n, as we have already seen, an epidemic
of passive resistance. Individualists of all sorts, together with Trade
Unionists, Syndicalists, Clericals, Suffragists, No-Conscriptionists,
Ulstermen, Nationalists, and other bodies, giving up the attempt to
convert democracy and to secure their ends through the sovereign agency
of the democratic State, are taking direct action, are proclaiming rival
authorities to the State, and are threatening the very existence of the
body politic. The outlook is ominous, and it needs to be steadily faced.
The present moment, moreover, is peculiarly favourable for its
consideration. For the sudden and unexpected return of extreme national
danger has once again quickened in our midst the idea of the State, has
revived the spirit of patriotism, has restored the national unity, and
has reenforced the principle of civic service. We can see under the
revealing searchlight of the war the anarchy towards which we have been
drifting during the past ten or more years.

II. THE RIVALS OF THE STATE

The first rival of the State that calls for consideration is the
Individual. His rights as against the government are still loudly
proclaimed. "The chief message of 1915," says one of our leading
individualists, Rev. Dr. Clifford, in a New Year's oration to his
flock,[48] "is a clarion call to guard our personal and democratic
liberties against the attacks of State absolutism." The idea of guarding
"democratic liberties" against democracy itself is, of course, mere
nonsense--one of those point-blank contradictions in terms which, though
full of sound and fury, signify nothing. It is, however, unfortunately,
typical of much of the loose thinking and vague talking indulged in by
the leaders of those pestilent anti-patriotic unions and fellowships
which infest and harass the country at the present moment. The idea of
guarding "personal liberties" against democracy is not so palpably
absurd; it does not involve a contradiction in terms. Moreover, it
appears to have some relation to the admitted fact that the rule of a
democracy may press very heavily upon some or all of its constituent
members. Nevertheless, it is equally fallacious. It rests upon a false
antithesis between the individual and the community to which he belongs.
No such antithesis exists. "The individual," rightly says Mr. W. S.
McKechnie, "apart from all relations to the community is a
negation."[49] In similar strain, Mr. E. Barker cont