whole, and was fitted, no doubt, to their intellectual needs,
but was also fitted to their emotional and moral needs as developed
under certain social conditions. The inference from the general
acceptance of any theory is not that it is true, but that it is true
enough to satisfy the very feeble demand for logic--that it is not
palpably absurd or self-contradictory; and that, for some reason or
other, it satisfies also the imagination, the affections, and the
aspirations of the believers. Not to go into other questions, this
single remark indicates, I think, the attitude which the scientific
observer would adopt in regard to this ancient controversy. He would
study the causes as well as the alleged reasons assignable for any
general instinct, and admit that its existence is one of the primary
data which have to be taken into account. To denounce democracy or
aristocracy is easy enough; and it saves trouble to assume that God is
on one side and the devil on the other. The true method, I take it, is
that which was indicated by Tocqueville's great book upon democracy in
America; a book which, if I may trust my own impressions, though
necessarily imperfect as regards America, is a perfectly admirable
example of the fruitful method of studying such problems. Though an
aristocrat by birth and breeding, Tocqueville had the wisdom to examine
democratic beliefs and institutions in a thoroughly impartial spirit;
and, instead of simply denouncing or admiring, to trace the genesis of
the prevalent ideas and their close connection with the general state
of social development. An inquiry conducted in that spirit would not
lead to the absolute dogmatic conclusions in which the superficial
controversialist delights. It would show, perhaps, that there was at
least this much truth in the democratic contention, that the masses
are, by their position, exempt from some of the prejudices which are
ingrained in the members of a smaller caste; that they are therefore
more accessible to certain moral considerations, and more anxious to
promote the greatest happiness of the greater number. But it might also
show how the weakness of the ignorant and untrained mind produces the
characteristic evils of sentimentalism and impatience, of a belief in
the omnipotence of legislation, and an excessive jealousy of all
superiorities; and might possibly, too, exhibit certain merits which
are impressed upon the aristocrat by his sense of the obligations of
no