of the mature old beside the embryonic mass
of the new. It was impossible then--it is, I believe, only beginning to
be possible now--to estimate the proportions, possibilities, and
inter-relations of the new social orders out of which a social
organization has still to be built in the coming years. No formula of
definite re-construction had been evolved, or has even been evolved yet,
after a hundred years. And these swelling inchoate new powers, whose
very birth condition was the crippling, modification, or destruction of
the old order, were almost forced to formulate their proceedings for a
time, therefore, in general affirmative propositions that were really in
effect not affirmative propositions at all, but propositions of
repudiation and denial. "These kings and nobles and people privileged in
relation to obsolescent functions cannot manage our affairs"--that was
evident enough, that was the really essential question at that time, and
since no other effectual substitute appeared ready made, the working
doctrine of the infallible judgment of humanity in the gross, as
distinguished from the quite indisputable incapacity of sample
individuals, became, in spite of its inherent absurdity, a convenient
and acceptable working hypothesis.

Modern Democracy thus came into being, not, as eloquent persons have
pretended, by the sovereign people consciously and definitely assuming
power--I imagine the sovereign people in France during the first
Revolution, for example, quite amazed and muddle-headed with it all--but
by the decline of old ruling classes in the face of the _quasi_-natural
growth of mechanism and industrialism, and by the unpreparedness and
want of organization in the new intelligent elements in the State. I
have compared the human beings in society to a great and increasing
variety of colours tumultuously smashed up together, and giving at
present a general and quite illusory effect of grey, and I have
attempted to show that there is a process in progress that will amount
at last to the segregation of these mingled tints into recognizable
distinct masses again. It is not a monotony, but an utterly disorderly
and confusing variety that makes this grey, but Democracy, for practical
purposes, does really assume such a monotony. Like 'infinity', the
Democratic formula is a concrete-looking and negotiable symbol for a
negation. It is the aspect in political disputes and contrivances of
that social and moral deliquesce