ndividuality. Its institution implies an almost immediate descent into
anarchy with a sequent dictatorship and autocracy, for it is the
reversal of the foundation laws of life. Such reversals cannot last,
nothing can last that is inimical to flourishing life; it may triumph
for a day but life itself sloughs it off as a sound body rids itself of
some foreign substance through the sore that festers, bursts and, the
septic conditions done away with, heals itself and returns to normal.

Now the inhuman scale has produced one set of septic conditions in
society while what is commonly called "democratization" has produced
another. We have a bloated society, but also we have one in which a
false theory has grown up and been put in practice, in accordance with
which an uniformity of human kind has been assumed which never has
existed and does not now, and in the effort to enforce this false theory
the achievement of distinction has been impeded, leadership discouraged
and leaders largely eliminated, the process of leveling downward carried
to a very dangerous point, the sane and vital organization of society
brought near to an end and a peculiarly vicious scale and standard of
social values established. I have urged the return to human scale in
human associations, but this does not imply any admixture of communism,
which is its very antithesis, still less does it permit the retention of
the theoretical uniformity and the unescapable leveling process of
so-called democracy.

Before the law all men are equal, that is, they are entitled to
even-handed justice. Before God all men are equal, that is, they are
granted charity and mercy which transcends the law, also they possess
immortal souls of equal value. Here their equality stops. In every other
respect they vary in character, capacity, intelligence and potentiality
for development along any or all these lines, almost beyond the limits
of computation. A sane society will recognize this, it will organize
itself accordingly, it will deny to one what it will concede to another,
it will foster emulation and reward accomplishment, and it will add
another category to those in which all men are equal, that is, the
freest scope for advancement, and the greatest facility for passing from
one social group into another, the sole test being demonstrated merit.

I am prepared at this point to use the word "aristocracy" for we have
the thing even now, only in its worst possible form. The wor