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There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed
has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.
Every oligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street--that is to say,
it is very jolly, but not infallible. And no oligarchies in the world's
history have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the very
proud oligarchies--the oligarchy of Poland, the oligarchy of Venice.
And the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their
enemies in pieces have been the religious armies--the Moslem Armies,
for instance, or the Puritan Armies. And a religious army may,
by its nature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught
not to exalt but to abase himself. Many modern Englishmen talk of
themselves as the sturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan fathers.
As a fact, they would run away from a cow. If you asked one
of their Puritan fathers, if you asked Bunyan, for instance,
whether he was sturdy, he would have answered, with tears, that he was
as weak as water. And because of this he would have borne tortures.
And this virtue of humility, while being practical enough to
win battles, will always be paradoxical enough to puzzle pedants.
It is at one with the virtue of charity in this respect.
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