penny, every morning, even if you are an Englishman in Paris, a daily
newspaper will tell you what to think and castigate you if you think
otherwise. No, it is three halfpence in Paris. But that is the idea.
That is the great conspiracy. Certain news-items are regaled to me,
certain news-items are suppressed, in order that I may not think
amiss. Certain books are refused me, certain plays must not be
produced, certain fashions are taboo, certain things may not be done,
lest, by any chance, I should form the habit of thinking, lest I
should step out of the throng and be myself. Lest I should make a
venture of personal opinion, and be right.

The odd thing is that the average man lends himself to the deception
and even plays his part in the great game. Of course he is not
altogether to blame. The psychology of the method is so truly
conceived. It is dinned into him so repeatedly that things are so,
that black is white and white is black, that if you see it in
Bottomley's _John Bull_ it is so, that he honestly comes to
believe the bunkum. For he, too, fears at his heart. He is a
conservative animal. Men used to burn a heretic because they believed
in God; now they censor him out of existence because if they did not
believe in the Northcliffe press they would have nothing whatever in
which to believe. Men used to believe in the Ten Commandments; now
they accept Prohibition because if they did not accept some authority
they would have to govern themselves. Men used to believe the Bible;
now they believe the daily papers because if they did not they would
be compelled to lift up their eyes and look on life.

But Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the whole truth and nothing but the
truth a while ago. "If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what
others think of him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the