famous "Memoirs of a Survivor" in the year 1908 of their era, "it would
seem that the practice of suicide is a needless custom, for if a man but
have patience his neighbor is sure to put him out of his misery." Of the
10,000 assassins less than three per cent. were punished, further than by
incidental imprisonment if unable to give bail while awaiting trial. If
the chief end of government is the citizen's security of life and his
protection from aggression, what kind of government do these appalling
figures disclose? Yet so infatuated with their imaginary "liberty" were
these singular people that the contemplation of all this crime abated
nothing of the volume and persistence of their patriotic ululations, and
affected not their faith in the perfection of their system. They were like
a man standing on a rock already submerged by the rising tide, and calling
to his neighbors on adjacent cliffs to observe his superior security.

When three men engage in an undertaking in which they have an equal
interest, and in the direction of which they have equal power, it
necessarily results that any action approved by two of them, with or
without the assent of the third, will be taken. This is called--or was
called when it was an accepted principle in political and other
affairs--"the rule of the majority." Evidently, under the malign
conditions supposed, it is the only practicable plan of getting anything
done. A and B rule and overrule C, not because they ought, but because
they can; not because they are wiser, but because they are stronger. In
order to avoid a conflict in which he is sure to be worsted, C submits as
soon as the vote is taken. C is as likely to be right as A and B; nay,
that eminent ancient philosopher, Professor Richard A. Proctor (or
Proroctor, as the learned now spell the name), has clearly shown by the
law of probabilities that any one of the three, all being of the same
intelligence, is far likelier to be right than the other two.