CONSERVATION 



than either, which, for want of a better 

 word to describe an ethical democracy, 

 I call tentatively Nationalism. 



It is due to Theodore Roosevelt al- 

 most wholly, not only that the distinc- 

 tion has been made between the democ- 

 racy of individualism and ethical democ- 

 racy, which is not exactly, perhaps, the 

 democracy of altruism ; but that founda- 

 tions have been laid for a democracy 

 which implies that human progress is 

 rational and not fortuitous, that its 

 foundations are scientific, and that they 

 do not lie in the quicksands of whim- 

 sicality and blind chance and laissez- 

 faire. 



A new era in American politics dates 

 from the beginning of the Roosevelt 

 administration. While this new era is 

 revolutionary in its results, it is the 

 simplest development, on conservative 

 lines, of a principle as old as the Amer- 

 ican Republic. He has opposed two 

 philosophies, or at least drawn a sharp 

 distinction between them the philos- 

 ophy of individualism, that of all rights 

 and no duties, which has found its 

 classic expression in the Declaration of 

 Independence, and the philosophy of 

 duties as well as rights, of the reci- 

 procity of the golden rule, which has 

 found its expression in the Constitution 

 of the United States. The trend of Mr. 

 Roosevelt's work has been straight away 

 from anarchy and toward law and or- 

 der. It has led away from individu- 

 alism, and, while not toward socialism, 

 it has tended toward socialization, to- 

 ward national organization, in other 

 words, so far as it can be conceived 

 from a strictly political standpoint, by 

 scientific methods, and limited by Amer- 

 ican institutions. His position is that 

 of the old nationalism, developed and 

 up to date, which began to call order 

 out of the individualist chaos of the 

 national history from the moment 

 Alexander Hamilton entered the de- 

 bates on the Constitution ; that nation- 

 alism which without cessation has been 

 encroaching upon the political atomism 

 of democracy the atomism Thomas 

 Jefferson adopted from the school of 

 the French Revolution; the atomism 

 whose direct lineage can be traced 

 through Hobhes and Locke and fur- 



ther back through Epicurus to Democ- 

 ritus, the founder of atomism and 

 doubtless of the Democratic party, if 

 Epicurus can be believed that Leucip- 

 pius never existed. And, by the way, 

 speaking of the political atomism of 

 democracy, Democritus, the first con- 

 sistent, and perhaps the original, Jeffer- 

 sonian Democrat, conceived the uni- 

 verse as constituted of infinitesimal 

 atoms floating in an infinite void. 

 Everything happens from the accidental 

 meeting of these atoms in this void. 

 There is a god upon the throne of this 

 universe, endowed with two functions, 

 namely, mixture and separation. The 

 atoms themselves, devoid of qualities, 

 are regulated by a force outside, not 

 immanent, and Aristotle has not un- 

 justly named this god Chance. If this 

 exact theory could be transferred to a 

 theory of politics, excepting the doc- 

 trine that the atoms are devoid of quali- 

 ties, you would have a pure democracy 

 of individualism. In it you have indi- 

 vidualism minus the selfish instinct. 

 Endow each atom with a sovereign, 

 selfish motive ; predicate of progress 

 that everything happens from the acci- 

 dental meeting of these self-seeking 

 atoms floating in the social void ; as- 

 sume that there is no immanent rea- 

 son or ethic among them, but that a 

 blind god is shooting the arrows of 

 whimsically undirected forces at ran- 

 dom through time and space, and you 

 have something like an individualism so 

 pure that Democritus and Thomas Jef- 

 ferson both might have claimed it as 

 their own. 



And so the individualist and demo- 

 cratic conception of the American State 

 is that of a conglomeration of 85,000,000 

 self-centers, in more or less of juxta- 

 position, each moving toward some- 

 thing or other with a selfish and intro- 

 spective instinct, and that something 

 certain pleasurable sensations to be en- 

 joyed by that particular organism. 

 Each self-center pulls and struggles 

 without common spirit or will, without 

 archetectonic reason, or "oversoul," and 

 unrestrained by considerations of right 

 or wrong, except in terms of pleasure 

 or pain. The fundamental error in- 

 volved in this whole theorv is that so 



