only abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always
for some material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt that
one class of men was superior to another; they have always been driven
to assume it through certain practical limitations of space and time.

For example, there is one element which must always tend to
oligarchy--or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the
house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee
cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give
the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question
of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental
limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house
were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not
all talk into the telephone at once; nay, it would be better that the
silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually
consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be
better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders
together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the
orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from
resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men.
Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always
right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that
somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully
rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not
everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied)
obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military
spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man,
obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men.
Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is
only servility.

Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe
is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a
system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the
caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction
between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military
organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly
to break and avenge the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply
means Colonel, just as the word Empero