226 The Morality of Nature 



bound to certain limits stated in the authorizations, and are 

 evidently reposed in officials merely for the sake of con- 

 venient unification. The quality sought for such executive 

 office is conscientious fulfilment of duty, and not inspired 

 superior wisdom, and not even judicial capacity. In nearly 

 all modern national constitutions judicial authority is placed 

 apart, with emphasized purpose to deny it to the executive. 

 And in legislative wisdom there is a peculiar quality de- 

 manded. Wisdom, either intellectual or emotional, must be 

 the kind of wisdom which is understood by those for whom 

 it exists, and who wield the power of election. Such wisdom 

 as is not understood, is rejected. Wisdom, to be acceptable 

 and to be made effective in action, must be so near the level 

 of that of the community as to be within its perception, 

 although it may be still above it in the matter of conception. 

 Thus the liability of modern democracy to put into practice 

 conduct lower in quality than the best, is, after all, right ac- 

 cording to that principle discovered in study of altruistic 

 motives, which requires due consideration for, and patient 

 tolerance of, the desires of others, even when they are be- 

 lieved to be wrong. 



As a mere matter of expediency this secures to a true 

 democracy, a stability of government which cannot exist 

 when a wide gap extends between the understanding of the 

 people, and that of the governing power. As a mechanical 

 process this limitation of power to a goodness understood by 

 the people, would abolish the need and the right of revolution, 

 if the machinery of representation could be made as auto- 

 matic as is the design. 



Beyond and below this lies another democratic principle, 



