t is no longer efficient, and cannot
cope with affairs; there is a lack of adjustment between the
inner and the outer, between the needs and the provision made to
meet them. The monarchy, which was at first representative and
the true expression of the nation,--because it, or anything else,
when there was no detritus, but things were new and the inner
air uncluttered, gave freedom to the national aspirations to pour
themselves out in action,--gives such freedom no longer; it
irks; it misfits; you feel it chafing everywhere. And yet it
has not ceased by any means to be representative: it represents
now a nation which has lost its adjustment to the inner things
and is clogged up by the detritus of old thought and action, and
it is that detritus that irks and misfits and chafes you. So you
rise and smash an astral mold or two; turn out your kings;
shout freedom and liberty, and are very glorious for a time under
a totally free and independent republic;--which means, at once or
after a while, government by a class. And this succeeds just as
well and badly as its predecessor; neither has found Tao, the
Way,--following which, your detritus should be consumed as it
goes, and life lifted above the sway of Karma. So once more the
detritus accumulates, and blocks the channels; and the life of
the nation labors and is oppressed. Need arises for reforms;
and the reforms are difficultly carried through; the franchise
is extended, and there is loud talk about political growth and
what not; we see the millennium at hand, and ourselves its
predestined enjoyers. And the old process repeats itself, till
you have a very full-fledged democracy:--you make all the men
vote, and all the women; and presently no doubt all the
children; but even when you have all adult dogs and cats and
cows voting as well,--you will not find that that order is Tao,
the Way, any more than the others were. The presence of a cow or
two, or an ass or two, more or less, in your parliament will not
really insure efficiency of administration. The detritus grows
again, under the most democratic of democracies; and weighs
things down;--and you cast about for new methods of reform.
Democratic government, somehow, does nothing of what was expected
of it; is not the panacea;--you see that, to bring the chaos of
affairs into order, you must stop all this jabber and tinkering,
and set up some undivided council,--some Man, for God's sake!--a
Dictator who can keep