if anyone doubts that men must forever return to the ideal of equality,
it is only necessary to answer that there is such a thing as a handicap.
If men exulted in mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such
superiority could go; they would be glad when one strong runner came
in miles ahead of all the rest. But what men like is not the triumph of
superiors, but the struggle of equals; and, therefore, they introduce
even into their competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad
to think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps can be
supposed with any probability to realize that they are abstract and even
severe republicans.

No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing to do with
any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; all men are democrats
when they are happy. The philosophic opponent of democracy would
substantially sum up his position by saying that it "will not work."
Before going further, I will register in passing a protest against the
assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven does not
work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they are free; and if I
find that men are snobs in their work but democrats on their holidays,
I shall take the liberty to believe their holidays. But it is this
question of work which really perplexes the question of equality; and
it is with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be put
most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is
civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are
anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in
their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The
Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines
would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines
would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles;
fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be
individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob
cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is
half spoiled at a stroke.

*****

IV. THE INSANE NECESSITY

The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that
men have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a state
of comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, almost exactly the
opposite. All men have normally and naturally begun with the idea of
equality; they have