without the intimate, instinctive co-ordination of the organs of life and
action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact,
whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political
constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a
living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must
develop.

All that progressives ask or desire is permission--in an era when
"development," "evolution," is the scientific word--to interpret the
Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is
recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.

* * * * *

Some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration of
Independence, signed in Philadelphia, July 4th, 1776. Their bosoms swell
against George III, but they have no consciousness of the war for freedom
that is going on to-day.

The Declaration of Independence did not mention the questions of our day.
It is of no consequence to us unless we can translate its general terms
into examples of the present day and substitute them in some vital way for
the examples it itself gives, so concrete, so intimately involved in the
circumstances of the day in which it was conceived and written. It is an
eminently practical document, meant for the use of practical men; not a
thesis for philosophers, but a whip for tyrants; not a theory of
government, but a program of action. Unless we can translate it into the
questions of our own day, we are not worthy of it, we are not the sons of
the sires who acted in response to its challenge.