xceptional being are lost, when the mould is spoiled and becomes
vulgarized and takes on a common character, does it obtain the
appreciation of the multitude.

This is logical; the dull must sympathize with the dull; the vulgar and
usual have to identify themselves with the vulgar and usual.

From a human point of view, perfection in society would be something
able to safeguard the general interests and at the same time to
understand individuality; it would give the individual the advantages of
work in common and also the most absolute liberty; it would multiply the
results of his labour and would also permit him some privacy. This would
be equitable and satisfactory.

Our society does not know how to do either of these things; it defends
certain persons against the masses, because it has injustice and
privilege as its working system; it does not understand individuality,
because individuality consists in being original, and the original is
always a disturbing and revolutionary element.

A perfect democracy would be one which, disregarding hazards of birth,
would standardize as far as possible the means of livelihood, of
education, and even the manner of living, and would leave free the
intelligence, the will, and the conscience, so that they might take
their proper places, some higher than others. Modern democracy, on the
contrary, tends to level all mentalities, and to impede the predominance
of capacity, shading everything with an atmosphere of vulgarity. At the
same time it aids some private interests to take their places higher
than other private interests.

A great part of the collective antipathy for individuality proceeds from
fear. Especially in our Southern countries strong individualities have
usually been unquiet and tumultuous. The superior mob, like the lower
ones, does not wish the seeds of Caesars or of Bonapartes to flourish in
our territories. These mobs pant for a spiritual levelling; for there is
no more distinction between one man and another than a coloured button
on the lapel or a title on the calling-card. Such is the aspiration of
our truly socialist types; other distinctions, like valour, energy,
virtue, are for the democratic steam-roller, veritable impertinences of
nature.

Spain, which never had a complete social system and has unfolded her
life and her art by spiritual convulsions, according as men of strength
and action have come bursting forth, today feels herself ruined in her
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