constantly checked the smooth working of the parliamentary system in France. As a single illustration of the way in which the conditions we have been considering affect the collective acts of the nation, consider what happened at the time of the Russian outrage in the North Sea during the Russo-Japanese war. When a Russian fleet fired upon our fishing boats doing considerable damage to them, the means of communication were sufficiently developed among us to allow of the action and reaction of all on each which produces the characteristic results of collective mental action, the exaltation of emotion, the suggestibility, the sense of irresponsible power; and, in the absence of the deliberative organisation which, by concentrating influence and responsibility in the hands of a few of the best men, controlled and modified this collective action, we should have rushed upon the Russian fleet and probably have brought on a general European war. The control and counteraction of this kind of outburst of collective emotion and impulsive action is one of the heaviest responsibilities of those to whom predominant influence is accorded. It is only in virtue of the strong organisation of the national mind resting upon these long traditions of parliamentary government, that at such a time control of the popular emotion and impulse is possible. And the weaker and less efficient is such traditional organisation, the more does any such incident tend to provoke a collective manifestation which approximates in its uncontrollable violence and unconsidered impulsiveness to the behaviour of an unorganised crowd. Hence governments, where the democratic principle is acknowledged but the traditional organisation is less strong, are constantly in danger of having their hands forced by some outburst of popular passion—as in France. It is worth noting that, when Aristotle inveighed against democracy as an evil form of government, the only form of democratic government he had in mind was government by the voices of a mob gathered together in one place and lacking all the safeguards which, as we have seen, render our British national deliberations so much superior to those of a mere crowd of persons of equally good average capacity and character.