presentatives who
guide. That is something entirely different. When the worst is said of
them those representatives of the people are distinctly above the
average of the majorities electing them. Take the roll of our
presidents, for instance. With all the corruption and vulgarity of our
national politics, that list, from Washington, through such altitudes as
Jefferson and Lincoln, to the present occupant of the White House, is
superior to any roster of kings or emperors in the history of mankind.

What does this mean? It means that _the hope of democracy is the
instinctive power in the breast of common humanity to recognize the
highest when it appears_. Were this not true, democracy would be the
most hopeless of mistakes, and the sooner we abandoned it, with its
vulgarity and waste, the better it would be for us. The instinctive
power is there, however: to recognize, not to live, the highest.

How many have followed the example of Socrates, remaining in prison and
accepting the hemlock poison for the sake of truth? Yet all who know of
him thrill to his sacrifice. Of all who have borne the name, Christian,
how many have followed consistently the footsteps of Jesus and obeyed
literally and unvaryingly the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount? Of
the millions, perhaps ten or twenty individuals--to be generous in our
view; but _all the world recognizes him_.

Here, then, is the hope that takes the sting from the indictment of
Plato, Ibsen and how many other critics of democracy. Plato said,
"Until philosophers are kings, . . . cities will never have rest from
their evils,--no, nor the human race, as I believe." Once, perhaps once
only, Plato's dream was realized: in that noblest of philosopher
emperors, wholly dedicated to the welfare of the world he ruled with
autocratic power; yet the soul of Marcus Aurelius was burdened with an
impossible task. It is one of the tragic ironies of history that, in
this one realization of Plato's lofty dream, the noble emperor could
postpone, he could not avert, the colossal doom that threatened the
world he ruled. So he wrapped his Roman cloak about him and lay down to
sleep, with stoic consciousness that he had done his part in the place
where Zeus had put him, but relieved that he might not see the disaster
he knew must swiftly come.

How different our dream: it is no illusion of a happy accident of
philosopher kings. We want no arbitrary monarchs, wise or brutal: from
t