What are the remedies popularly proposed? In that important branch of
polity known as Political Ethics, or, as he termed them, Hermeneutics,
which your Professor Lieber sixty years ago endeavored to treat of, what
advance has since his time been effected?--Nay! what advance has been
effected since the time, over two thousand years, of his great
predecessor, Aristotle? I confidently submit that what progress is now
being made in this most erudite of sciences is in the nature of that of
the crab--backwards! In the discussions of Aristotle, the problem in
view was, how to bring about government by the wisest,--that is, the
most observant and expert. In other words, government, the object of
politics, was by Aristotle treated in a scientific spirit. And this is
as it should be. Take, for example, any problem,--I do not care whether
it is legal or medical or one of engineering: How successfully dispose
of it? Uniformly, in one way. Those problems are successfully solved, if
at all, only when their solution is placed in the hands of the most
proficient. Judged by the discussions of to-day, what advance has in
politics been effected? Do the _Outlook_ and the _Commoner_ imply
progress since the Stagirite? Not to any noticeable extent. We are, on
the contrary, fumbling and wallowing about where the Greek pondered and
philosophized.

Democracy, as it is called, is to-day the great panacea,--the political
nostrum; as such it is confidently advocated by statesmen and professors
and even by the presidents of our institutions of the advanced
education. "Trust the People" is the shibboleth! "Let the People rule!"
"The cure for too much Liberty is more Liberty!" To Democracy plain and
simple--Composite Wisdom--I frankly confess I feel no call,--no call
greater than, for instance, towards Autocracy or Aristocracy or
Plutocracy. Taken simply, and applied as hitherto applied, all and each
lead to but one result,--failure! And that result, let me here predict,