Thus it would, indeed, be, if public opinion were something stable and unchanging, and if the governments were able to produce the public opinion which they need.
But fortunately this is not the case, and public opinion is, in the first place, not something which is constant, unchanging, stable, but, on the contrary, something eternally changing, moving together with the motion of humanity; and, in the second, public opinion not only cannot be produced by the will of the governments, but is that which produces the governments and gives them power or takes it away from them.
It may appear that public opinion remains immovable and now is such as it was decades ago, and it may appear that public opinion wavers in relation to certain special cases, as though going back, so that, for example, it now destroys the republic, putting the monarchy in its place, and now again destroys the monarchy, putting the republic in its place; but that only seems so when we view the external manifestations of that public opinion which is artificially produced by the governments. We need only take public opinion in its relation to the whole life of men, and we shall see that public opinion, just like the time of the day or year, never stands in one place, but is always in motion, always marching unrestrictedly ahead along the path on which humanity proceeds, just as, in spite of retardations and waverings, day or spring moves on unrestrictedly along the path over which the sun travels.
Thus, though by the external signs the condition of the nations of Europe in our time is nearly the same that it was fifty years ago, the relation of the nations toward it is now entirely different from what it was fifty years ago. Though there exist, even as fifty years ago, the same rulers, armies, wars, taxes, luxury, and misery, the same Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, these existed before because the public opinion of the nations demanded them, but now they all exist because the governments artificially maintain that which formerly was a living public opinion.
If we frequently do not notice this motion of public opinion, as we do not notice the motion of water in the river, with the current of which we are swimming, this is due to the fact that those imperceptible changes of public opinion which form its motion are taking place in ourselves.
The property of public opinion is that of constant and unrestricted motion. If it seems to us that it is standing in one place, this is due to the fact that everywhere there are people who have established an advantageous position for themselves at a certain moment of public opinion, and so with all their strength try to maintain it and not to admit the manifestation of the new, the present public opinion which, though not yet fully expressed, is living in the consciousness of men. Such people, who retain the obsolete public opinion and conceal the new, are all those who at the present time form the governments and the ruling classes, and who profess patriotism as an indispensable condition of human life.
The means which are at the command of these people are enormous, but since public opinion is something eternally flowing and increasing, all their efforts cannot help but be vain: the old grows old, and the youthful grows.
The longer the expression of the new public opinion shall be retained, the more it will grow, and the greater will be the force with which it will express itself. The government and the ruling classes try with all their strength to retain that old public opinion of patriotism, on which their power is based, and to retard the manifestation of the new, which will destroy it. But it is possible only within certain limits to retain the old and retard the new, just as running water can be held back by a dam only within certain limits.
No matter how much the governments may try to rouse in the nations the past public opinion, now no longer characteristic of them, concerning the dignity and virtue of patriotism, the men of our time no longer believe in patriotism, but more and more believe in the solidarity and brotherhood of the nations. Patriotism now presents to men nothing but the most terrible future; but the brotherhood of the nations forms that ideal which more and more grows to be comprehensible and desirable for humanity. And so the transition of men from the former obsolete public opinion to the new must inevitably be accomplished. This transition is as inevitable as the falling of the last sere leaves in autumn and the unfolding of the young leaves in swelling buds.
The longer this transition is delayed, the more imperative does it become, and the more obvious is its necessity.