I should simply maintain that where the members of a public cannot use tests of this sort as a guide to action, the wisest course for them is not to act at all. They had better be neutral, if they can restrain themselves, than blindly partisan. For where events are so confused or so subtly balanced or so hard to understand that they do not yield to judgments of the kind I have been outlining here, the probabilities are very great that the public can produce only muddle if it meddles. For not all problems are soluble in the present state of human knowledge. Many which may be soluble are not soluble with any force the public can exert. Some time alone will cure, and some are the fate of man. It is not essential, therefore, always to do something. It follows that the proper limits of intervention by the public in affairs are determined by its capacity to make judgments. These limits may be extended as new and better criteria are formulated, or as men become more expert through practice. But where there are no tests, where such tests as these cannot be used, where, in other words, only an opinion on the actual merits of the dispute itself would be of any use, any positive action the bystanders are likely to take is almost certain to be more of a nuisance than a benefit. Their duty is to keep an open mind and wait to see. The existence of a usable test is itself the test of whether the public ought to intervene. FOOTNOTES: [25] Articles XIII, XV. [26] Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. Chapter XIII THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION 1 The tests outlined in the preceding chapters have certain common characteristics. They all select a few samples of behavior or a few aspects of a proposal. They measure these samples by rough but objective, by highly generalized but definite standards. And they yield a judgment which is to justify the public in aligning itself for or against certain actors in the matter at issue. I do not, of course, set great store upon my formulation of these tests. That is wholly tentative, being put out merely as a basis of discussion and to demonstrate that the formulation of tests suited to the nature of public opinion is not impracticable. But I do attach great importance to the character of these tests. The principles underlying them are these: 1. Executive action is not for the public. The public acts only by aligning itself as the partisan of some one in a position to act executively. 2. The intrinsic merits of a question are not for the public. The public intervenes from the outside upon the work of the insiders. 3. The anticipation, the analysis and the solution of a question are not for the public. The public’s judgment rests on a small sample of the facts at issue. 4. The specific, technical, intimate criteria required in the handling of a question are not for the public. The public’s criteria are generalized for many problems; they turn essentially on procedure and the overt, external forms of behavior.