ritical marks lead to the cocaine habit; nor
that the ethics of metaphysics points the way to the Higher
Foolishness. There are many links in the chain of decadence, but its
finger-posts all point downward.

"Three roots bear up Dominion--Knowledge, Will, the third, Obedience."
This statement, which Lowell applies to nations, belongs to the
individual man as well. It is written in the structure of his
brain--knowledge, volition, action,--and all three elements must be
sound, if action is to be safe or effective.

But obedience must be active, not passive. The obedience of the lower
animals is automatic, and therefore in its limits measurably perfect.
Lack of obedience means the extinction of the race. Only the obedient
survive, and hence comes about obedience to "sealed orders," obedience
by reflex action, in which the will takes little part.

In the early stages of human development, the instincts of obedience
were dominant. Great among these is the instinct of conventionality,
by which each man follows the path others have found safe. The Church
and the State, organizations of the strong, have assumed the direction
of the weak. It has often resulted that the wiser this direction, the
greater the weakness it was called on to control. The "sealed orders"
of human institutions took the place of the automatism of instinct.
Against "sealed orders" the individual man has been in constant
protest. The "warfare of science" was part of this long struggle. The
Reformation, the revival of learning, the growth of democracy, are all
phases of this great conflict.

The function of democracy is not good government. If that were all, it
would not deserve the efforts spent on it. Better government than any
king or congress or democracy has yet given could be had in simpler and
cheaper ways. The automatic scheme of competitive examinations would
give us better rulers at half the present cost. Even an ordinary
intelligence office, or "statesman's employment bureau," would serve us
better than conventions and elections. But a people which could be
ruled in that way, content to be governed well by forces outside
itself, would not be worth the saving. But this is not the point at
issue. Government too good, as well as too bad, may have a baneful
influence on men. Its character is a secondary matter. The purpose of
self-government is to intensify individual responsibility; to promote
abortive attempts at wisdom, throu