And the employee has in him the same fierce impulse to impose his will
without respect for the will of others. Democracy is in practice nothing
but a device for cajoling from him the vote he refuses to arbitrary
authority. He will not vote for Coriolanus; but when an experienced
demagogue comes along and says, "Sir: _you_ are the dictator: the
voice of the people is the voice of God; and I am only your very humble
servant," he says at once, "All right: tell me what to dictate," and
is presently enslaved more effectually with his own silly consent than
Coriolanus would ever have enslaved him without asking his leave. And
the trick by which the demagogue defeats Coriolanus is played on him in
his turn by _his_ inferiors. Everywhere we see the cunning succeeding
in the world by seeking a rich or powerful master and practising on his
lust for subservience. The political adventurer who gets into parliament
by offering himself to the poor voter, not as his representative but as
his will-less soulless "delegate," is himself the dupe of a clever wife
who repudiates Votes for Women, knowing well that whilst the man is
master, the man's mistress will rule. Uriah Heep may be a crawling
creature; but his crawling takes him upstairs.
Thus does the selfishness of the will turn on itself, and obtain by
flattery what it cannot seize by open force. Democracy becomes the
latest trick of tyranny: "womanliness" becomes the latest wile of
prostitution.
Between parent and child the same conflict wages and the same
destruction of character ensues. Parents set themselves to bend the will
of their children to their own--to break their stubborn spirit, as
they call it--with the ruthlessness of Grand Inquisitors. Cunning,
unscrupulous children learn all the arts of the sneak in circumventing
tyranny: children of better character are cruelly distressed and more or
less lamed for life by it.