It is useful to the whole community, not because
it is derived from popular sources or conforms to popular standards, but
because it is formative and so helps to convert the community into a
well-formed whole.
Distinction, however, even when it is earned, always has a tendency to
remain satisfied with its achievements, and to seek indefinitely its own
perpetuation. When such a course is pursued by an efficient and
distinguished individual, he is, of course, faithless to the meaning and
the source of his own individual power. In abandoning and replacing him
a democracy is not recreant to the principle of individual liberty. It
is merely subjecting individual liberty to conditions which promote and
determine its continued efficiency. Such conditions never have been and
never will be imposed for long by individuals or classes of individuals
upon themselves. They must be imposed by the community, and nothing less
than the whole community. The efficient exercise of individual power is
necessary to form a community and make it whole, but the duty of keeping
it whole rests with the community itself.
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