Till we can convert the Will
of the People, we must abide by it. Anyway, I have always thought this
objection (which, by the way, is not, as Artemus Ward would say, "writ
sarkastic") an exceedingly illuminating fact. It shows how skin-deep is
the democratic principle in the minds of many men who think themselves
strong Radicals. They do not really believe in submitting to the Will of
the People. They want to do what they think is good for the People, but
they have no true sense of freedom. They do not realise that if you are
to give a man true freedom, you must inevitably give him the right to do
wrong as well as the right to do right. If you do not do that, he is no
freeman, but merely a virtuous slave--a creature, as Dryden said, "tied
up from doing ill." For such compulsory freedom I have no use. I want to
convert people, not to force them, or cajole them. Of course, I cannot
banish force altogether, because if the Will of the Majority is not
obeyed, we shall never arrive anywhere. We shall spend our time in
fruitless and so futile discussions. What we can avoid by the Poll of
the People is coercion by the minority. Curiously enough, the minority,
_teste_ Lenin, seem to have no sentimental objection to coercion.
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