Democracy as a living movement in the direction
of human brotherhood has required, like other faiths, an efficient
organization and a root in ordinary human nature; and it obtains such an
organization by virtue of the process of national development--on
condition, of course, that the nation is free to become a genuine and
thorough-going democracy.
A democracy organized into a nation, and imbued with the national
spirit, will seek by means of experimentation and discipline to reach
the object which Tolstoy would reach by an immediate and a miraculous
act of faith. The exigencies of such schooling frequently demand severe
coercive measures, but what schooling does not? A nation cannot merely
discharge its unregenerate citizens; and the best men in a nation or in
any political society cannot evade the responsibility which the fact of
human unregeneracy places upon the whole group. After men had reached a
certain stage of civilization, they frequently began to fear that the
rough conditions of political association excluded the highest and most
fruitful forms of social life; and they sought various ways of improving
the quality of the association by narrowing its basis.
Pages:
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602