, owes to
the State, and to it alone, the conditions that make existence possible,
and secondly, that only as a member of the State can the individual
attain to his full development, and only under the protection of the
State can the group achieve its purposes. The attainment of the common
good, as that good is conceived of by the common intelligence, and by
means which the common will determines--such is the ideal of the
Democratic National State. Here surely is a sphere in which every man
can find the fullness of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Bosanquet. _Philosophical Theory of the State_, p. 150.

[52] Green. _Principles of Political Obligation_, p. 146.

IV. THE SPHERE OF NATIONAL SERVICE

The above statement of the ideal of the Democratic National State brings
home to the mind a realization of the magnitude of the sphere which lies
open to National Service in the broad sense of the term. Democracy is
sovereign; although it is flouted by individuals, deluded and debauched
by parties, and challenged by separatist syndicates. It must remain
sovereign, and its sovereignty must be made a more real, more conscious,
and more effective thing than it has ever been before. Rarely, however,
has there been a sovereign less adequately equipped than democracy for
its gigantic responsibilities. One of its most enthusiastic modern
supporters, Professor John MacCunn, gravely admits that "Democracy,
still raw to its work, whether in politics or industry, may blunder--may
blunder fatally."[53] Long ago it was pointed out by Plato that
democracy is the cult of incompetence. In more recent times Mill has
emphasized the possibility that democracy may govern badly and
oppressively; Maine has warned us that the dominance of the commonalty
may end in the triumph of the mediocre, and a more than Chinese
stagnation; Carlyle has denounced democracy as powerful for destruction,
but impotent for building up, as helpless in the face of great
emergencies, as incapable of choosing good leaders; Lecky has
demonstrated the danger of the corruption of the democracy by evil
politicians; Belloc has shown how it tends to develop, and then become a
slave to, a bureaucracy; Graham Wallas has portrayed the psychological
peril of its hypnotization by colours and claptrap. All the dangers thus
enumerated are real and formidable. They have, however, to be faced and
overcome by men of goodwill: for there is now no alternative to
democracy but anarchy.