will attempt. The social condition which would give all men equal reward,
equal enjoyment, equal responsibility, may be a condition to dream of. It
may be Utopia; it is not democracy. Sir Henry Maine describes the process
of civilization as the "movement from status to contract." This is the
movement from mass to man, from subservience to individualism, from
tradition to democracy, from pomp and circumstance of non-essentials to the
method of achievement.

Owen Wister in "The Virginian" says: "All America is divided into two
classes,--the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize
the former when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our women bear
nothing but kings. It was through the Declaration of Independence that we
Americans acknowledged the _eternal inequality_ of man. For by it we
abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially
held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places,
and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature.
Therefore we decreed that every man should, thenceforth have equal liberty
to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom
to true aristocracy, saying, 'Let the best man win, whoever he is.' Let the
best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true
democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody
cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight."

_Paucis vivat humanum genus_: "for the few the race should live,"--this
is the discarded motto of another age. The few live for the many.
The clean and strong enrich the life of all with their wisdom, with their
conquests. It is to bring about the larger equalities of opportunity, or
purpose, that we exalt the talents of the few.

This has not always been clear, even the history of the Republic. My own