the other hand, a pitcher may throw a curved ball at the plate in such a manner as to move away from the batter and outside the plate beyond his reach. This is not exploiting a subconscious nonrational inference, because there is no instinctive impulse to strike at a ball thrown over the plate, as there is to dodge a ball thrown at one's head. It is simply a kind of deception. Trickery and fraud, of course, like intimidation and violence, may be employed by anybody where the rules of the game permit, or anywhere by unscrupulous men, to create opinions upon which, though erroneous, other men will act in the manner that is desired. Opinions are actually fabricated by all these methods, not only in sport, but also in politics. The old saying that all is fair in love and war overstates the freedom of choice of methods that is generally recognized in those fields of action. The saying has not been supposed to apply in modern politics. Limits are recognized upon the artifices that men may use to accomplish their purposes. But in politics, as in other organized activities of men, much continues to be done which many men deem unfair. Men's standards, and

Man a political animal

ability to maintain their standards, vary widely. Hence the disrepute among the more honorable sort of men into which politics in modern democracies has sometimes fallen.

It is easy to forget that man is by nature a political animal. Since Aristotle first laid this proposition down as the foundation of his philosophy of politics, it seems often to have been forgotten. Hobbes indeed expressly denied its truth, asserting that man is a political animal, not by nature, but by rational conviction. In this he was followed generally by the political theorists of the social compact school and by the later Utilitarians. But the researches of modern scientists tend to confirm Aristotle's opinion. Cannon, the physiologist, has summarized his investigations in the statement, "More and more it is appearing that in men of all races, and in most of the higher animals, the springs of action are to be found in the influences of certain emotions which express themselves in characteristic instinctive acts." And Thorndike, the psychologist, affirms that "the behavior of man in the family, in business, in the state, in religion, and in every other affair of life, is rooted in his unlearned original equipment of instincts and capacities. All schemes of improving life must take into account man's original nature, most of all when their aim is to counteract it." Carleton H. Parker, quoting these statements, in his brilliant, though misnamed, paper, "Motives in Economic Life," adds, "Instincts to their modern possessor seem unreasoning and unrational, and often embarrassing. To the race, however, they are an efficient and tried guide to conduct, for they are the result of endless experimentsunder the ruthless valuing mechanism of the competition for survival. In fact, outside of some relatively unimportant bodily attributes, the instincts are all that our species in its long evolution has considered worth

saving." It is evident that conscious rational decisions to obey the established rulers of a state in order to promote the individual's best interests can account for but a part, and probably a small part, of the total quantity of political obedience in the modern world. Impulsive and instinctive obedience must be a more important factor than those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye formerly supposed. The researches of contemporary psychologists have carried us a long way from the simple rationalistic explanation of human conduct which satisfied the Utilitarian philosophers of a century ago. When asked what qualities are most required in a Prime Minister, the younger Pitt is reported to have replied: "Eloquence first, then knowledge, thirdly, toil, and lastly, patience." The function of eloquence was not so much to appeal to reason as to the emotions, and thus to command the impulsive and instinctive reactions of man. "The empirical art of politics," writes Wallas, after dispassionate reflection upon the processes of actual government, "consists largely in the creation of opinion by the deliberate exploitation of subconscious non-rational inference." The government of men, in other words, is but a branch, though the most complex, of the art of management of gregarious animals in general.

phers

The closest students of politics have never failed to The opinions of appreciate the complexity of human nature and the impor- political tance to the practical politician of making due allowances philosofor its vagaries as well as for its normal manifestations. The two political philosophers whose insight is keenest are Machiavelli and Aristotle. The former has been a much abused man, and deservedly so, for he condones, if he does not positively inculcate, political methods which

1 Supplement to Publications of American Economic Association, 1918, Vol. 1, p. 217.

2 See Lord Rosebery, Life of Pitt, p. 264.