280 PART V.-WORKING STAGE. 



the one hand, men, e.g., extol to the heavens "democracy", 

 and, on the other, they judge "democracy" to be the grave of 

 greatness; and yet thera is almost never any very clear thought 

 underlying either line of argument. Is there virtue in numbers 

 irrespective of good qualities, or is there merit in an aristocracy 

 regardless of any reprehensible characteristics it may possess? 

 Should everybody, as in ancient Greece, be somebody, or should 

 the masses simply hand over the government and themselves 

 to experts? Should elections of various orders be multiplied 

 and rendered more frequent, or should the citizens, perhaps 

 once in a decade, elect perhaps one person for every million 

 inhabitants to a Parliament and do nothing further? Should 

 there be a small governing class in the world of politics and 

 business, or should all interests (workers, employers, consumers) 

 govern collectively through a comprehensive system of devolu- 

 tion? 1 Thus with the term "nature", where the expressions 

 "human nature", "nature" (that which lies outside human 

 nature), "a natural life" (in contradistinction to a conventional 

 life), "natural scenery", "natural law", "nature" (in its most 

 comprehensive sense), are repeatedly and disastrously con- 

 founded. Thus, too, with the noted phrase, "the elimination 

 of the unfit", wherein the word "unfit" is rarely defined by 

 Eugenists, sometimes signifying "physically unfit", sometimes 

 "not successful in coining wealth or pushing to the front", and 

 sometimes "not of service to mankind", its intrinsic meaning 

 being "elimination of those unfitted for a particular environ- 

 ment", whatever be the position of this environment in the 

 scale of human values. 



Or examine the notion of "living in comfort", as conceived 

 by some socialists. Here it is tacitly assumed that an immutable 

 standard of comfort exists, and that with the advent of the 

 socialisation of the means of production and distribution com- 

 fort will be universal when, as a matter of fact, the man with 

 an income of 300 per annum agonises over his poverty, and 

 he who disposes of 3,000 annually deems himself a wretch 

 compared to his fellow who can expend ^30,000 a year. Mani- 

 festly, comfort for the masses is either unattainable, or else a 

 scientific and ethical view of comfort, equivalent to the scien- 

 tifically determined simple life, should be advanced. (See also 

 Conclusions 15 and 20.) A more judicious use of the imagination 

 would likewise compel a reinterpretation of the onesided theory 

 that men are mainly economically-motivated beings, or that radi- 

 cal changes in economic conceptions and processes can lead to 

 no difference in the amount of wealth produced in any com- 



1 In considering the problem of democratic government and similar issues, 

 we ought, in the first place, to think of what would happen if the democracy 

 were highly educated. This would cut any number of Gordian knots, and 

 probably reconcile most of those who genuinely care for the welfare of 

 their country. 



