Light Years Volume 43; The Friends of Photography, 1967-1987 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ... number. To govern is to populate by assimilation, first of all, and then by education and selectionj If.the appearanceand growth in a society of the highest human activities jeuire a dense population, k is precisely because great numbers _ make. possible_the most complete division of labour, and jhejbirth of elements of strong leadership which bring about the predominance of quality over quantity. I The multitude, the anonymou jTiass, is nothing by itself. It will be an instrument of barbarity or of civilization according as it hasox. lack? the coefficient of high mqnd_ leadership. There is deep truth in Emerson's paradox, mat" every country on earth should be j judged by its minorities anar"n6T"iits"ma-/ jorities. The civilization. x)f_aZcountry acquires its grandeur, not by its manifestations of material prosperity and predomi nance, butbyrijeJjigher.order of-thinking or of.feeling-made-therebyossiblea/ So Comte: it is senseless to pretend that ex-- cellence can ever be replaced by number, that by an accumulation of vulgar minds one may hit upon a brain of genius, or by the addition of many mediocre virtues get the equivalent of a deed of heroism. So our democracy, proclaiming the universality and equality of. rights, will sanction the ignoble predominance of mere number unless it be careful highlyjo-maintain the idea of human superiorities that are legitimate; and to make authority, bound to a popular vote, not the exponent of an absolute equality, but (as I remember some i young Frenchman said) "the consecration of a hierarchy based on liberty." The clash between the democratic rule and the higher life becomes a fatal reality when that rule imparts the disregard of even legitimate superiorities and the substituti...