mocracy, and of constitutionalism, as
well as of the centralisation which is common to all three. Neither the
monarchical, nor the revolutionary, nor the parliamentary system can do
this; and all the ideas which have excited enthusiasm in past times are
impotent for the purpose except nationality alone.

And secondly, the national theory marks the end of the revolutionary
doctrine and its logical exhaustion. In proclaiming the supremacy of the
rights of nationality, the system of democratic equality goes beyond its
own extreme boundary, and falls into contradiction with itself. Between
the democratic and the national phase of the revolution, socialism had
intervened, and had already carried the consequences of the principle to
an absurdity. But that phase was passed. The revolution survived its
offspring, and produced another further result. Nationality is more
advanced than socialism, because it is a more arbitrary system. The
social theory endeavours to provide for the existence of the individual
beneath the terrible burdens which modern society heaps upon labour. It
is not merely a development of the notion of equality, but a refuge from
real misery and starvation. However false the solution, it was a
reasonable demand that the poor should be saved from destruction; and if
the freedom of the State was sacrificed to the safety of the individual,
the more immediate object was, at least in theory, attained. But
nationality does not aim either at liberty or prosperity, both of which
it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould
and measure of the State. Its course will be marked with material as
well as moral ruin, in order that a new invention may prevail over the
works of God and the interests of mankind. There is no principle of
change, no phase of political speculation conceivable, more
comprehensive, more subversive, or more arbitrary than this. It is a
confutation of democracy, because it sets limits to the exercise of the
popular will, and substitutes for it a higher principle. It prevents not
only the division, but the extension of the State, and forbids to
terminate war by conquest, and to obtain a security for peace. Thus,
after surrendering the individual to the collective will, the
revolutionary system makes the collective will subject to conditions
which are independent of it, and rejects all law, only to be controlled
by an accident.

Although, therefore, the theory of nationalit