The advantages of the method are as plain as the nose on an elephant’s face. The “arena” will no longer “ring” with anybody’s “rousing speech,” to the irritating abridgment of the unalienable right to the pursuit of sleep. Honorable members will lack provocation to hurl allegations and cuspidors. Pitchforking statesmen and tosspot reformers will be unable to play at pitch-and-toss with reputations not submitted for the performance. In short, the congenial asperities of debate will be so mitigated that the honorable member from Hades will retire permanently from the hauls of legislation. V “Public opinion,” says Buckle, “being the voice of the average man, is the voice of mediocrity.” Is it therefore so very wise and infallible a guide as to be accepted without other credentials than its name and fame? Ought we to follow its light and leading with no better assurance of the character of its authority than a count of noses of those following it already, and with no inquiry as to whether it has not on many former occasions led them and their several sets of predecessors into bogs of error and over precipices to “eternal mock?” Surely “the average man,” as every one knows him, is not very wise, not very learned, not very good; how is it that his views of so intricate and difficult matters as those on which public opinion makes pronouncement through him are entitled to so great respect? It seems to me that the average man is very much a fool, and something of a rogue as well. He has only a smattering of education, knows virtually nothing of political history, nor history of any kind, is incapable of logical, that is to say clear, thinking, is subject to the suasion of base and silly prejudices, and selfish beyond expression. That such a person’s opinions should be so obviously better than my own that I should accept them instead, and assist in enacting them into laws, appears to me most improbable. I may “bow to the will of the people” as gracefully as a defeated candidate, and for the same reason, namely, that I can not help myself; but to admit that I was wrong in my belief and flatter the power that subdues me—no, that I will not do. If nobody would do so the average man would not be so cock-sure of his infallibility, and might sometimes consent to be counseled by his betters.