In them, too, intelligence works in
precisely the same way as in other men, and in politics precisely as in
other parts of life. They listen to those they trust who, by
neighbourhood, by sympathetic knowledge of their own state, or actual
share in it, by superior powers of mind and a larger fund of
information, are qualified to be their leaders in forming opinion and
their instruments in the policy they adopt. These leaders may be called
demagogues. They may be thought to employ only resources of trickery
upon dupes for selfish ends; but such a view, generally, is a shallow
one, and not justified by facts. It is right in the masses to make men
like themselves and nigh to them, especially those born and bred in
their own condition of life, their leaders, in preference to men,
however educated, benevolent, and upright, who are not embodiments of
the social conditions, needs, and aspirations of the people in their
cruder life, if it in fact substantially be so, and to allow these men,
so chosen, to find a leader among themselves. Such a man is a true chief
of a party, who is not an individual holding great interests in trust
and managing them with benevolent despotism by virtue of his own
superior brain; he is the incarnation, as a party chief, of other brains
and wills, a representative exceeding by far in wisdom and power
himself, a man in whom the units of society, millions of them, have
their governmental life.
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