It is strange how long we have been (forty years, and more) in recognising these simple principles; and in Germany, where they were first enunciated, they are not recognised yet.
CHARACTER OF DEMADES.
(FROM NIEBUHR’s LECTURES.)
39.
“By his wit and his talent, and more especially by his gift as an improvisatore, he rose so high that he exercised a great influence upon the people, and sometimes was more popular even than Demosthenes. With a shamelessness amounting to honesty, he bluntly told the people everything he felt and what all the populace felt with him. When hearing such a man the populace felt at their ease: he gave them the feeling that they might be wicked without being disgraced, and this excites with such people a feeling of gratitude. There is a remarkable passage in Plato, where he shows that those who deliver hollow speeches, without being in earnest, have no power or influence; whereas others, who are devoid of mental culture, but say in a straightforward manner what they think and feel, exercise great power. It was this which in the eighteenth century gave the materialist philosophy in France such enormous influence with the higher classes; for they were told there was no need to be ashamed of the vulgarest sensuality; formerly people had been ashamed, but now a man learned that he might be a brutal sensualist, provided he did not offend against elegant manners and social conventionalism. People rejoiced at hearing a man openly and honestly say what they themselves felt. Demades was a remarkable character. He was not a bad man; and I like him much better than Eschines.”
What an excuse, what a sanction is here for the demagogues who direct the worst passions of men to the worst and the most selfish purposes, and the most debasing consequences! Demades “not a bad man?” then what is a bad man?
