or "American Democracy,"
while, in accordance with the problematic character of our being, we
Germans, except for the statuesque heroes of legendary times, or
certain historic but inimitable figures, have conceived or poetically
created no character of which we can say that it embodies the
collective spirit of Germany.

The super-ethical doctrine of the being, the growth and the empire of
the soul has been laid down by us, but there are as yet few into whose
consciousness it has penetrated; the transformation of thought and
feeling which must proceed from it will not lay hold of the masses
directly, but will filter continually from one social stratum to
another.

The recognized values of social judgment! It sounds so abstract, so
remote from practice, that one might well believe we were landed again
in the cloudland of festal oratory and the emotions of the leading
article. The voluntary recognition of an invisible authority! And this
after we have shattered the visible, and are living in the midst of
intellectual anarchy and moral Nihilism! And yet moral valuations,
simple, binding, and on the level of social judgment, are near enough
to be within our grasp.

Are not all the four quarters of the world to-day talking about
Democracy? Have not we ourselves got tired of this word, forbidden
till a year ago--tired, even in circles where the modest word
"Liberal" was never pronounced without a frown? And what does
Democracy mean? Do we take it in the merely negative sense, that one
is no longer obliged to put up with things? Or in the meagre sense,
that responsibility goes by favour, and that the majority must decide?
Or the dubious sense, that we are yearning to make our way through a
sham Socialism to the Dollar Republic?

It is not the form of government, it is the form of society, that
determines the spirit of a land. There is no democratic form of
society, for democracy can be in league with capitalism, with
socialism, or even with the class of clubs and castes. The unspoken
fundamental conception which gives significance and stability both to
the forms of a democratic constitution and to those of an organic
society is called Solidarity--that is to say, cohesion and the sense
of community. Solidarity means that each man does not come first in
his own eyes, but before God and State and himself each man must stand
and be answerable for all, and all for each.

In this sense of solidarity the dominion of the majorit