SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY 385 



pourquoi " Us plus aptes " sous un pareil regime, ceux dont il jaudrait 

 souhaiter par-dessus tout que le type alldt en se multipliant, seraient 

 en effet " les meilleurs " au sens humain. du mot, les individus capables 

 d'accepter allegrement tous les devoirs de la solidarite. (Italics mine.) 

 C'est tantot dans le sentiment individualiste, tanto'' dans 1'esprit 

 social que nous avons aper$u ces corded necessaires, sans lesquelles les 

 ames ne vibreraient pas. Au vrai 1' ideal democratique a besoin, pour 

 vivre, que ces deux aspirations coexistent ou plutot s'allient etroitement ; 

 et celui-la qui pense que necessairement elles s'excluent, prouve qu'il 

 n'a pas compris la veritable essence de 1'egalitarisme moderne, qui est 

 precisement la synthese de 1'une et de 1'autre. 



Men may not all be equal, and are certainly not all fitted 

 for one and the same position nor is democracy indeed " le 

 droit pour tout bottier de diriger les navires en pleine mer" 

 but the inequality of men is surely not so great as to justify the 

 exorbitant claims preferred in all centuries by castes, cliques 

 and tyrants against their fellow citizens, or even against other 

 nations. All organisms, including man, are certainly equal in 

 that they are responsible members of the web of life, all 

 apparently descended from a common ancestor. They are all 

 alike in Robert Louis Stevenson's words, condemned to some 

 nobility, as they are also individually and collectively 

 under the doom of frailty. Truly, as soon as we come to think 

 of it, there is great equality in nobility, in frailty, and in 

 death I Universally also it is true that no sooner has a genuine 

 advance, though ever so fractional, been gained by strenuous 

 endeavour, than frailty supervenes and the particular 

 prerogative is abused and lost by the indulgence and 

 excesses of subsequent generations. It is universally 

 observable that whenever superiority has been gained by dint 

 of greater intelligence and greater virtue, this is very soon 

 equalised by relaxations of the respective efforts, or by relaxa- 

 tions of another kind. Herein also lies some biological 

 explanation of the equilibrium of species in Nature whereof 

 Eousseau speaks. "Was von den Vatern du ererbt, erwirb es 

 um es zu besitzen." This should spell at least equal oppor- 

 tunities for all. 



