You can see the same pattern in human life: no one just makes mistakes alone. They end up causing others to go wrong and encouraging them to do it too. It's dangerous to follow the crowd that marches ahead of us. Since everyone would rather believe someone else than think for themselves, we never make careful judgments about how to live. Instead, some inherited mistake always traps us and destroys us. We die because we copy other people's examples. We could cure this problem if we broke away from the herd. But instead, the crowd is ready to fight reason itself to defend its own errors. The same thing happens in elections. When the fickle wind of popular opinion shifts, the very people who elected the consuls and praetors suddenly admire them. That we all approve and disapprove of the same things — this is what happens with every decision made by majority vote.
You may observe the same thing in human life: no one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become both the cause and adviser of another's wrongdoing. It is harmful to follow the march of those who go before us, and since every one had rather believe another than form his own opinion, we never pass a deliberate judgment upon life, but some traditional error always entangles us and brings us to ruin, and we perish because we follow other men's examples: we should be cured of this if we were to disengage ourselves from the herd; but as it is, the mob is ready to fight against reason in defence of its own mistake. Consequently the same thing happens as at elections, where, when the fickle breeze of popular favour has veered round, those who have been chosen consuls and praetors are viewed with admiration by the very men who made them so. That we should all approve and disapprove of the same things is the end of every decision which is given according to the voice of the majority.