POLITICS AND CROWD-MORALITY.'

THIS book is an arraignment of the principle of democracy, and it is alarming reading. The author has a bitter distrust of "the crowd," pinning his hope, on the other hand, to the corporation." The latter is guided, he thinks, by reason and self-interest, while the former is misguided by emotion and madness. Not every chance collection of men,

of course, constitutes a crowd in our author's sense. "A crowd' can be defined shortly as a group of individuals which, in a given moment, is filled with a common idea or a common desire, and is conscious of this community of thought, will, or action." He gives the following illustra- tion. A number of people hurrying down a street is, not in the sooiological sense a crowd, but should some unusual occurrence bring them together, such as an accident or an arrest, or should a street-preacher suddenly attract their

attention, then "contact is established between the in- dividuals," and in a moment "the chance multitude becomes a crowd." This transformation is, be points out, the effect of suggestion. The crowd is a ter•r-ible being—so he would prove to us—far nearer to the savage than are its component parts. "The crowd-mind is made up of the qualities which are common to all the individuals who make up the crowd, and are consequently liable to entirely primitive emotions?' Our author agrees with Le Bon that

"crowds can never bring to a complete issue operations which demand a high level of intelligence. Decisions of general interest which are arrived at by an assembly of men who, though dis- tinguished, are specialists in different departments, are not sensibly superior to the decisions which a collection of simpletons might arrive at. The former can in practice only contribute to the common stook those mediocre qualities which are common property."

Surely this cannot be true. Does he mean, for instance, Oat a Second Chamber composed of men representing every branch of special knowledge would be of no more use to a State than would aroomful of ploughmen?

The extraordinary susceptibility of crowds to suggestion prevents, we gather, the solid stupidity which the reader feels might be the logical outcome of this inevitable mediocrity. They are liable to what Mr. Christensen describes as " ecstasy,* and in this state, begun by outside suggestion, and intensified by "inter-suggestion," they are wholly irresponsible. Ecstasy may lead them anywhere. They may become possessed by religious or by diabolic emotion. On the whole, he thinks the

• Politics and Crowd-Morality : a Study in the Philosophy of Politics. By Arthur Christensen. Translated from the Danish by A. Cecil Curtis. Loudon: Williams and Norgate. [7s. 6d. net.]

latter more common. "An appeal to the destructive instinct of the crowd and to its lust of bloodshed is never made in vain." But when Mr. Christensen, on the strength of the evidence be has accumulated against " the crowd," demands that his readers should bring democracy in " guilty," the reader inclines to rebel. Democracy, according to our author, was the idol of the Victorians, who even set it up among the Indians, just as the Roman Church was the idol of the Middle Ages. He cannot of course leave quite out of account the argument that the Victorian era saw a great change for the better in English conditions of life. Ho regards this improvement as coincident, and soon dismisses its con- sideration. The tide, however, he rejoices to think, has turned. Larliamentarism, the fruit of democracy, is very much played out. "Continental parliamentarism leads to Chamber-despotism, English parliamentarism to Premier- despotism." Not, of course, that Mr. Christensen holds a brief for any kind of despotism. An absolute ruler can only be beneficent if he is a man of exceptionally high character. Besides, it is absurd to suppose that the crowd has no voice in autocracies. All this he readily grants. He wants to change from democracy, not to any form of autocracy, but to some system which shall represent the intelligent self-interest of the country. "Trade interests are the most material elements in politics, but precisely for that reason they are the element which will always count for most in politics." This is, he thinks, a fact we must accept :—

" We may be glad of it or deplore it, according to our way of looking at life, but'we must bow to the fact that material interests determine the attitude of the individual towards polities morn effectively than any ether interests. For the State, too, material interests undoubtedly carry most weight. The prosperity of the different brandies of industry conditions the economical. situation of the State, and therewith its power of action, both internal and external."

Our author believes, therefore, that " that form of popular representation which was based on trade groups would be the most natural and the most rational." Thus only could the party system be destroyed—i.e., by bringing the parties together on the common ground of material self-interest. This is what he means when he opposes a " corporation" to a crowd.

The conclusion is an earthy one, and Mr. Christensen admits that there are other ways of looking at life. Not only does ho admit this, but in his chapter upon "real" and "ideal " politics he elaborates it, and he makes an effort to do justice. The "idealist" politician is bound, he foresees, to stand corrected by events, On the other hand, he believes him to be partly in the right, or at least be believes his more bitter opponents to be largely in the wrong :—

"The 'Ideal' politician is," he says, "so much entangled in the suggestion exercised by the idea of progress, that he sees human culture through a magnifying glass. Ho just adds the great advances of modern civilisation to the distinctly more modest advances of culture, and imagines that an epoch which has evolved railways, motor-cars, flying-machines, and other amazing technical discoveries, not to mention social. legislation, the Hague Tribunal, &c., must also have got the bettor of the predatory instinct and war, He cannot help seeing, it is true, that the military budgets all the world over are bewilderingly higher than ever before, and that the question arises with every new technical discovery what use can be made of it in war? But he imagines that all this is due to the want of sense of the State leaders, in that those Governments in particular which depend upon Con- servative parties will not abandon the thought of war, and the more Liberal Governments are thereby forced to follow suit. But the popular crowds will not have war, therefore there will be no more war between civilised nations ; and if only one nation had the courage to throw all his war-machinery overboard, the spell would be broken and the millennium of peace secured."

The fault of the "idealist" politician, he goes on, is not that he takes an ideal view of politics, but that he mistakes ideality for actuality. The real politician comes in for as hard measure

While the theorist in 'Ideal' politics sees the reality in a false light, the theorist in 'Real' politics sees the reality rightly, but puts a false value on it. He sees in the oppression of the weak by the strong a matter of course, a law of Nature. It is a case of Darwin and Nietzsche in the seat of honour in politics. A law of Nature will not submit to moral evaluation. Polities is a conception outside good and evil. In politics might goes before right, because it does not and cannot do otherwise. The theorist in real polities is so closely entangled in the suggestion of the present, that he cannot picture to himself a further development. Ile forgets that Nature acquired in man a now, a psychical factor, namely perfectibility, that man is not only a beast of prey, but a boast of prey which is capable of development. He forgets that man—apart from any similarity in other respects—has an intel- lectual plus in advance of the hymns' and the jackal, and that this plus makes every application of Darwinian theories to human society perverse and false."

All this, as our readers will perceive, was written before the war, whose actualities have taken the interest out of all the prophecies and speculations which immediately preceded it.

Nevertheless the book is very interesting, or will ho when the war is over.