ABSTRACT
A scrupulous logician might insist that the phrase “public opinion” makes nonsense, since the public is not a person, has no brain, no consecutive memory, and cannot opine. It can only assemble and shout, and many shouts make a public demonstration; but many ballots do not make a public idea. And yet a public act may ensue which a possible idea might justify; and if the act excited a public interest which did not exist before, the possible idea might well become actual in the persons who had acquired that interest. A crowd or an electorate may vote for war, and thereby create a thousand commercial and moral interests in portions of the public; parties who will tend to embrace ideas that justify the interests so suddenly thrust upon them. Then each variety of interest will favour a different type of opinion: first, for instance, a common enthusiasm for war and confidence in victory (though none of the persons concerned may have originally desired that war or dreamt of its possibility). Later, perhaps, a common desire for peace may follow in order that one man may escape taxes, another bombs, another military service, and another the ignorant tumult of public passions.
