attle is won
as soon as they can secure a permanent popular majority in favor of a
socialistic policy; but the constructive national democrat cannot
logically accept such a comfortable illusion. The action of a majority
composed of the ordinary type of convinced socialists could and would in
a few years do more to make socialism impossible than could be
accomplished by the best and most prolonged efforts of a majority of
malignant anti-socialists. The first French republicans made by their
behavior another republic out of the question in France for almost sixty
years; and the second republican majority did not do so very much
better. When the republic came in France it was founded by men who were
not theoretical democrats, but who understood that a republic was for
the time being the kind of government best adapted to the national
French interest. These theoretical monarchists, but practical
republicans, were for the most part more able, more patriotic, and
higher-minded men than the convinced republicans; and in all probability
a third republic, started without their cooeperation, would also have
ended in a dictatorship. Any substantial advance toward social
reorganization will in the same way be forced by considerations of
public welfare on a majority of theoretical anti-socialists, because it
is among this class that the most competent and best disciplined
individuals are usually to be found. The intellectual and moral ability
required, not merely to conceive, but to realize a policy of social
reorganization, is far higher than the ability to carry on an ordinary
democratic government. When such a standard of individual competence has
been attained by a sufficient number of individuals and is applied to
economic and social questions, some attempt at social reorganization is
bound to be the result,--assuming, of course, the constructive relation
already admitted between democracy and the social problem.

The strength and the weakness of the existing economic and social system
consist, as we have observed, in the fact that it is based upon the
realities of contemporary human nature. It is the issue of a
time-honored tradition, an intense personal interest, and a method of
life so habitual that it has become almost instinctive. It cannot be
successfully attacked by any body of hostile opinion, unless such a body
of opinion is based upon a more salient individual and social interest
and a more intense and vital method of