nastiest and most unscrupulous form of tyranny. The indifference or acquiescence of hundreds to conditions by which they themselves are not consciously affected cannot have the same moral weight as the discontent of one or of a few who are so affected. That is a consideration which must always qualify the "rights" of majorities. In such circumstances the sanction of mere numbers is not sufficient.
Are minorities, then, always to have their way? By no means. We know that they cannot.
Countless minorities in our political controversies have contended, have failed, and have acquiesced in their failure. Time has tested them, and has measured the depth of their grievance by the scale of human nature.
But other minorities, which have persistently refused to acquiesce have won. Time has tested them also; and human nature, not numbers, has in the long run proved their case.
Medical science tells us that there is in the human eye a blind spot, by the existence of which alone we are enabled to see. If that blind spot were absent the eye would be without focus.
In human nature (however much we hold by the principle of ordered government) there is a point of revolt which standardises the relations of the individual to government. It cannot be brought into play by mere