nothing else to rest on." * And again: "Repre

sentative institutions are of little value when the electors. . . . vote at the beck of some one who has control over them." The true function of such institutions is to assure to the community the permanence and inviolability of the rational will, and to educate the nation at large in the consciousness of right. And no doubt, the participation of all in political power ought to prove a stimulant to general patriotism, and to assist in generating an intelligent interest in public affairs.

But the truth that all men, as members of the same species, are equal, cannot exist in isolation from kindred verities, under pain of becoming error. Society is essentially hierarchical. True it is that men are equal, and that therefore every man should count for one. That men are unequal, and that therefore some men should count for more than one, is also true; but this truth is flatly denied in The People's Gospel. That is the master error of Jacobin publicists-an error the practical result of which is an unnatural and enforced equality, produced by levelling down. Such equality is in direct conflict with the most sacred rights of human personality, for the rights of the individual are but aspects of his one great aboriginal right to realize the creative thought of his being. They may be deduced-to speak in language that is necessarily crude and therefore open to misconception-from On Representative Government, p. 7. Ibid. p. 8.

his mights; that is to say, from a consideration of his various faculties, subject always to the proviso that no man has a right to annihilate the rights of others for his own sake. Throughout the generations of mortal men the law of inequality reigns: marking them off into leaders and led, conquerors and conquered, rulers and ruled. Its perennial

source lies in the difference of their intellectual constitution and in the difference in intensity of their desires. "Ever to excel and to have the preeminence”αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι aλλov-is an aspiration deeply implanted in certain natures, and init, when united with faculties adequate for its realization, is the primary cause of wealth, the main factor of material progress. "It is impossible to form a State the members of which are alike. The parts which are to constitute a single organic whole must be different in kind." So wrote Aristotle two thousand years ago, and his words are as true now as they were then. Society is a conscious organism, composed of conscious individuals. In a general view, the degree of consciousness establishes a hierarchy of individuals. I am well aware that thus merely to state such a thing is not to guard against the abuses incidental to its realization. But the subject is a very large one, and would require a treatise for its adequate explication. I can here point only to a few general principles. In so far, then, as men are in truth equal, they are entitled to equal shares of political

power. In so far as they are in truth unequal, they are entitled to unequal shares of political power. Hence, as Mr. Mill tersely expresses it, "equal voting is, on principle, wrong."* Justice is in a mean; it lies in the combination of equal and unequal rights. And so the Greek proverb, "Call that which is just equal, not that which is equal just." What justice requires is not that a dead level of equality should prevail, but that inequalities should be real, not artificial; true, not false; correspondent with reason, with the nature of things. The strong, the wise, are the leaders of their fellows by a natural right divine, not to be set aside under grievous penalties. Individual freedom means the power of each to make the most and best of himself: and necessarily implies complexity, differentiation, subordination in the social organism. egalitarian doctrine of Jacobinism strikes at the very root of liberty, because it is destructive of that gradation which, as Mirabeau's keen eyes discerned, is the best barrier against tyranny. Its

The

*On Representative Government, p. 180. Flaubert has put the matter with admirable clearness and force, in words well worth citing: "Tout homme (selon moi) si infime qu'il soit, a droit à une voix, la sienne, mais n'est pas l'égal de son voisin, lequel peut le valoir cent fois. Dans une entreprise industrielle (Societé anonyme) chaque actionnaire vote en raison de son apport. Il en devrait être ainsi dans le gouvernement d'une nation. Je vaux bien vingt électeurs de Croisset. L'argent, l'esprit et la race même doivent être comptés: bref, toutes les forces. Or, jusqu'à présent je ne vois qu'une: le nombre !"-Lettres à George Sand, p. 163.

practical issue is this: a multitude of unrelated human units, theoretically sovereign, really slaves, on the one hand, and an omnipotent bureaucracy on the other. It means discontent, disgust, mutinous despair among the masses, who aspire, reasonably enough, to translate equality of right into equality of fact. It means anarchy, whether in the Communistic or in some other form, unless a "Saviour of society" arise in time, to proclaim from the cannon's mouth the primordial political truths to which Jacobin Liberalism gives the lie. "Il savait juger l'homme, et il savait le gouverner," was Lamartine's unwilling tribute to the first Napoleon. That was precisely what the Rousseauan doctrinaires, whom he ousted from the seat of power, did not know.

To sum up: The truth in The People's Gospel is that all men have political rights, natural, inalienable, and imprescriptible; the error is that all men ought to be equivalent in the public order. The great political movement which we date from the French Revolution has done the signal service of inculcating the verity that there is a fundamental democracy in human society. But the sister verity, that human society is essentially hierarchical, is equally necessary. Universal suffrage is the unit of protoplasm. The protoplasm must be built up into organs. How built up? By recognizing in

equalities of fact. The modern democratic principle of "Every man a vote, then let them fight it out," of delegation from the numerical majority with a prime minister to carry out the will of that majority, is the lowest form, the moneron, of the political organism. There are elements in the body politic far more important than mere numbers; and these cannot be set aside or ignored without a grievous, nay, fatal, loss in the long run. Civilization is bound up with what Mr. Gladstone calls "the classes," and with their tenure of their proper place and special function in the social organism. There are in human life principles of solidarity, of subordination, which must be differently applied in differing ages of the world, but the due recognition of which is always essential to the well-being, nay, to the continued existence, of the public order. "If you would found durable institutions," Lacordaire urged, upon a memorable occasion, "write above the word 'liberty,' 'obedience'; above 'equality' 'hierarchy'; above 'fraternity' 'vencration'; above the august symbol of rights, the divine symbol of duty."