One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

Driving my son to work this morning, we are discussing the proper role of government and the constant ebbs and flows of limitation and expansion.

On returning, and just before getting started on work, I do my quick run through of news and blogs and come across Representative Government by John Stuart Mill, last read probably sophomore year in college. What seemed so dry and theoretical then now seems rather pertinent. Within the essay there is this powerful quote that frequently gets summarized or even bowdlerized but is intriguing in its original context. Emphasis added.

But there are still stronger objections to this theory of government in the terms in which it is usually stated. The power in society which has any tendency to convert itself into political power is not power quiescent, power merely passive, but active power; in other words, power actually exerted; that is to say, a very small portion of all the power in existence. Politically speaking, a great part of all power consists in will. How is it possible, then, to compute the elements of political power, while we omit from the computation anything which acts on the will? To think that because those who wield the power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests. They who can succeed in creating a general persuasion that a certain form of government, or social fact of any kind, deserves to be preferred, have made nearly the most important step which can possibly be taken towards ranging the powers of society on its side. On the day when the proto-martyr was stoned to death at Jerusalem, while he who was to be the Apostle of the Gentiles stood by "consenting unto his death," would any one have supposed that the party of that stoned man were then and there the strongest power in society? And has not the event proved that they were so? Because theirs was the most powerful of then existing beliefs. The same element made a monk of Wittenberg, at the meeting of the Diet of Worms, a more powerful social force than the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and all the princes there assembled. But these, it may be said, are cases in which religion was concerned, and religious convictions are something peculiar in their strength. Then let us take a case purely political, where religion, so far as concerned at all, was chiefly on the losing side. If any one requires to be convinced that speculative thought is one of the chief elements of social power, let him bethink himself of the age in which there was scarcely a throne in Europe which was not filled by a liberal and reforming king, a liberal and reforming emperor, or, strangest of all, a liberal and reforming pope; the age of Frederic the Great, of Catherine the Second, of Joseph the Second, of Peter Leopold, of Benedict XIV., of Ganganelli, of Pombal, of Aranda; when the very Bourbons of Naples were liberals and reformers, and all the active minds among the noblesse of France were filled with the ideas which were soon after to cost them so dear. Surely a conclusive example how far mere physical and economic power is from being the whole of social power.

To me this whole paragraph is insightful and speaks a truth rarely acknowledged - ends are achieved to a large degree based on the differential in will power. Most of the other factors contributing to success are details and footnotes: relevant and necessary but not the strongest predictors of success. And while I endorse this as a general principle, there are of course exceptions. The French army in advance of World War I became enamoured of the idea of "elan", the vigorous spirit, and pinned their hopes for martial effectiveness on elan rather than training and numbers which was the focus of their future enemy. Will can't guaranty victory, but ceteris paribus, it is the differentiating factor.

Out of the whole paragraph quoted above, it is that one sentence "One person with a ..." which is cited. Yes, it is very quotable. But it seems to me that the meat is in the sentence that follows:

They who can succeed in creating a general persuasion that a certain form of government, or social fact of any kind, deserves to be preferred, have made nearly the most important step which can possibly be taken towards ranging the powers of society on its side.

Isn't that what all our debates are about? Creating a general persuasion, often independent of the facts, towards harnessing the powers of society?

A side train of thought: this is coupled with the Swiss philosopher Helvetius' epigram "When I speak I put on a mask. When I act, I am forced to take it off."