Judge not according to the appearance.—Jesus.
Human nature in the concrete is a curious collection of habits, moods, and temperamental tendencies. As a rule the human mortal mind combines the depraved heredity of mortal ancestry, the materialism of present existence, and very often chronic pessimism in its outlook on the yet-to-be-lived future. Some people allow their minds to be ruled by God, the Principle of all that is pure, loving, and free. Others allow blind custom, habit, superstition, and depraved tendencies to govern them. Still another class willingly surrender the rights and blessings of self-government to the arbitrary dictates of those persons who find supreme joy in managing the spiritual and private affairs of other people.
James Bryce of England, the author of that classic of history and civil government, "The American Commonwealth," says that the bane and curse of bossism, or the despotic sway of self-appointed rulers, is the greatest menace to the peace, integrity, and progress of democratic or popular government. How true this is, and how history utters its solemn amen to this deduction of the eminent English scholar.
