rity to determine and
regulate everything."

"Gentlemen," spoke Gerlach with great seriousness, "as I was a moment
ago strolling over this place, I overheard language at several tables,
which was unmistakably communistic. Laborers and factory men were
maintaining that wealth is unequally distributed; that, whilst a small
number are immensely rich, a much greater number are poor and
destitute; that progress will have to advance to a point when an equal
division of property must be made. Now, the poor and the laboring
population are in the majority. Should they vote for a partition,
should they demand from us what hitherto we have regarded as
exclusively our own, we, gentlemen, will in consistency be forced to
accept the decree of the majority as perfectly moral and just--will we
not?"

There was profound silence.

"I, for my part, should most emphatically protest against such a ruling
of the majority," declared Greifmann.

"Your protest would be contrary to morals and equity; for, according to
Mr. Seicht, only what the majority wills is moral and just," returned
the landowner. "And, in mentioning partition of property, I hinted at a
red monster which is not any longer a mere goblin, but a thing of real
flesh and bone. We are on the verge of a fearful social revolution
which threatens to break up society. If there is no holy and just God;
if he has not revealed himself, and man is not obliged to submit to his
will; if the only basis of right and of morals is the wish of the
majority, this terrible social revolution must be moral and just, for
the majority wills it and carries it out."

"Of course, there must be a limit," said the official feebly.

"The demands of the majority must be reasonable."

"What do you understand by reasonable, sir?"

"I call reasonable whatever accords with the sense of right, with sound
thinking, with moral ideas."

"Sense of right--moral ideas? I beg you to observe that these notions
differ vastly from the sole authority of numbers. You have trespassed
upon God's kingdom in giving your explanation, for ideas are
supersensible; they are the thought of God himself. And the sense of
right was not implanted in the human breast by the word of a majority;
it was placed there by the Creator of man."

The official was driven to the wall. The chieftains thoughtfully stared
at their beer-pots.

"It is clear that the will of the majority alone cannot be accepted as
the basis of a state," sa