would standardize as far as possible the means of livelihood, of
education, and even the manner of living, and would leave free the
intelligence, the will, and the conscience, so that they might take
their proper places, some higher than others. Modern democracy, on the
contrary, tends to level all mentalities, and to impede the predominance
of capacity, shading everything with an atmosphere of vulgarity. At the
same time it aids some private interests to take their places higher
than other private interests.

A great part of the collective antipathy for individuality proceeds from
fear. Especially in our Southern countries strong individualities have
usually been unquiet and tumultuous. The superior mob, like the lower
ones, does not wish the seeds of Caesars or of Bonapartes to flourish in
our territories. These mobs pant for a spiritual levelling; for there is
no more distinction between one man and another than a coloured button
on the lapel or a title on the calling-card. Such is the aspiration of
our truly socialist types; other distinctions, like valour, energy,
virtue, are for the democratic steam-roller, veritable impertinences of
nature.

Spain, which never had a complete social system and has unfolded her
life and her art by spiritual convulsions, according as men of strength
and action have come bursting forth, today feels herself ruined in her
eruptive life, and longs to compete with other countries in their love
for the commonplace and well-regulated and in their abhorrence for
individuality.

In Spain, where the individual and only the individual was everything,
the collectivist aspirations of other peoples are now accepted as
indisputable dogmas. Today our country begins to offer a brilliant