FIXED BELIEFS.


The invariability of certain general

beliefs--They shape the course of a civilisation--The difficulty

of uprooting them--In what respect intolerance is a virtue in a

people--The philosophic absurdity of a belief cannot interfere

with its spreading. 2. THE CHANGEABLE OPINIONS OF CROWDS.

The extreme mobility of opinions which do not arise from general

beliefs--Apparent variations of ideas and beliefs in less than a

century--The real limits of these variations--The matters

effected by the variation--The disappearance at present in

progress of general beliefs, and the extreme diffusion of the

newspaper press, have for result that opinions are nowadays more

and more changeable--Why the opinions of crowds tend on the

majority of subjects towards indifference--Governments now

powerless to direct opinion as they formerly did--Opinions

prevented to-day from being tyrannical on account of their

exceeding divergency.



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