Produced by Gerard Arthus, Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | All Greek words have been transliterated into English, and are | | contained within { } brackets. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE FIRST EDITION November, 1911. SECOND EDITION July, 1912. THE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE By EMILE FAGUET _Of the French Academy_ TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY BEATRICE BARSTOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS MACKAY NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 1912 CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPLES OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 12 II. CONFUSION OF FUNCTIONS 37 III. THE REFUGES OF EFFICIENCY 59 IV. THE COMPETENT LEGISLATOR 66 V. LAWS UNDER DEMOCRACY 82 VI. THE INCOMPETENCE OF GOVERNMENT 92 VII. JUDICIAL INCOMPETENCE 96 VIII. EXAMPLES OF INCOMPETENCE 123 IX. MANNERS 156 X. PROFESSIONAL CUSTOMS 162 XI. ATTEMPTED REMEDIES 172 XII. THE DREAM 216 INDEX 237 THE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE. INTRODUCTION.