ON DEMOCRACY. CONTENTS. Book I. PAGE CHAPTER VIII.-Democracy and National Unity; Individuality and Nationality; Powers of Association and Nationality; The DEMOCRACY: ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS. "Two elements enter into our enquiry. The first the idea of spirit; the second, the complex of human passions; the one the warp, the other the woof of the vast arras web of universal history. The concrete mean and union of the two is liberty under the conditions of morality in a State."—Hegel. "A Commonwealth ought to be as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body; for look what the grounds and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same shall ye find them to a whole State, as Aristotle, both in his ethics and politics, from the principles of reason, lays down.”—Milton. "Freedom can exist only where Individuality is recognised as having its positive and real existence in the divine Being. Secular existence, as merely temporal-occupied with particular interests —is only relative and unauthorised, and receives its validity only in as far as the universal soul that pervades it-its principle-receives absolute validity, which it cannot have unless it is recognised as the definite manifestation, the phenomenal existence of the divine essence. On this account it is that the State rests on Religion.”—Hegel's Philosophy of History, pp. 348, 396, 53, trans. "With regard to the limits of its activity, the State should endeavour to bring the actual condition of things as near to the true theory as possible. Now the possibility consists in this, that men are sufficiently ripe to receive the freedom which theory always approves. The other consideration, that of opposing necessity reduces itself to this, that freedom if granted is not calculated to frustrate those results without which all further progress is endangered. In both cases the Statesman's judgment must be formed from a careful comparison between the present condition of things and the contemplated change, and between their respective consequences."-Baron W. von Humboldt, "Sphere and Duties of Government (The Statesman)," pp. 201-2. “What is the first part of policy? Education. The second? Education. And the third? Education. Fewer laws, but strengthen the principle of laws by education. Before the State found the commune, before the commune found the man. Only the education given in the commune ought to emanate from the State." -Michelet. "The Peoples of Christendom present in our day a frightful spectacle. The movement that bears them on is already too strong to be arrested, but not to be guided. Instruct Democracy. An entirely new world demands a new political science."-De Tocqueville, "The State's activity should always be determined by necessity, the principle towards which as to their ultimate centre all the ideas advanced in this essay immediately converge. "In theory the limits of this necessity are determined solely by consideration of man's nature as a human being; but in application we have to regard in addition, the individuality of man as he actually exists. This principle of necessity should prescribe the grand fundamental rule to which every effort to act on human beings, and their manifold relations, should be invariably conformed. "The necessary chiefly requires negative measures, since owing to the vigorous and elastic strength of man's original power, necessity does not often require anything save the removal of oppressive bonds. "There is no other principle so perfectly accordant with reverence to individuality and solicitude for freedom. Finally the only infallible means of securing power and authority to laws, is to see that they originate in this principle alone." Baron W. von Humboldt, "Sphere and Duties of Government (The Statesman)," pp. 201-2. "There is a general principle in every nation which is the invariable basis of power, and when once this principle is too much loaded, it infallibly shrinks into smaller dimensions.". Montesquieu, v. 3, p. 172. Edition 1777. CHAPTER I. DEMOCRACY: ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS. "To build on a rock means to establish a Government ou Democratic Principles."-Napoleon III. "The first and simple principle is Equality and the power of the whole.”—Otis., 1764. "Let no one quote the old proverb against me, that whosoever builds upon the People, builds upon sand. When a Prince puts his confidence in the people, who is a man of courage himself, and knows how to command others, nor deficient in other necessary preparations, he will never be deserted by them."-Machiavel, "The Prince." “Men are governed by several kinds of laws, and the sublimity of human reason consists in perfectly knowing to which of these orders the things that are to be determined ought to have a principal relation, and not to throw into confusion those principles which should govern mankind."-Montesquieu. "On this ground, then, a man engaged in a design like that which is the object of this work, might lay claim to the attributes of UNIVERSALITY AND ETERNITY for the rectitude of his doctrines,—with as little arrogance as he could claim for them the most confined and temporary expediencyprovided that in the execution of his plan he has boldness and strength of mind enough to set apart all along whatsoever is peculiar to certain times and places, and to raise his contemplation to that elevated point of view from which the whole map of Human interests and situations lies expanded to his view.”—Jeremy Bentham, "On Influence of Time and Space.” Government consists of two things,-the first is called the Spirit, or passion, or motive power; the second is the organisation. B |