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Sir Henry Maine would surely have done better service in this grave and difficult discussion, if he had dealt with views which he mistrusts, as they are really held and expressed by sane theorists, and not by insane theorists out of sight. In France, a hundred years ago, from causes that are capable of explanation, the democracy of sentiment swept away the democracy of utility.
The forms of democracy which select the better elements of the popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the level of the inferior elements. On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories of equality, are the conditions of modern progress.
But unfortunately, a serious disturbing element, and one which by its indirect effects threatens to bring the machinery of the Republic to a "dead lock," appears not to have entered into the calculations of these political theorists.
The vast majority of linguistic theorists themselves spoke languages of a certain type, of which the most fully developed varieties were the Latin and Greek that they had learned in their childhood.
"Mere theorists, my good lord; and their opinions, even if true, are never practised on. Practice is everything in political matters; and theories are of no use, except as they confirm practice." "Both theory and practice are perfect," I cried, "and I make no doubt that the classification into colors, or castes, enables the authorities to commence the imposts with the richest, or the 'purples."
And all without hope of reward other than the love and admiration of their comrades. There was a time, before this war, when such exploits were considered worth the Victoria Cross. Now, however, they are merely a matter of daily routine. Thousands of men are, every day, performing deeds of valor, which in any other war would have brought the highest decorations, without receiving even so much as an honorable mention. Exposure to fire such as theorists had told us would demoralize any army is merely a part of the day's work. Troops go in and out of the trenches, often under artillery fire that, according to our books, ought to annihilate them, and they do it without thinking it anything unusual or worthy of comment other than perhaps, in answer to a question, to remark: "Oh, yes, they shot us up a bit in the P.
He will certainly never rival Muhamed, for instance, who is the arithmetical prodigy, the Inaudi, of horses; but he is a valuable and living proof that the theory of unconscious and imperceptible signs, the only one which the German theorists have hitherto seriously considered, is now clearly untenable. I have not yet spoken of Zarif.
I, from my childhood, had been a reader, nay, a student of Demosthenes; and, simply, for this reason, that, having meditated profoundly on the true laws and philosophy of diction, and of what is vaguely denominated style, and finding nothing of any value in modern writers upon this subject, and not much as regards the grounds and ultimate principles even in the ancient rhetoricians, I have been reduced to collect my opinions from the great artists and practitioners, rather than from the theorists; and, among those artists, in the most plastic of languages, I hold Demosthenes to have been the greatest.
We are very apt to regard the combat in theory as an abstract trial of strength, without any participation on the part of the feelings, and that is one of the thousand errors which theorists deliberately commit, because they do not see its consequences.
There were, instead, impostors, magicians, vain theorists, prompted by ambition and superior native ability to abuse the credulity of their fellow-mortals, which they did with such success as to become their oracles, their dictators, or even their gods. The multitude most naturally surrendered themselves to all such delusions.
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