well aware; and my only defence is that I am at least
sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of America, and equally sincere
in my interest in its most serious problem, which I think a very serious
problem indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. Democracy
may be a very obvious and facile affair for plutocrats and politicians
who only have to use it as a rhetorical term. But democracy is a very
serious problem for democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word
democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no Futurist; and
any conjectures I make must be taken with the grain of salt which is
indeed the salt of the earth; the decent and moderate humility which
comes from a belief in free will. That faith is in itself a divine
doubt. I do not believe in any of the scientific predictions about
mankind; I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely
human developments of men; I also notice that even their successes prove
the same truth as their failures; for their successful predictions are
not about men but about machines. But there are two things which a man
may reasonably do, in stating the probabilities of a problem, which do
not involve any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth,
and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies that have
already accumulated in human history; any miscalculation about which
must at least mislead us in any case. We cannot be certain of being
right about the future; but we can be almost certain of being wrong
about the future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that
he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by their own
nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall together. Hence it
follows that this final chapter must consist of two things. The first is
a summary of what has really happened to the idea of democracy in recent
times; the second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is
necessary for its triumph at any time.

The last hundred years has seen a general decline in the democratic
idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a
paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught
history, least of all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual
inquisition had been established, for the definition and differentiation
of heresies, it would have been found that the original republican
orthodoxy had suffered more and more from secessions,