the term. For it is evident that there is something more fundamental than popular sovereignty. Plato long since pointed out in his Republic, the political Bible of western civilization, that justice is the supreme test we must apply to the solution of the social problem. Equity, therefore, is more fundamental to democracy than popular sovereignty. We stress the rule of the people because of our faith in it as an instrument for securing equality. DeTocqueville in his penetrating study of the third decade of the last century found the notion of equality fundamental in our conception of democracy. So enamored are Americans of equality, said he, that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. The egalitarianism of Jacksonian democracy is still much in evidence. We constantly exalt it above the much more plastic and spiritual idea of freedom. The average American is inclined to look upon equality as ultimate and final. It is preached as the goal of democratic strivings. The test of institutions is seen in the extent to which they assure equality. Men are not critical enough to inquire whether this equality is real or artificial, whether it is the absolute end or whether it is merely an instrument for the attainment of something else. In reality equality is not ultimate even in a democracy.. It will always remain more or less a fiction. Nature and heredity have weighted the scales against it. At best, equality is a social program for the control and utilization of the inequalities that are inevitable and even necessary to a progressive society. For progress demands inequality as well as equality. A progressive civilization, such as that of Periclean Athens, combines brilliant variations with wise social institutions for the utilization of talent in the interest of all. By insisting upon equality of opportunity we make it possible to select for positions of power and leadership those who are possessed of real ability. This ability is then utilized by society in the elevation of human life to a higher level where the principle of equality may again be applied in the interest of further advancement. The utmost that can be said for equality is that it is a means by which we regulate inequality. It should always be borne in mind, however, that inequality is fundamental and it is doubtless well that it is so. Within the last few decades men are coming to feel that neither popular sovereignty nor freedom and equality exhaust/ the notion of democracy. The term has taken on a much more subtle and spiritual connotation. Deeper than the notion of popular rule or of equality is that of fraternity, of spiritual and moral like-mindedness. It is this community of sentiment alone that vitalizes the struggle for justice and assures an intelligent and sympathetic exercise of popular sovereignty. Without it Demos can be as cruel and as arbitrary as the most absolute despot. The only rational justification for referring matters of highest import to the popular will is the existence of a common body of sentiment that is always the court of last appeal in a democracy. One great gain that comes through the exercise of popular sovereignty in fact is that the sheer exercise of this responsibility organizes the sentiments of men in terms of communal welfare. This body of sentiment, to be sure, does not deal primarily with matters of technical import. It centers around comprehensive norms, universal values, that concern the group as a whole. The efficiency of democratic rule depends in the last' analysis upon whether this body of sentiment is thoroughly' organized and self-conscious. In so far as these conditions are met we can speak of a social conscience or a body of authoritative moral sentiment that always speaks the last word on paramount issues. The task of democracy, therefore, is primarily the task of the organization, the enlightenment and the efficient application of this body of sentiment to the fundamental social problem of living together successfully in society. For the accomplishment of this supreme purpose popular rule, equality and freedom are made use of but merely as instruments. Democracy is in its last analysis a mental attitude, a question of the organization of the sentiments of men and women. Democracy "founds the common good upon the common will, in forming which it bids every grown-up, intelligent person to take a part". 1 § 2. DEMOCRACY AND THE AVERAGE MAN The foregoing discussion suggests that the problem of a democracy is the problem of the average man. For the organization of moral sentiment in the intelligent and effective fashion demanded in a progressive community is ultimately a question of the training and discipline of the average man. But first we must make clear what is meant by the average man. The term has been criticized as misleading. There is a general principle in the distribution of social strata, according to which we have at the higher levels a small group composed of genius and talent, the elements that make for leadership in every community. At the lower levels are found the proletariat, the unskilled, the illiterate, and, lowest of all, the defective and criminal. Midway between these lie the masses which compose the rank and file of society. In a democracy it is this numerically dominant mediocrity that controls the situation. The typical representative of this segment is the average man, who is in reality a mythical personage. But in the actual working out of democratic institutions countless temperamental, social, economic, political, or cultural differences are ignored or eliminated so that the average man becomes tremendously real. He becomes real through the sheer weight of numbers and the "steam-roller" effect of the unwritten law of democracy, namely, uniformity. It is this democratic abstraction which utters the last word in the eternal argument. It gives us our measures of values from which there is no appeal. Like the golden calf of apostate Israel the average man is but the creation of our own hands and yet we worship him as our god. The importance of the average man lies not alone in the sheer fact of his numbers or in the final and authoritative character of his pronouncements. It is the average man who is affected first and most fundamentally by any wide-reaching modifications of the social process. For the average man, as opposed to the selected and highly institutionalized members of the community, is most exposed to forces that make for social changes. Where taxes are increased, health regulations altered, educational requirements modified, or any changes made in municipal or civic life, it is always the average man upon whom the disciplinary effect of the new experience first registers itself. To be sure, the average man as a rule tends to resist these changes. Habit and inertia dominate his life for the most part. Changes in his thought and conduct come through the sheer pull and haul of social pressure and the need for readjustments. But for the very reason that the need for readjustments is felt by the average man first and because this need affects his daily round most fundamentally, his reactions take precedence over everything else. It is not surprising, therefore, that in history the great social upheavals have come from the masses rather than from the intellectuals or the propertied classes. This is illustrated in the France of Rousseau and in modern Russia. For in the last analysis it is the shaping of the sensibilities of the common man through the disciplinary effect of the social machinery that determines national policies. No movement, whether social or political, can hope for success that is not in harmony with this drift of sentiment as registered in the experiences of the average man. Public sentiment is very often mysterious, obscure, and only dimly self-conscious. It is a composite of countless individual reactions to social situations that vary infinitely in detail. It will be all the more abortive and irrational among a people such as those of Russia where the masses are illiterate, where effective political and social institutions for expressing the social will are lacking and where, consequently, there is little habituation to free democratic traditions. It will be more effective and self-conscious in a people such as the English, schooled for centuries to think and act under liberal institutions. It is possible, therefore, to mold the sentiments of the average man in two ways. A despotic government may seek to shape this body of sentiments and control it as a means for the perpetuation of a dynastic establishment. Prussian statecraft offers us an illustration of the skilful manipulation of the senti ments of the average man, in the interest of dynastic ambitions, that is without a parallel in all history. Fixed hereditary class distinctions, military discipline together with a beaurocratic surveillance of the average man's thought and life through education and countless social regulations of a paternalistic order have held the loyalties of the German people to outworn feudalistic ideals. The world and the German people themselves are paying the bitter penalty for their docile, not to say servile, attitude toward their rulers. The unpardonable sin of the German beaurocracy lies in the fact that they stultified and betrayed the highest and holiest loyalties of a people. They artfully blinded the eyes of a nation as to its destiny. A democracy follows a policy that is just the reverse of that pursued by a dynastic establishment. Among a free people the rôle of the ruler is merely to interpret and so far as possible to secure effective realization of the drift of sentiment registered in the experience of the average man. A despotic government assures for itself stability by controlling the sentiments of the average man in the interest of a select group. A democracy secures political and national permanence by vesting the ultimate responsibility for national action in the average man. In the one case the national structure is precariously balanced upon its apex. In the other it rests upon the broad foundations of the enlightened sentiments of the masses. In a despotic state the average man barters away his freedom for efficiency, economy of national resources, the comfort and security of a paternalistic régime, and for national prestige and power. In a democracy he enjoys the disciplinary effect of real freedom and responsibility but often at the price of wastefulness, inefficiency, and political corruption. For the citizen living under free institutions there is no "moral holiday." §3. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AVERAGE MAN The characteristics of the average man in a democracy are thoroughly familiar to us. He is dominated by routine and tradition. His philosophy of life consists for the most part |