m bestows on some must involve no outrage on the
rest, and must not be paid for by mutilating other lives or thwarting
their natural potentialities. For the humble to give their labour would
then be blessed in reality, and not merely by imputation, while for the
great to receive those benefits would be blessed also, not in fact only
but in justice.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote C: Paradiso. Canto III., 70-87.]

CHAPTER V

DEMOCRACY

[Sidenote: Democracy as an end and as a means.]

[Sidenote: Natural democracy leads to monarchy.]

The word democracy may stand for a natural social equality in the body
politic or for a constitutional form of government in which power lies
more or less directly in the people's hands. The former may be called
social democracy and the latter democratic government. The two differ
widely, both in origin and in moral principle. Genetically considered,
social democracy is something primitive, unintended, proper to
communities where there is general competence and no marked personal
eminence. It is the democracy of Arcadia, Switzerland, and the American
pioneers. Such a community might be said to have also a democratic
government, for everything in it is naturally democratic. There will be
no aristocracy, no prestige; but instead an intelligent readiness to
lend a hand and to do in unison whatever is done, not so much under
leaders as by a kind of conspiring instinct and contagious sympathy. In
other words, there will be that most democratic of governments--no
government at all. But when pressure of circumstances, danger, or
inward strife makes recognised and prolonged guidance necessary to a
social democracy, the form its government takes is that of a rudimentary
monarchy, established by election or general consent. A natural leader
presents himself and he is instinctively obeyed. He may indeed be freely
criticised and will not be screened by any pomp or traditional mystery;
he will be easy to replace and every citizen will feel himself radically
his equal. Yet such a state is at the beginnings of monarchy and
aristocracy, close to the stage depicted in Homer, where pre-eminences
are still obviously natural, although already over-emphasised by the
force of custom and wealth, and by the fission of society into divergent
classes.

[Sidenote: Artificial democracy is an extension of privilege.]

Political democracy, on the other hand, is a late and artificial
product. It arises by a grad