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Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER XIV: WHO RULES THE WORLD?
Page 3
This enables us to realise that rule signifies the predominance of an opinion, and therefore of a spirit; that rule is, when all is said and done, nothing else but a spiritual power. This is confirmed with precision by the facts of history. All primitive rule has a "sacred" character, for it is based on religion and religion is the first form under which appears what is afterwards to be spirit, idea, opinion; in a word, the immaterial and ultra-physical. In the Middle Ages the same phenomenon is reproduced on a larger scale. The first State or public authority formed in Europe is the Church, with its specific, well-defined character of "the spiritual power." From the Church the political power learns that it, too, in its origin, is a spiritual authority, the prevalence of certain ideas, and there is created the Holy Roman Empire. Thus arises the struggle between two powers, which, having no differentiation in substance (as they are both spirit), reach an agreement by which each limits itself to a time-category; the temporal and the eternal. Temporal power and religious power are equally spiritual, but the one is the spirit of time, public opinion, mundane and fluctuating, whilst the other is the spirit of eternity, the opinion of God, God's view of man and his destiny. It comes to the same thing then to say: At a given period, such a man, such a people, or such a homogeneous group of peoples, are in command, as to say: At this given period there predominates in the world such a system of opinions- ideas, preferences, aspirations, purposes. How is this predominance to be understood? The majority of men have no opinions, and these have to be pumped into them from outside, like lubricants into machinery. Hence it is necessary that some mind or other should hold and exercise authority, so that the people without opinions- the majority- can start having opinions. For without these, the common life of humanity would be chaos, a historic void, lacking in any organic structure. Consequently, without a spiritual power, without someone to command, and in proportion as this is lacking, chaos reigns over mankind. And similarly, all displacement of power, every change of authority, implies a change of opinions, and therefore nothing less than a change of historical gravitation. Let us go back again to where we started from. For several centuries the world has been ruled by Europe, a conglomerate of peoples akin in spirit. In the Middle Ages there was no such rule in temporal matters. So it has happened in all the middle ages of history. That is why they represent a relative chaos, relative barbarism, a deficit of public opinion.