Precisely because you and I have
sensitive intelligences, we cannot postulate certainly anything about
each other. The higher an animal be in grade, the more numerous and
recondite are the points in which its organism differs from that of
its peers. The lower the grade, the more numerous and obvious the
points of likeness. By `the public' I mean that vast number of human
animals who are in the lowest grade of intelligence. (Of course, this
classification is made without reference to social `classes.' The
public is recruited from the upper, the middle, and the lower class.
That the recruits come mostly from the lower class is because the
lower class is still the least well-educated. That they come in as
high proportion from the middle class as from the less well-educated
upper class, is because the `young Barbarians,' reared in a more
gracious environment, often acquire a grace of mind which serves them
as well as would mental keenness.) Whereas in the highest grade, to
which you and I belong, the fact that a thing affects you in one way
is no guarantee that it will not affect me in another, a thing which
affects one man of the lowest grade in a particular way is likely to
affect all the rest very similarly. The public's sense of humour may
be regarded roughly as one collective sense.
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