Thomas Carlyle - The Votes of Fools and Knaves

Thomas Carlyle by Helen Allingham

...But as to universal suffrage, again, - can it be proved that, since the beginning of the world, there was ever given a universal vote in favour of the worthiest man or thing? I have always understood that true worth, in any department, was difficult to recognise; that the worthiest, if he appealed to universal suffrage would have but a poor chance. John Milton, inquiring of universal England what the worth of Paradise Lost was, received for an answer, Five Pounds Sterling. George Hudson, inquiring in like manner what his services on the railways might be worth, received for answer (prompt, temporary answer), Fifteen Hundred Thousand ditto. Alas, Jesus Christ asking the Jews what he deserved, was not the answer, Death on the gallows! - Will your Lordship believe me, I feel it almost a shame to insist on such truisms. Surely the doctrine of judgement by vote of hustings has sunk now, or should be fast sinking, the condition of obsolete with all but the commonest of human intelligences. With me, I must own, it has never had any existence. The mass of men consulted at hustings, upon any matter whatsoever, is as ugly an exhibition of human stupidity as this world sees.

Universal suffrage assembled at hustings, - I will consult it about the quality of New Orleans pork, or the coarser kinds of Irish butter; but as to the character of men, I will if possible ask it no question: or if the question be asked and the answer given, I will generally consider, in cases of any importance, that the said answer is likely to be wrong,- that I have to listen to the said answer and receive it as authentic, and for my own share to go, and with whatever strength may lie in me, do the reverse of the same. Even so, your Lordship; for how should I follow a multitude to do evil? There are such things as multitudes full of beer and nonsense, even of insincere factitious nonsense, who by hypothesis cannot but be wrong. Or what safety will there be in a thousand or ten thousand potwallopers, or blockheads of any rank whatever, if the Fact, namely the whole Universe and the Eternal Destinies, be against me? These latter I for my share will try to follow, even if alone in doing so, it will be better for me.

Your Lordship, there are fools, cowards, knaves, and gluttonous traitors true only to their own appetite, in immense majority, in every rank of life; and there is nothing frightfuler than to see these voting and deciding!

[…] Clearly enough, the King in constitutional countries would wish to ascertain all men's votes, their opinions, volitions on all manner of matters; that so his whole scene of operations, to the last cranny of it, might be illuminated for him, and he, wherever he were working, might work with perfect knowledge of circumstances and materials. But the King, New Downing Street, or whatever the Sovereign's names is, will be a very poor King indeed if he admit all these votes into his system of procedure, and transform them into acts; - indeed I think, in that case, he will not be long for this world as a King! […] You ask this and the other man what is his opinion, his notion, about varieties of things: and having ascertained what his notion is, and carried it off as a piece of information, - surely you are bound, many times, most times if you are a wise man, to go directly in the teeth of it, and for his sake and yours to do directly the contrary of it. Any man's opinion one would accept; all men's opinion, could it be had absolutely without trouble, might be worth accepting. Nay on certain points I even ask my horse's opinion: as to whether beans will suit him at this juncture, or a truss of tares; on this and the like points I carefully consult my horse; gather by such language as he has, what my horse's candid opinion as to beans or the truss of tares is, and unhesitatingly follow the same. As what prudent rider would not? There is no foolishest man but knows one and the other thing more clearly than any the wisest man does; no glimmer of human or equine intelligence but can disclose something which even the intelligence of a Newton, not present in that exact juncture of circumstances, would not otherwise have ascertained. To such length you would gladly consult all equine, and much more all human intelligences: - to such length; and, strictly speaking, not any farther.

Of what use towards the general result of finding out what it is wise to do, - which is the one thing needful to all men and nations, - can the fool's vote be? It is either coincident with the wise man's vote, throwing no new light on the matter, and therefore superfluous; or else it is contradictory, and therefore still more superfluous, throwing mere darkness on the matter, and imperatively demanding to be annihilated, and returned to the giver with protest. Woe to you if you leave that valid!

...”But how?” your Lordship asks, and all the world with you: “Are not two men stronger than one; must not two votes carry it over one?” I answer: No, nor two thousand nor two million. Many men vote; but in the end, you will infallibly find, none counts except the few who were in the right...

But if not only the number but the weight of votes preponderate against your Governor, he, never so much in the right, will find it wise to hold his hand; to delay, for a time, this his beneficent execution, which is ultimately inevitable and indispensable, of Heaven's Decrees; the Nation being still unprepared. He will leave the bedarkened Nation yet a while alone. What can he do for it, if not even a small minority will stand by him? Let him strive to enlighten the Nation; let him pray, and in all ways endeavour that the Nation be enlightened, - that a small minority may open their eyes and hearts to the message of Heaven, which he, heavy-laden man and governor has been commissioned to see done in this transitory earth, at his peril!

...On the whole, honour to small minorities, when they are genuine ones. Severe is their battle sometimes, but it is victorious always like that of gods. Tancred of Hauteville's sons, some eight centuries ago, conquered all of Italy, bound it up into organic masses, of vital order after a sort; founded thrones and principalities upon the same, which have not entirely vanished, - which, the last dying wrecks of which, still wait for some worthier successor it would appear. The Tancred Normans were some Four Thousand strong; the Italy they conquered in an open fight, and bound up into masses at their ordering will, might count Eight millions, all as large of bone, as eupeptic and black-whiskered as they. How came the small minority of Normans to prevail in this so hopeless-looking debate? Intrinsically, doubt it not, because they were in the right; because, in a dim, instinctive, but most genuine manner, they were doing the commandment of Heaven, and so Heaven had decided that they were to prevail. But extrinsically also, I can see, it was because the Normans were not afraid to have their skin scratched; and were prepared to die in their quarrel where needful. One man of that humour among a thousand other, consider it! Let the small minority, backed by the whole Universe, and looked on by such a cloud of invisible witnesses, fall into no despair.

From Latter Day Pamphlets No. 6: Parliaments (1850)