2 3 o ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in because it shows us very vividly how democracy, 

 as a political power, operates outside the domain to 

 which it is popularly supposed to be confined. 1 

 THUS en- And now let us turn again to a nation's family 



lightened by it, . . 1-11 



let us turn lite, and consider it m the light which the case 

 life. ' y of Catholicism throws on the question of what, 

 essentially, democratic action is. The religious 

 life of a Catholic is meritorious only when the 

 beliefs and dispositions of heart which his religion 

 requires of him are spontaneous. No doubt they 

 may have been developed in him by some stimulus 

 from without, but it is essential that, when once 

 present in him, they should draw their life from 

 himself. A saint may rouse a sinner to repent- 

 ance, but the repentance in its minutest details 

 must be the sinner's own work. He must be his 

 own overseer, he must be his own taskmaster. In 

 economic production this is not so. A bricklayer 

 may contribute to the building of some exquisite 

 cathedral without any sympathy with the architect's 

 intentions, and indeed without any knowledge of 

 them ; but a man cannot be a true Christian unless 

 Christ's will becomes his, and unless the beliefs 

 suggested from without are seized on by .his own 

 soul, and made a part of himself by his soul's spon- 



1 The political power of the religious beliefs of a community can 

 be seen at a glance when we consider our own government of India. 

 Our government there, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a 

 government of the few, not a government of the many; and yet the 

 religion or religions of the many impose limitations on our legislators 

 as stringent as any that could be imposed on them by any number 

 of formal mandates. 



