on the
ceaseless creation of a political, economic, and social aristocracy and
their equally incessant replacement.

Both in its organization and in its policy a democratic state has
consequently to seek two different but supplementary objects. It is the
function of such a state to represent the whole community; and the whole
community includes the individual as well as the mass, the many as well
as the few. The individual is merged in the mass, unless he is enabled
to exercise efficiently and independently his own private and special
purposes. He must not only be permitted, he must be encouraged to earn
distinction; and the best way in which he can be encouraged to earn
distinction is to reward distinction both by abundant opportunity and
cordial appreciation. Individual distinction, resulting from the
efficient performance of special work, is not only the foundation of all
genuine individuality, but is usually of the utmost social value. In so
far as it is efficient, it has a tendency to be constructive. It both
inserts some member into the social edifice which forms for the time
being a desirable part of the whole structure, but it tends to establish
a standard of achievement which may well form a permanent contribution
to social amelioration. 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. It must consciously and
resolutely preserve the social benefit, derived from the ac