Hall: Aristocracy and Politics 



167 



democracy will end up in the absurdity 

 of leaving the decision of the most 

 important questions to those most 

 incapable. This is the penalty for its 

 abstract principle of equality . 

 which ignores the inequality of valor, or 

 merit, of experience, in other words, of 

 individual effort." 



Many champions of the view that 

 intelligence and ability should have no 

 more than their numerical proportion 

 of power in government, in other words, 

 those who believe in government by 

 "counting noses," admit more or less 

 of Amiel's indictment. But they con- 

 tend that, although democracy in Plato's 

 words is the best form of bad govern- 

 ment, it is essential to the education of 

 the people. These persons forget that 

 psychology has shown that the larger 

 part of education consists in imitation 

 and emulation. If the thing before the 

 eyes of the next generation is bad, that 

 is the thing it will imitate and emulate. 

 When a jailbird is elected to high public 

 office, what is the influence on the young 

 politicians and voters? For, as Mr. 

 Ireland points out, if education is not 

 transmitted by heredity; if only the 

 psychic environment is handed on in the 

 form of institutions, books and records, 

 the process of information has to be done 

 over in every generation, and if at any 

 time the institutions have changed for 

 the worse, the educational facilities are 

 lowered also. 



The more intelligent a community, 

 the more it tends to recognize and 

 venerate ability and merit. In an 

 intelligent electorate, the aristoi always 

 have more than their numerical quan- 

 tum of power, even under democratic 

 forms. Hence there democracy works 

 relatively well. But elsewhere, and 

 especially under all forms of "pure 

 democracy," this is not so. The matter 

 is further complicated by the demand 

 for socialism. As Emile Faguet points 

 out, democracy, having for its principle 

 equality of political rights, is the great- 

 est breeder of aristocrats; for there is 

 complete freedom and inequality' as 

 regards natural conditions. As soon as 

 this is perceived, socialism demands 

 equality also in these natural conditions ; 

 hence socialism is as dircctlx- opposed to 



democracy as aristocracy is, but with 

 the difference that it seeks to level every- 

 thing instead of favoring the best. 



Mr. Ireland seems to me entirely 

 right in holding with Nietzsche, Schop- 

 enhauer, Renan, James and many his- 

 torians, that great men lead their age, 

 instead of being the result of their 

 environment; and no doubt he would 

 agree that progress is to be measured 

 by the achievements of the greatest 

 rather than by the condition of the 

 average. As a matter of fact, as Lecky 

 and Mallock have shown, pure democ- 

 racy is an impossibility, except in a 

 relatively small area where the people 

 are intelligent and homogeneous in 

 character if not in race. Elsewhere, it 

 is simply a question of what kind of oli- 

 garchy shall govern; for there will be 

 an oligarchy either of aristocrats or of 

 demagogues and bosses. By aristo- 

 crats I mean those of special intelligence 

 and ability. These qualities, as Mr. 

 Ireland shows, are in general hereditary; 

 and in the early days when the Nordic 

 race overran Europe, it rightfully be- 

 came the aristocracy of Europe by vir- 

 tue of the possession of these qualities. 

 At a later period, for various reasons, 

 the identity of privilege and ability 

 no longer held good in many cases; so 

 that I am not now contending for 

 special power based solely on ancestr}-. 



But even where the better sort of 

 men have the leadership, they are often 

 subject to the temptation to weaken it 

 for the benefit of a temporary advantage. 

 Nearly every extension of the suffrage 

 has been the result of a bargain in 

 which some party in power has traded 

 the public good for the adherence of 

 some faction hitherto denied the ballot, 

 and usually in the name of progress and 

 reform. Ludovici has pointed out the 

 deterioration in the British House of 

 Lords through the successive creations 

 of life peers, mostly made to tide over 

 some political crisis; and that the addi- 

 tion of men unused to legislation, 

 even though able in other lines, weak- 

 ened the average capacity of the House. 

 The same thing can be said of the broad- 

 ening of the electorate itself. And yet 

 the recent abolition of ]3lural voting in 

 Belgium has been hailed as a step on the 



