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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 720 



tications of the evils that its success will 

 surely bring in its train. There are 

 prophets, not a few, crying in the wilder- 

 ness of exploded political and social con- 

 ditions that the success of democracy 

 means the decay of refinement, the de- 

 struction of the higher ethical, intellectual 

 and spiritual motives and ambitions; and 

 the substitution of the gray gloom of 

 mediocrity, in all departments of life, for 

 the brilliant, if sometimes flaunting, di- 

 versity and exuberance of talent and ac- 

 tivity that are fostered in the supposedly 

 more genial atmosphere of an aristocracy. 

 Nor are these critics of democracy so un- 

 important as to deserve scant attention. It 

 is not necessary to go back to the great 

 names of Aristotle and the many other 

 critics, who, during the dark period of the 

 suppression, or non-existence, of democracy 

 found the richest and best of human exist- 

 ence in its absence. Within the limits of 

 the" nineteenth century we find many bril- 

 liant names in the list of those who depre- 

 cate the success of the democratic move- 

 ment, and insist that the richest fruits of 

 civilization can not be gathered in a demo- 

 cratic society. 



It is doubtful whether we can find a 

 more incisive presentation of the compara- 

 tive merits and demerits of aristocracy and 

 democracy in the literary pyrotechnics of 

 Lecky, the crystal clear and cold presenta- 

 tion of Matthew Arnold, the dispassionate 

 scientific exposition of Herbert Spencer, or 

 the historical ponderosity of Sumner 

 Maine, than is given in the simple but 

 brilliant passage from De Tocqueville in 

 which, while displaying an affectionate re- 

 gard for democracy, he dwells with a 

 lingering fondness on the advantages of 

 aristocracy. He remarks: 



If it be your intention to confer a certain 

 elevation upon the human mind, and to teach 

 it to regard the things of this world with gen- 

 erous feelings; to inspire men with the scorn of 

 mere temporal advantages ; to give birth to living 



convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of hon- 

 orable devotedness; if you hold it to be a good 

 thing to refine the habits, to embellish the man- 

 ners and cultivate the arts of a nation, and to 

 promote the love of poetry, of beauty and of 

 renown — if you believe such to be the principal 

 object of society, you must avoid the government 

 of a democracy. But, if you hold it to be ex- 

 pedient to divert the moral and intellectual ac- 

 tivity of man to the production of comfort, and 

 to the acquirement of the necessaries of life; if 

 a clear understanding be more profitable to men 

 than genius; if your object be not to stimulate 

 the fruits of heroism but to create habits of 

 peace; if you had rather behold vices than crimes 

 and are content to meet with fewer noble deeds, 

 provided ofi'ences be diminished in the same pro- 

 portion; if, instead of living in the midst of a 

 brilliant state of society, you are contented to 

 have prosperity around you — if such be your 

 desires, you can have no surer means of satis- 

 fying them than by equalizing the conditions of 

 men and establishing democratic institutions. 



Of all the theoretical criticisms that have 

 been directed, or are now directed, against 

 democracy, we are concerned for our pres- 

 ent purpose only with that which alleges 

 the hostility of democracy to scholarship 

 and its manifestations in culture, litera- 

 ture, art, poetry and philosophy — the in- 

 tellectual and spiritual essence of civiliza- 

 tion. We turn, therefore, to inquire a 

 little more closely into this so-called in- 

 compatibility. 



It is asserted with much show of logic 

 and much parade of evidence that de- 

 mocracy and scholarship are irreconcilable. 

 The brilliant critic of democracy in 

 America in its early days has remarked 

 that high scholarship can not flourish in a 

 democracy, since the desire of democracy 

 is to utilize knowledge and not to discover 

 it. He asserts that the pure passion for 

 knowledge "can not come into being and 

 into growth as easily in a democratic as in 

 an aristocratic society, for the reason that 

 men's minds are in a constant state of agi- 

 tation in a democracy, that prolonged 

 meditation is impossible, and that men are 



