here is to come down." Nothing could be more philosophical, Nietzsche
would reply; it is even more true of peoples than of individuals: the
best way for peoples to become one day great is to begin by growing
smaller. I rather doubt it. There is no really solid reason to support
the theory that feebleness cultivated with perseverance results in
strength. Neither Greece nor Rome supply examples, nor did the
democratic republic of Athens nor the democratic Caesarism of Rome ever
succeed in giving birth to an aristocracy of competence by a prolonged
economy of values.

--They did not have the time.--

Ah yes, there is always that to be said.

It would perhaps be better to try to put the brake on democracy than to
encourage this process of degeneration on the chance of a favourable
resurrection. At least this is the course which presents itself most
naturally to our mind, and which seems most consonant with duty.

When I say put the brake on democracy, it must be understood that I mean
that it should put the brake on itself, for nothing else can stop it,
when once it has made up its mind. It must be persuaded or left alone,
and even persuasion is a rash experiment, for it dislikes being
persuaded of anything but of its own omnipotence. It must be persuaded
or left alone, for every other method would be still more useless.

It must be reminded that forms of government perish from the abandonment
and also from the exaggeration of the principle from which their merit
is derived, though this is a very superannuated maxim; that they perish
by an abandonment of their principle because that principle is the
historical reason of their coming into existence, and they perish by
carrying their principle to excess, because there is no such thing as a
principle that is absolutely good and sufficient in itself for
regulating the complexity of the social machine.

What do we understand by the principle of a government? It is not that
which makes it be such and such a thing, but that "which makes it act"
in a particular way, as Montesquieu has remarked; that is, "the human
passions which supply the motive forces of life." It is clear then that
the passion for sovereignty, for equality, for incompetence, is not
sufficient to give to a government a life which is at once complete and
strong.

It is necessary to give to competence its part, or rather it is
necessary to give competence one part, for I do not wish to argue that
there