{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_71000/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_71000","id":"gutenberg_71000","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71000","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Democracy","Political science","State, The"],"text":"THE PUBLIC\n                            AND ITS PROBLEMS\n\n                                   BY\n                               JOHN DEWEY\n\n                              ALAN SWALLOW\n                                 DENVER\n\n\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1927,\n                                   BY\n                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n\n              Copyright renewed, 1954, by Mrs. John Dewey\n\n\n                             PRINTED IN THE\n                        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE\n\n\nThis volume is the result of lectures delivered during the month of\nJanuary, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, upon the Larwill Foundation\nof Kenyon College, Ohio. In acknowledging the many courtesies received,\nI wish to express also my appreciation of the toleration shown by the\nauthorities of the College to delay in publication. The intervening\nperiod has permitted a full revision and expansion of the lectures\nas originally delivered. This fact will account for an occasional\nreference to books published in the interval.\n\n                                                               J.\u00a0D.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE\n    I. SEARCH FOR THE PUBLIC                                           3\n\n        Divergence of facts and theoretical interpretations\n        concerning the nature of the state, 3. Practical import\n        of theories, 5. Theories in terms of causal origin,\n        9. Theory in terms of perceived consequences, 12.\n        Distinction of private and public substituted for that of\n        individual and social, 13. The influence of association,\n        22. Plurality of associations, 26. Criterion of the\n        public, 27. Function of the state, 28. The state as an\n        experimental problem, 32. Summary, 34.\n\n\n   II. DISCOVERY OF THE STATE                                         37\n\n        Public and state, 38. Geographical extent, 39.\n        Multiplicity of states, 43. Spread of consequences, 47.\n        Law is not command, 53. Law and reasonableness, 55. The\n        public and long-established habits of action, 57. Fear of\n        the new, 59. Irreparable consequences, 62. Variation of\n        state-functions according to circumstances of time and\n        place, 65. State and government, 66. State and society,\n        69. The pluralistic theory, 73.\n\n\n  III. THE DEMOCRATIC STATE                                           75\n\n        Private and representative r\u00f4les of officials, 76.\n        Selection of rulers by irrelevant methods, 78. The\n        problem of control of officials, 82. Meanings of\n        democracy, 83. Fallacy as to origin of democratic\n        government, 84. Influence of non-political factors, 85.\n        The origin of \u201cindividualism,\u201d 86. Influence of the\n        new industry; the theory of \u201cnatural\u201d economic laws,\n        90. James Mill\u2019s philosophy of democratic government,\n        93. Criticism of \u201cindividualism,\u201d 95. Criticism of\n        antithesis of natural and artificial, 102. Wants and\n        aims as functions of social life, 104. Persistence of\n        pre-industrial institutions, 108. Final problem, 109.\n\n\n   IV. ECLIPSE OF THE PUBLIC                                         110\n\n        Local origin of American democratic government, 111.\n        National unification due to technological factors, 114.\n        Submergence of the public, 116. Disparity of inherited\n        ideas and machinery with actual conditions, 117.\n        Illustrations of resulting failures, 119. Problem of\n        discovering the public, 122. Democracy versus the expert,\n        123. Explanation of eclipse of public, 126. Illustrated\n        by the World War, 127. Application of criteria of the\n        public, 129. Failure of traditional principles, 131.\n        Political apathy accounted for, 134. Need of experts,\n        135. Rivals of political interest, 138. Ideals and\n        instrumentalities, 141.\n\n\n    V. SEARCH FOR THE GREAT COMMUNITY                                143\n\n        Democracy as idea and as governmental behavior, 143.\n        Problem of the Great Community, 147. Meaning of the\n        democratic ideal, 148. Democracy and community life, 149.\n        Community and associated activity, 151. Communication\n        and the community, 152. Intellectual conditions of the\n        Great Community, 155. Habit and intelligence, 158.\n        Science and knowledge, 163. Limitations upon social\n        inquiry, 166. Isolation of social inquiry, 171. Pure and\n        applied science, 172. Communication and public opinion,\n        173. Limitations of distribution of knowledge, 176.\n        Communication as art, 183.\n\n\n   VI. THE PROBLEM OF METHOD                                         185\n\n        Antithesis between individual and social as obstruction\n        to method, 186. Meaning of individual, 185. Where\n        opposition lies, 191. Meaning of absolutistic logic,\n        194. Illustration from doctrine of \u201cevolution,\u201d 196.\n        From psychology, 197. Difference of human and physical\n        science, 199. Experimental inquiry as alternative, 202.\n        Method, and government by experts, 203. Democracy and\n        education by discussion, 206. The level of intelligence,\n        210. The necessity of local community life, 211.\n        Problem of restoration, 213. Tendencies making for\n        re\u00ebstablishment, 215. Connection of this problem with the\n        problem of political intelligence, 217.\n\n\n      INDEX                                                          221\n\n\n\n\n                               THE PUBLIC\n                            AND ITS PROBLEMS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nSEARCH FOR THE PUBLIC\n\n\nIf one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between \u201cfacts\u201d and\nthe meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.\nMany persons seem to suppose that facts carry their meaning along\nwith themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them, and their\ninterpretation stares out at you. The development of physical science\nis thought to confirm the idea. But the power of physical facts to\ncoerce belief does not reside in the bare phenomena. It proceeds from\nmethod, from the technique of research and calculation. No one is ever\nforced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory\nof their meaning, so long as one retains intact some other doctrine by\nwhich he can marshal them. Only when the facts are allowed free play\nfor the suggestion of new points of view is any significant conversion\nof conviction as to meaning possible. Take away from physical science\nits laboratory apparatus and its mathematical technique, and the human\nimagination might run wild in its theories of interpretation even if we\nsuppose the brute facts to remain the same.\n\nIn any event, social philosophy exhibits an immense gap between facts\nand doctrines. Compare, for example, the facts of politics with\nthe theories which are extant regarding the nature of the state. If\ninquirers confine themselves to observed phenomena, the behavior of\nkings, presidents, legislators, judges, sheriffs, assessors and all\nother public officials, surely a reasonable consensus is not difficult\nto attain. Contrast with this agreement the differences which exist\nas to the basis, nature, functions and justification of the state,\nand note the seemingly hopeless disagreement. If one asks not for an\nenumeration of facts, but for a definition of the state, one is plunged\ninto controversy, into a medley of contradictory clamors. According\nto one tradition, which claims to derive from Aristotle, the state\nis associated and harmonized life lifted to its highest potency; the\nstate is at once the keystone of the social arch and is the arch in its\nwholeness. According to another view, it is just one of many social\ninstitutions, having a narrow but important function, that of arbiter\nin the conflict of other social units. Every group springs out of and\nrealizes a positive human interest; the church, religious values;\nguilds, unions and corporations material economic interests, and so on.\nThe state, however, has no concern of its own; its purpose is formal,\nlike that of the leader of the orchestra who plays no instrument and\nmakes no music, but who serves to keep other players who do produce\nmusic in unison with one another. Still a third view has it that\nthe state is organized oppression, at once a social excrescence, a\nparasite and a tyrant. A fourth is that it is an instrument more or\nless clumsy for keeping individuals from quarreling too much with one\nanother.\n\nConfusion grows when we enter subdivisions of these different views\nand the grounds offered for them. In one philosophy, the state is the\napex and completion of human association, and manifests the highest\nrealization of all distinctively human capacities. The view had a\ncertain pertinency when it was first formulated. It developed in an\nantique city-state, where to be fully a free man and to be a citizen\nparticipating in the drama, the sports, the religion and the government\nof the community were equivalent affairs. But the view persists and\nis applied to the state of to-day. Another view co\u00f6rdinates the state\nwith the church (or as a variant view slightly subordinates it to\nthe latter) as the secular arm of Deity maintaining outward order\nand decorum among men. A modern theory idealizes the state and its\nactivities by borrowing the conceptions of reason and will, magnifying\nthem till the state appears as the objectified manifestation of a will\nand reason which far transcend the desires and purposes which can be\nfound among individuals or assemblages of individuals.\n\nWe are not concerned, however, with writing either a cyclopedia or\nhistory of political doctrines. So we pause with these arbitrary\nillustrations of the proposition that little common ground has been\ndiscovered between the factual phenomena of political behavior and the\ninterpretation of the meaning of these phenomena. One way out of the\nimpasse is to consign the whole matter of meaning and interpretation\nto political philosophy as distinguished from political science. Then\nit can be pointed out that futile speculation is a companion of all\nphilosophy. The moral is to drop all doctrines of this kind overboard,\nand stick to facts verifiably ascertained.\n\nThe remedy urged is simple and attractive. But it is not possible to\nemploy it. Political facts are not outside human desire and judgment.\nChange men\u2019s estimate of the _value_ of existing political agencies and\nforms, and the latter change more or less. The different theories which\nmark political philosophy do not grow up externally to the facts which\nthey aim to interpret; they are amplifications of selected factors\namong those facts. Modifiable and altering human habits sustain and\ngenerate political phenomena. These habits are not wholly informed\nby reasoned purpose and deliberate choice--far from it--but they are\nmore or less amenable to them. Bodies of men are constantly engaged\nin attacking and trying to change some political habits, while other\nbodies of men are actively supporting and justifying them. It is mere\npretense, then, to suppose that we can stick by the _de facto_, and\nnot raise at some points the question of _de jure_: the question of by\nwhat right, the question of legitimacy. And such a question has a way\nof growing until it has become a question as to the nature of the state\nitself. The alternatives before us are not factually limited science\non one hand and uncontrolled speculation on the other. The choice is\nbetween blind, unreasoned attack and defense on the one hand, and\ndiscriminating criticism employing intelligent method and a conscious\ncriterion on the other.\n\nThe prestige of the mathematical and physical sciences is great, and\nproperly so. But the difference between facts which are what they\nare independent of human desire and endeavor and facts which are to\nsome extent what they are because of human interest and purpose, and\nwhich alter with alteration in the latter, cannot be got rid of by\nany methodology. The more sincerely we appeal to facts, the greater\nis the importance of the distinction between facts which condition\nhuman activity and facts which are conditioned by human activity. In\nthe degree which we ignore this difference, social science becomes\npseudo-science. Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian political ideas are\nnot merely theories dwelling in the human mind remote from facts of\nAmerican political behavior. They are expressions of chosen phases and\nfactors among those facts, but they are also something more: namely,\nforces which have shaped those facts and which are still contending\nto shape them in the future this way and that. There is more than a\nspeculative difference between a theory of the state which regards it\nas an instrument in protecting individuals in the rights they already\nhave, and one which conceives its function to be the effecting of\na more equitable distribution of rights among individuals. For the\ntheories are held and applied by legislators in congress and by judges\non the bench and make a difference in the subsequent facts themselves.\n\nI make no doubt that the practical influence of the political\nphilosophies of Aristotle, the Stoics, St. Thomas, Locke, Rousseau,\nKant and Hegel has often been exaggerated in comparison with the\ninfluence of circumstances. But a due measure of efficacy cannot be\ndenied them on the ground which is sometimes proffered; it cannot be\ndenied on the ground that ideas are without potency. For ideas belong\nto human beings who have bodies, and there is no separation between the\nstructures and processes of the part of the body that entertains the\nideas and the part that performs acts. Brain and muscles work together,\nand the brains of men are much more important data for social science\nthan are their muscular system and their sense organs.\n\nIt is not our intention to engage in a discussion of political\nphilosophies. The concept of the state, like most concepts which\nare introduced by \u201cThe,\u201d is both too rigid and too tied up with\ncontroversies to be of ready use. It is a concept which can be\napproached by a flank movement more easily than by a frontal attack.\nThe moment we utter the words \u201cThe State\u201d a score of intellectual\nghosts rise to obscure our vision. Without our intention and without\nour notice, the notion of \u201cThe State\u201d draws us imperceptibly into a\nconsideration of the logical relationship of various ideas to one\nanother, and away from facts of human activity. It is better, if\npossible, to start from the latter and see if we are not led thereby\ninto an idea of something which will turn out to implicate the marks\nand signs which characterize political behavior.\n\nThere is nothing novel in this method of approach. But very much\ndepends upon what we select from which to start and very much depends\nupon whether we select our point of departure in order to tell at\nthe terminus what the state _ought_ to be or what it _is_. If we are\ntoo concerned with the former, there is a likelihood that we shall\nunwittingly have doctored the facts selected in order to come out at a\npredetermined point. The phase of human action we should _not_ start\nwith is that to which direct causative power is attributed. We should\nnot look for state-forming forces. If we do, we are likely to get\ninvolved in mythology. To explain the origin of the state by saying\nthat man is a political animal is to travel in a verbal circle. It\nis like attributing religion to a religious instinct, the family to\nmarital and parental affection, and language to a natural endowment\nwhich impels men to speech. Such theories merely reduplicate in a\nso-called causal force the effects to be accounted for. They are of a\npiece with the notorious potency of opium to put men to sleep because\nof its dormitive power.\n\nThe warning is not directed against a man of straw. The attempt to\nderive the state, or any other social institution, from strictly\n\u201cpsychological\u201d data is in point. Appeal to a gregarious instinct to\naccount for social arrangements is the outstanding example of the\nlazy fallacy. Men do not run together and join in a larger mass as\ndo drops of quicksilver, and if they did the result would not be a\nstate nor any mode of human association. The instincts, whether named\ngregariousness, or sympathy, or the sense of mutual dependence, or\ndomination on one side and abasement and subjection on the other, at\nbest account for everything in general and nothing in particular. And\nat worst, the alleged instinct and natural endowment appealed to as\na causal force themselves represent physiological tendencies which\nhave previously been shaped into habits of action and expectation by\nmeans of the very social conditions they are supposed to explain. Men\nwho have lived in herds develop attachment to the horde to which they\nhave become used; children who have perforce lived in dependence grow\ninto habits of dependence and subjection. The inferiority complex is\nsocially acquired, and the \u201cinstinct\u201d of display and mastery is but\nits other face. There are structural organs which physiologically\nmanifest themselves in vocalizations as the organs of a bird induce\nsong. But the barking of dogs and the song of birds are enough to prove\nthat these native tendencies do not generate language. In order to be\nconverted into language, native vocalization requires transformation by\nextrinsic conditions, both organic and extra-organic or environmental:\nformation, be it noted, not just stimulation. The cry of a baby can\ndoubtless be described in purely organic terms, but the wail becomes\na noun or verb only by its consequences in the responsive behavior of\nothers. This responsive behavior takes the form of nurture and care,\nthemselves dependent upon tradition, custom and social patterns. Why\nnot postulate an \u201cinstinct\u201d of infanticide as well as one of guidance\nand instruction? Or an \u201cinstinct\u201d of exposing girls and taking care of\nboys?\n\nWe may, however, take the argument in a less mythological form than\nis found in the current appeal to social instincts of one sort or\nanother. The activities of animals, like those of minerals and plants,\nare correlated with their structure. Quadrupeds run, worms crawl,\nfish swim, birds fly. They are made that way; it is \u201cthe nature of\nthe beast.\u201d We do not gain anything by inserting instincts to run,\ncreep, swim and fly between the structure and the act. But the strictly\norganic conditions which lead men to join, assemble, foregather,\ncombine, are just those which lead other animals to unite in swarms and\npacks and herds. In describing what is common in human and other animal\njunctions and consolidations we fail to touch what is distinctively\nhuman in human associations. These structural conditions and acts may\nbe _sine qua nons_ of human societies; but so are the attractions\nand repulsions which are exhibited in inanimate things. Physics and\nchemistry as well as zo\u00f6logy may inform us of some of the conditions\nwithout which human beings would not associate. But they do not furnish\nus with the _sufficient_ conditions of community life and of the forms\nwhich it takes.\n\nWe must in any case start from acts which are performed, not from\nhypothetical causes for those acts, and consider their consequences. We\nmust also introduce intelligence, or the observation of consequences\n_as_ consequences, that is, in connection with the acts from which\nthey proceed. Since we must introduce it, it is better to do so\nknowingly than it is to smuggle it in in a way which deceives not\nonly the customs officer--the reader--but ourselves as well. We take\nthen our point of departure from the objective fact that human acts\nhave consequences upon others, that some of these consequences are\nperceived, and that their perception leads to subsequent effort to\ncontrol action so as to secure some consequences and avoid others.\nFollowing this clew, we are led to remark that the consequences are\nof two kinds, those which affect the persons directly engaged in a\ntransaction, and those which affect others beyond those immediately\nconcerned. In this distinction we find the germ of the distinction\nbetween the private and the public. When indirect consequences are\nrecognized and there is effort to regulate them, something having\nthe traits of a state comes into existence. When the consequences of\nan action are confined, or are thought to be confined, mainly to the\npersons directly engaged in it, the transaction is a private one. When\nA and B carry on a conversation together the action is a trans-action:\nboth are concerned in it; its results pass, as it were, across from one\nto the other. One or other or both may be helped or harmed thereby.\nBut, presumably, the consequences of advantage and injury do not extend\nbeyond A and B; the activity lies between them; it is private. Yet if\nit is found that the consequences of conversation extend beyond the two\ndirectly concerned, that they affect the welfare of many others, the\nact acquires a public capacity, whether the conversation be carried\non by a king and his prime minister or by Cataline and a fellow\nconspirator or by merchants planning to monopolize a market.\n\nThe distinction between private and public is thus in no sense\nequivalent to the distinction between individual and social, even if\nwe suppose that the latter distinction has a definite meaning. Many\nprivate acts are social; their consequences contribute to the welfare\nof the community or affect its status and prospects. In the broad\nsense any transaction deliberately carried on between two or more\npersons is social in quality. It is a form of associated behavior and\nits consequences may influence further associations. A man may serve\nothers, even in the community at large, in carrying on a private\nbusiness. To some extent it is true, as Adam Smith asserted, that\nour breakfast table is better supplied by the convergent outcome of\nactivities of farmers, grocers and butchers carrying on private\naffairs with a view to private profit than it would be if we were\nserved on a basis of philanthropy or public spirit. Communities have\nbeen supplied with works of art, with scientific discoveries, because\nof the personal delight found by private persons in engaging in\nthese activities. There are private philanthropists who act so that\nneedy persons or the community as a whole profit by the endowment of\nlibraries, hospitals and educational institutions. In short, private\nacts may be socially valuable both by indirect consequences and by\ndirect intention.\n\nThere is therefore no necessary connection between the private\ncharacter of an act and its non-social or anti-social character. The\npublic, moreover, cannot be identified with the socially useful. One\nof the most regular activities of the politically organized community\nhas been waging war. Even the most bellicose of militarists will\nhardly contend that all wars have been socially helpful, or deny that\nsome have been so destructive of social values that it would have\nbeen infinitely better if they had not been waged. The argument for\nthe non-equivalence of the public and the social, in any praiseworthy\nsense of social, does not rest upon the case of war alone. There is no\none, I suppose, so enamored of political action as to hold that it has\nnever been short-sighted, foolish and harmful. There are even those\nwho hold that the presumption is always that social loss will result\nfrom agents of the public doing anything which could be done by persons\nin their private capacity. There are many more who protest that some\nspecial public activity, whether prohibition, a protective tariff or\nthe expanded meaning given the Monroe Doctrine, is baleful to society.\nIndeed every serious political dispute turns upon the question whether\na given political act is socially beneficial or harmful.\n\nJust as behavior is not anti-social or non-social because privately\nundertaken, it is not necessarily socially valuable because carried\non in the name of the public by public agents. The argument has not\ncarried us far, but at least it has warned us against identifying the\ncommunity and its interests with the state or the politically organized\ncommunity. And the differentiation may dispose us to look with more\nfavor upon the proposition already advanced: namely, that the line\nbetween private and public is to be drawn on the basis of the extent\nand scope of the consequences of acts which are so important as to\nneed control, whether by inhibition or by promotion. We distinguish\nprivate and public buildings, private and public schools, private\npaths and public highways, private assets and public funds, private\npersons and public officials. It is our thesis that in this distinction\nwe find the key to the nature and office of the state. It is not\nwithout significance that etymologically \u201cprivate\u201d is defined in\nopposition to \u201cofficial,\u201d a private person being one deprived of public\nposition. The public consists of all those who are affected by the\nindirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is\ndeemed necessary to have those consequences systematically cared for.\nOfficials are those who look out for and take care of the interests\nthus affected. Since those who are indirectly affected are not direct\nparticipants in the transactions in question, it is necessary that\ncertain persons be set apart to represent them, and see to it that\ntheir interests are conserved and protected. The buildings, property,\nfunds, and other physical resources involved in the performance of\nthis office are _res publica_, the common-wealth. The public as far as\norganized by means of officials and material agencies to care for the\nextensive and enduring indirect consequences of transactions between\npersons is the _Populus_.\n\nIt is a commonplace that legal agencies for protecting the persons and\nproperties of members of a community, and for redressing wrongs which\nthey suffer, did not always exist. Legal institutions derive from\nan earlier period when the right of self-help obtained. If a person\nwas harmed, it was strictly up to him what he should do to get even.\nInjuring another and exacting a penalty for an injury received were\nprivate transactions. They were the affairs of those directly concerned\nand nobody else\u2019s direct business. But the injured party obtained\nreadily the help of friends and relatives, and the aggressor did\nlikewise. Hence consequences of the quarrel did not remain confined to\nthose immediately concerned. Feuds ensued, and the blood-quarrel might\nimplicate large numbers and endure for generations. The recognition\nof this extensive and lasting embroilment and the harm wrought by it\nto whole families brought a public into existence. The transaction\nceased to concern only the immediate parties to it. Those indirectly\naffected formed a public which took steps to conserve its interests by\ninstituting composition and other means of pacification to localize the\ntrouble.\n\nThe facts are simple and familiar. But they seem to present in\nembryonic form the traits that define a state, its agencies and\nofficers. The instance illustrates what was meant when it said that\nit is fallacy to try to determine the nature of the state in terms\nof direct causal factors. Its essential point has to do with the\nenduring and extensive consequences of behavior, which like all\nbehavior proceeds in ultimate analysis through individual human beings.\nRecognition of evil consequences brought about a common interest which\nrequired for its maintenance certain measures and rules, together with\nthe selection of certain persons as their guardians, interpreters, and,\nif need be, their executors.\n\nIf the account given is at all in the right direction, it explains\nthe gap already mentioned between the facts of political action and\ntheories of the state. Men have looked in the wrong place. They have\nsought for the key to the nature of the state in the field of agencies,\nin that of doers of deeds, or in some will or purpose back of the\ndeeds. They have sought to explain the state in terms of authorship.\nUltimately all deliberate choices proceed from somebody in particular;\nacts are performed by somebody, and all arrangements and plans are made\nby somebody in the most concrete sense of \u201csomebody.\u201d Some John Doe\nand Richard Roe figure in every transaction. We shall not, then, find\nthe public if we look for it on the side of originators of voluntary\nactions. Some John Smith and his congeners decide whether or not to\ngrow wheat and how much, where and how to invest money, what roads to\nbuild and travel, whether to wage war and if so how, what laws to pass\nand which to obey and disobey. The actual alternative to deliberate\nacts of individuals is not action by the public; it is routine,\nimpulsive and other unreflected acts also performed by individuals.\n\nIndividual human beings may lose their identity in a mob or in a\npolitical convention or in a joint-stock corporation or at the polls.\nBut this does not mean that some mysterious collective agency is making\ndecisions, but that some few persons who know what they are about are\ntaking advantage of massed force to conduct the mob their way, boss\na political machine, and manage the affairs of corporate business.\nWhen the public or state is involved in making social arrangements\nlike passing laws, enforcing a contract, conferring a franchise, it\nstill acts through concrete persons. The persons are now officers,\nrepresentatives of a public and shared interest. The difference is\nan important one. But it is not a difference between single human\nbeings and a collective impersonal will. It is between persons in their\nprivate and in their official or representative character. The quality\npresented is not authorship but authority, the authority of recognized\nconsequences to control the behavior which generates and averts\nextensive and enduring results of weal and woe. Officials are indeed\npublic agents, but agents in the sense of factors doing the business of\nothers in securing and obviating consequences that concern them.\n\nWhen we look in the wrong place we naturally do not find what we are\nlooking for. The worst of it is, however, that looking in the wrong\nplace, to causal forces instead of consequences, the outcome of the\nlooking becomes arbitrary. There is no check on it. \u201cInterpretation\u201d\nruns wild. Hence the variety of conflicting theories and the lack of\nconsensus of opinion. One might argue _a priori_ that the continual\nconflict of theories about the state is itself proof that the problem\nhas been wrongly posed. For, as we have previously remarked, the main\nfacts of political action, while the phenomena vary immensely with\ndiversity of time and place, are not hidden even when they are complex.\nThey are facts of human behavior accessible to human observation.\nExistence of a multitude of contradictory theories of the state, which\nis so baffling from the standpoint of the theories themselves, is\nreadily explicable the moment we see that all the theories, in spite of\ntheir divergence from one another, spring from a root of shared error:\nthe taking of causal agency instead of consequences as the heart of the\nproblem.\n\nGiven this attitude and postulate, some men at some time will find the\ncausal agency in a metaphysical nisus attributed to nature; and the\nstate will then be explained in terms of an \u201cessence\u201d of man realizing\nitself in an end of perfected Society. Others, influenced by other\npreconceptions and other desires, will find the required author in\nthe will of God reproducing through the medium of fallen humanity\nsuch an image of divine order and justice as the corrupt material\nallows. Others seek for it in the meeting of the wills of individuals\nwho come together and by contract or mutual pledging of loyalties\nbring a state into existence. Still others find it in an autonomous\nand transcendent will embodied in all men as a universal within their\nparticular beings, a will which by its own inner nature commands the\nestablishment of external conditions in which it is possible for will\nto express outwardly its freedom. Others find it in the fact that mind\nor reason is either an attribute of reality or is reality itself, while\nthey condole that difference and plurality of minds, individuality,\nis an illusion attributable to sense, or is merely an appearance in\ncontrast with the monistic reality of reason. When various opinions\nall spring from a common and shared error, one is as good as another,\nand the accidents of education, temperament, class interest and the\ndominant circumstances of the age decide which is adopted. Reason\ncomes into play only to find justification for the opinion which has\nbeen adopted, instead of to analyze human behavior with respect to its\nconsequences and to frame polities accordingly. It is an old story\nthat natural philosophy steadily progressed only after an intellectual\nrevolution. This consisted in abandoning the search for causes and\nforces and turning to the analysis of what is going on and how it goes\non. Political philosophy has still in large measure to take to heart\nthis lesson.\n\nThe failure to note that the problem is that of perceiving in a\ndiscriminating and thorough way the consequences of human action\n(including negligence and inaction) and of instituting measures and\nmeans of caring for these consequences is not confined to production\nof conflicting and irreconcilable theories of the state. The failure\nhas also had the effect of perverting the views of those who, up\nto a certain point, perceived the truth. We have asserted that\nall deliberate choices and plans are finally the work of single\nhuman beings. Thoroughly false conclusions have been drawn from\nthis observation. By thinking still in terms of causal forces, the\nconclusion has been drawn from this fact that the state, the public,\nis a fiction, a mask for private desires for power and position.\nNot only the state but society itself has been pulverized into an\naggregate of unrelated wants and wills. As a logical consequence, the\nstate is conceived either as sheer oppression born of arbitrary power\nand sustained in fraud, or as a pooling of the forces of single men\ninto a massive force which single persons are unable to resist, the\npooling being a measure of desperation since its sole alternative is\nthe conflict of all with all which generates a life that is helpless\nand brutish. Thus the state appears either a monster to be destroyed or\nas a Leviathan to be cherished. In short, under the influence of the\nprime fallacy that the problem of the state concerns causal forces,\nindividualism, as an ism, as a philosophy, has been generated.\n\nWhile the doctrine is false, it sets out from a fact. Wants, choices\nand purposes have their locus in single beings; behavior which\nmanifests desire, intent and resolution proceeds from them in their\nsingularity. But only intellectual laziness leads us to conclude that\nsince the form of thought and decision is individual, their content,\ntheir subject-matter, is also something purely personal. Even if\n\u201cconsciousness\u201d were the wholly private matter that the individualistic\ntradition in philosophy and psychology supposes it to be, it would\nstill be true that consciousness is _of_ objects, not of itself.\nAssociation in the sense of connection and combination is a \u201claw\u201d of\neverything known to exist. Singular things act, but they act together.\nNothing has been discovered which acts in entire isolation. The action\nof everything is along with the action of other things. The \u201calong\nwith\u201d is of such a kind that the behavior of each is modified by its\nconnection with others. There are trees which can grow only in a\nforest. Seeds of many plants can successfully germinate and develop\nonly under conditions furnished by the presence of other plants.\nReproduction of kind is dependent upon the activities of insects which\nbring about fertilization. The life-history of an animal cell is\nconditioned upon connection with what other cells are doing. Electrons,\natoms and molecules exemplify the omnipresence of conjoint behavior.\n\nThere is no mystery about the fact of association, of an interconnected\naction which affects the activity of singular elements. There is no\nsense in asking how individuals come to be associated. They exist and\noperate in association. If there is any mystery about the matter, it\nis the mystery that the universe is the kind of universe it is. Such a\nmystery could not be explained without going outside the universe. And\nif one should go to an outside source to account for it, some logician,\nwithout an excessive draft upon his ingenuity, would rise to remark\nthat the outsider would have to be connected with the universe in\norder to account for anything in it. We should still be just where we\nstarted, with the fact of connection as a fact to be accepted.\n\nThere is, however, an intelligible question about human\nassociation:--Not the question how individuals or singular beings come\nto be connected, but how they come to be connected in just those ways\nwhich give human communities traits so different from those which\nmark assemblies of electrons, unions of trees in forests, swarms of\ninsects, herds of sheep, and constellations of stars. When we consider\nthe difference we at once come upon the fact that the consequences of\nconjoint action take on a new value when they are observed. For notice\nof the effects of connected action forces men to reflect upon the\nconnection itself; it makes it an object of attention and interest.\nEach acts, in so far as the connection is known, in view of the\nconnection. Individuals still do the thinking, desiring and purposing,\nbut _what_ they think of is the consequences of their behavior upon\nthat of others and that of others upon themselves.\n\nEach human being is born an infant. He is immature, helpless, dependent\nupon the activities of others. That many of these dependent beings\nsurvive is proof that others in some measure look out for them, take\ncare of them. Mature and better equipped beings are aware of the\nconsequences of their acts upon those of the young. They not only act\nconjointly with them, but they act in that especial kind of association\nwhich manifests interest in the consequences of their conduct upon the\nlife and growth of the young.\n\nContinued physiological existence of the young is only one phase\nof interest in the consequences of association. Adults are equally\nconcerned to act so that the immature learn to think, feel, desire and\nhabitually conduct themselves in certain ways. Not the least of the\nconsequences which are striven for is that the young shall themselves\nlearn to judge, purpose and choose from the standpoint of associated\nbehavior and its consequences. In fact, only too often this interest\ntakes the form of endeavoring to make the young believe and plan\njust as adults do. This instance alone is enough to show that while\nsingular beings in their singularity think, want and decide, _what_\nthey think and strive for, the content of their beliefs and intentions\nis a subject-matter provided by association. Thus man is not merely\n_de facto_ associated, but he _becomes_ a social animal in the make-up\nof his ideas, sentiments and deliberate behavior. _What_ he believes,\nhopes for and aims at is the outcome of association and intercourse.\nThe only thing which imports obscurity and mystery into the influence\nof association upon what individual persons want and act for is the\neffort to discover alleged, special, original, society-making causal\nforces, whether instincts, fiats of will, personal, or an immanent,\nuniversal, practical reason, or an indwelling, metaphysical, social\nessence and nature. These things do not explain, for they are more\nmysterious than are the facts they are evoked to account for. The\nplanets in a constellation would form a community if they were aware of\nthe connections of the activities of each with those of the others and\ncould use this knowledge to direct behavior.\n\nWe have made a digression from consideration of the state to the wider\ntopic of society. However, the excursion enables us to distinguish the\nstate from other forms of social life. There is an old tradition which\nregards the state and completely organized society as the same thing.\nThe state is said to be the complete and inclusive realization of all\nsocial institutions. Whatever values result from any and every social\narrangement are gathered together and asserted to be the work of the\nstate. The counterpart of this method is that philosophical anarchism\nwhich assembles all the evils that result from all forms of human\ngrouping and attributes them _en masse_ to the state, whose elimination\nwould then bring in a millennium of voluntary fraternal organization.\nThat the state should be to some a deity and to others a devil is\nanother evidence of the defects of the premises from which discussion\nsets out. One theory is as indiscriminate as the other.\n\nThere is, however, a definite criterion by which to demarcate the\norganized public from other modes of community life. Friendships, for\nexample, are non-political forms of association. They are characterized\nby an intimate and subtle sense of the fruits of intercourse. They\ncontribute to experience some of its most precious values. Only the\nexigencies of a preconceived theory would confuse with the state that\ntexture of friendships and attachments which is the chief bond in any\ncommunity, or would insist that the former depends upon the latter\nfor existence. Men group themselves also for scientific inquiry, for\nreligious worship, for artistic production and enjoyment, for sport,\nfor giving and receiving instruction, for industrial and commercial\nundertakings. In each case some combined or conjoint action, which has\ngrown up out of \u201cnatural,\u201d that is, biological, conditions and from\nlocal contiguity, results in producing distinctive consequences--that\nis, consequences which differ in kind from those of isolated behavior.\n\nWhen these consequences are intellectually and emotionally appreciated,\na shared interest is generated and the nature of the interconnected\nbehavior is thereby transformed. Each form of association has its own\npeculiar quality and value, and no person in his senses confuses one\nwith another. The characteristic of the public as a state springs from\nthe fact that all modes of associated behavior may have extensive\nand enduring consequences which involve others beyond those directly\nengaged in them. When these consequences are in turn realized in\nthought and sentiment, recognition of them reacts to remake the\nconditions out of which they arose. Consequences have to be taken\ncare of, looked out for. This supervision and regulation cannot be\neffected by the primary groupings themselves. For the essence of the\nconsequences which call a public into being is the fact that they\nexpand beyond those directly engaged in producing them. Consequently\nspecial agencies and measures must be formed if they are to be attended\nto; or else some existing group must take on new functions. The obvious\nexternal mark of the organization of a public or of a state is thus the\nexistence of officials. Government is not the state, for that includes\nthe public as well as the rulers charged with special duties and\npowers. The public, however, is organized in and through those officers\nwho act in behalf of its interests.\n\nThus the state represents an important although distinctive and\nrestricted social interest. From this point of view there is nothing\nextraordinary in the pre\u00ebminence of the claims of the organized public\nover other interests when once they are called into play, nor in\nits total indifference and irrelevancy to friendships, associations\nfor science, art and religion under most circumstances. If the\nconsequences of a friendship threaten the public, then it is treated\nas a conspiracy; usually it is not the state\u2019s business or concern.\nMen join each other in partnership as a matter of course to do a piece\nof work more profitably or for mutual defense. Let its operations\nexceed a certain limit, and others not participating in it find their\nsecurity or prosperity menaced by it, and suddenly the gears of the\nstate are in mesh. Thus it happens that the state, instead of being\nall absorbing and inclusive, is under some circumstances the most idle\nand empty of social arrangements. Nevertheless, the temptation to\ngeneralize from these instances and conclude that the state generically\nis of no significance is at once challenged by the fact that when a\nfamily connection, a church, a trade union, a business corporation,\nor an educational institution conducts itself so as to affect large\nnumbers outside of itself, those who are affected form a public which\nendeavors to act through suitable structures, and thus to organize\nitself for oversight and regulation.\n\nI know of no better way in which to apprehend the absurdity of the\nclaims which are sometimes made in behalf of society politically\norganized than to call to mind the influence upon community life of\nSocrates, Buddha, Jesus, Aristotle, Confucius, Homer, Vergil, Dante,\nSt. Thomas, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Locke,\nRousseau and countless others, and then to ask ourselves if we conceive\nthese men to be officers of the state. Any method which so broadens\nthe scope of the state as to lead to such conclusion merely makes the\nstate a name for the totality of all kinds of associations. The moment\nwe have taken the word as loosely as that, it is at once necessary to\ndistinguish, within it, the state in its usual political and legal\nsense. On the other hand, if one is tempted to eliminate or disregard\nthe state, one may think of Pericles, Alexander, Julius and Augustus\nC\u00e6sar, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Richelieu, Napoleon, Bismarck and hundreds\nof names of that kind. One dimly feels that they must have had a\nprivate life, but how insignificant it bulks in comparison with their\naction as representatives of a state!\n\nThis conception of statehood does not imply any belief as to the\npropriety or reasonableness of any particular political act, measure or\nsystem. Observations of consequences are at least as subject to error\nand illusion as is perception of natural objects. Judgments about\nwhat to undertake so as to regulate them, and how to do it, are as\nfallible as other plans. Mistakes pile up and consolidate themselves\ninto laws and methods of administration which are more harmful than\nthe consequences which they were originally intended to control. And\nas all political history shows, the power and prestige which attend\ncommand of official position render rule something to be grasped and\nexploited for its own sake. Power to govern is distributed by the\naccident of birth or by the possession of qualities which enable\na person to obtain office, but which are quite irrelevant to the\nperformance of its representative functions. But the need which calls\nforth the organization of the public by means of rulers and agencies of\ngovernment persists and to some extent is incarnated in political fact.\nSuch progress as political history records depends upon some luminous\nemergence of the idea from the mass of irrelevancies which obscure and\nclutter it. Then some reconstruction occurs which provides the function\nwith organs more apt for its fulfillment. Progress is not steady and\ncontinuous. Retrogression is as periodic as advance. Industry and\ninventions in technology, for example, create means which alter the\nmodes of associated behavior and which radically change the quantity,\ncharacter and place of impact of their indirect consequences.\n\nThese changes are extrinsic to political forms which, once\nestablished, persist of their own momentum. The new public which\nis generated remains long inchoate, unorganized, because it cannot\nuse inherited political agencies. The latter, if elaborate and well\ninstitutionalized, obstruct the organization of the new public. They\nprevent that development of new forms of the state which might grow\nup rapidly were social life more fluid, less precipitated into set\npolitical and legal molds. To form itself, the public has to break\nexisting political forms. This is hard to do because these forms are\nthemselves the regular means of instituting change. The public which\ngenerated political forms is passing away, but the power and lust of\npossession remains in the hands of the officers and agencies which the\ndying public instituted. This is why the change of the form of states\nis so often effected only by revolution. The creation of adequately\nflexible and responsive political and legal machinery has so far been\nbeyond the wit of man. An epoch in which the needs of a newly forming\npublic are counteracted by established forms of the state is one in\nwhich there is increasing disparagement and disregard of the state.\nGeneral apathy, neglect and contempt find expression in resort to\nvarious short-cuts of direct action. And direct action is taken by many\nother interests than those which employ \u201cdirect action\u201d as a slogan,\noften most energetically by intrenched class-interests which profess\nthe greatest reverence for the established \u201claw and order\u201d of the\nexisting state. By its very nature, a state is ever something to be\nscrutinized, investigated, searched for. Almost as soon as its form is\nstabilized, it needs to be re-made.\n\nThus the problem of discovering the state is not a problem for\ntheoretical inquirers engaged solely in surveying institutions which\nalready exist. It is a practical problem of human beings living in\nassociation with one another, of mankind generically. It is a complex\nproblem. It demands power to perceive and recognize the consequences\nof the behavior of individuals joined in groups and to trace them\nto their source and origin. It involves selection of persons to\nserve as representatives of the interests created by these perceived\nconsequences and to define the functions which they shall possess\nand employ. It requires institution of a government such that those\nhaving the renown and power which goes with the exercise of these\nfunctions shall employ them for the public and not turn them to their\nown private benefit. It is no cause for wonder, then, that states have\nbeen many, not only in number but in type and kind. For there have\nbeen countless forms of joint activity with correspondingly diverse\nconsequences. Power to detect consequences has varied especially with\nthe instrumentalities of knowledge at hand. Rulers have been selected\non all kinds of different grounds. Their functions have varied and\nso have their will and zeal to represent common interests. Only the\nexigencies of a rigid philosophy can lead us to suppose that there is\nsome one form or idea of The State which these protean historic states\nhave realized in various degrees of perfection. The only statement\nwhich can be made is a purely formal one: the state is the organization\nof the public effected through officials for the protection of the\ninterests shared by its members. But what the public may be, what the\nofficials are, how adequately they perform their function, are things\nwe have to go to history to discover.\n\nNevertheless, our conception gives a criterion for determining how\ngood a particular state is: namely, the degree of organization of\nthe public which is attained, and the degree in which its officers\nare so constituted as to perform their function of caring for\npublic interests. But there is no _a priori_ rule which can be laid\ndown and by which when it is followed a good state will be brought\ninto existence. In no two ages or places is there the same public.\nConditions make the consequences of associated action and the knowledge\nof them different. In addition the means by which a public can\ndetermine the government to serve its interests vary. Only formally can\nwe say what the best state would be. In concrete fact, in actual and\nconcrete organization and structure, there is no form of state which\ncan be said to be the best: not at least till history is ended, and one\ncan survey all its varied forms. The formation of states must be an\nexperimental process. The trial process may go on with diverse degrees\nof blindness and accident, and at the cost of unregulated procedures\nof cut and try, of fumbling and groping, without insight into what men\nare after or clear knowledge of a good state even when it is achieved.\nOr it may proceed more intelligently, because guided by knowledge of\nthe conditions which must be fulfilled. But it is still experimental.\nAnd since conditions of action and of inquiry and knowledge are always\nchanging, the experiment must always be retried; the State must always\nbe rediscovered. Except, once more, in formal statement of conditions\nto be met, we have no idea what history may still bring forth. It is\nnot the business of political philosophy and science to determine what\nthe state in general should or must be. What they may do is to aid in\ncreation of methods such that experimentation may go on less blindly,\nless at the mercy of accident, more intelligently, so that men may\nlearn from their errors and profit by their successes. The belief in\npolitical fixity, of the sanctity of some form of state consecrated by\nthe efforts of our fathers and hallowed by tradition, is one of the\nstumbling-blocks in the way of orderly and directed change; it is an\ninvitation to revolt and revolution.\n\nAs the argument has moved to and fro, it will conduce to clearness\nto summarize its steps. Conjoint, combined, associated action is a\nuniversal trait of the behavior of things. Such action has results.\nSome of the results of human collective action are perceived, that\nis, they are noted in such ways that they are taken account of. Then\nthere arise purposes, plans, measures and means, to secure consequences\nwhich are liked and eliminate those which are found obnoxious. Thus\nperception generates a common interest; that is, those affected by\nthe consequences are perforce concerned in conduct of all those who\nalong with themselves share in bringing about the results. Sometimes\nthe consequences are confined to those who directly share in the\ntransaction which produces them. In other cases they extend far\nbeyond those immediately engaged in producing them. Thus two kinds of\ninterests and of measures of regulation of acts in view of consequences\nare generated. In the first, interest and control are limited to\nthose directly engaged; in the second, they extend to those who do\nnot directly share in the performance of acts. If, then, the interest\nconstituted by their being affected by the actions in question is to\nhave any practical influence, control over the actions which produce\nthem must occur by some indirect means.\n\nSo far the statements, it is submitted, set forth matters of actual and\nascertainable fact. Now follows the hypothesis. Those indirectly and\nseriously affected for good or for evil form a group distinctive enough\nto require recognition and a name. The name selected is The Public.\nThis public is organized and made effective by means of representatives\nwho as guardians of custom, as legislators, as executives, judges,\netc., care for its especial interests by methods intended to regulate\nthe conjoint actions of individuals and groups. Then and in so far,\nassociation adds to itself political organization, and something which\nmay be government comes into being: the public is a political state.\n\nThe direct confirmation of the hypothesis is found in the statement\nof the series of observable and verifiable matters of fact. These\nconstitute conditions which are sufficient to account, so it is held,\nfor the characteristic phenomena of political life, or state activity.\nIf they do, it is superfluous to seek for other explanation. In\nconclusion, two qualifications should be added. The account just given\nis meant to be generic; it is consequently schematic, and omits many\ndifferential conditions, some of which receive attention in subsequent\nchapters. The other point is that in the negative part of the argument,\nthe attack upon theories which would explain the state by means of\nspecial causal forces and agencies, there is no denial of causal\nrelations or connections among phenomena themselves. That is obviously\nassumed at every point. There can be no consequences and measures to\nregulate the mode and quality of their occurrence without the causal\nnexus. What is denied is an appeal to _special_ forces outside the\nseries of observable connected phenomena. Such causal powers are no\ndifferent in kind to the occult forces from which physical science\nhad to emancipate itself. At best, they are but phases of the related\nphenomena themselves which are then employed to account for the facts.\nWhat is needed to direct and make fruitful social inquiry is a method\nwhich proceeds on the basis of the interrelations of observable acts\nand their results. Such is the gist of the method we propose to follow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nDISCOVERY OF THE STATE\n\n\nIf we look in the wrong place for the public we shall never locate\nthe state. If we do not ask what are the conditions which promote\nand obstruct the organization of the public into a social group with\ndefinite functions, we shall never grasp the problem involved in the\ndevelopment and transformation of states. If we do not perceive that\nthis organization is equivalent to the equipment of the public with\nofficial representatives to care for the interests of the public, we\nshall miss the clew to the nature of government. These are conclusions\nreached or suggested by the discussion of the last hour. The wrong\nplace to look, as we saw, is in the realm of alleged causal agency,\nof authorship, of forces which are supposed to produce a state by an\nintrinsic _vis genetrix_. The state is not created as a direct result\nof organic contacts as offspring are conceived in the womb, nor by\ndirect conscious intent as a machine is invented, nor by some brooding\nindwelling spirit, whether a personal deity or a metaphysical absolute\nwill. When we seek for the origin of states in such sources as these,\na realistic regard for facts compels us to conclude in the end that we\nfind nothing but singular persons, you, they, me. We shall then be\ndriven, unless we have recourse to mysticism, to decide that the public\nis born in a myth and is sustained by superstition.\n\nThere are many answers to the question: What is the public?\nUnfortunately many of them are only restatements of the question.\nThus we are told that the public is the community as a whole,\nand a-community-as-a-whole is supposed to be a self-evident and\nself-explanatory phenomenon. But a community as a _whole_ involves\nnot merely a variety of associative ties which hold persons together\nin diverse ways, but an organization of all elements by an integrated\nprinciple. And this is precisely what we are in search of. Why should\nthere be anything of the nature of an all-inclusive and regulative\nunity? If we postulate such a thing, surely the institution which alone\nwould answer to it is humanity, not the affairs which history exhibits\nas states. The notion of an inherent universality in the associative\nforce at once breaks against the obvious fact of a plurality of states,\neach localized, with its boundaries, limitations, its indifference and\neven hostility to other states. The best that metaphysical monistic\nphilosophies of politics can do with this fact is to ignore it. Or,\nas in the case of Hegel and his followers, a mythical philosophy of\nhistory is constructed to eke out the deficiencies of a mythical\ndoctrine of statehood. The universal spirit seizes upon one temporal\nand local nation after another as the vehicle for its objectification\nof reason and will.\n\nSuch considerations as these reinforce our proposition that the\nperception of consequences which are projected in important ways\nbeyond the persons and associations directly concerned in them is\nthe source of a public; and that its organization into a state is\neffected by establishing special agencies to care for and regulate\nthese consequences. But they also suggest that actual states exhibit\ntraits which perform the function that has been stated and which serve\nas marks of anything to be called a state. Discussion of these traits\nwill define the nature of the public and the problem of its political\norganization, and will also operate to test our theory.\n\nWe can hardly select a better trait to serve as a mark and sign of\nthe nature of a state than a point just mentioned, temporal and\ngeographical localization. There are associations which are too narrow\nand restricted in scope to give rise to a public, just as there are\nassociations too isolated from one another to fall within the same\npublic. Part of the problem of discovery of a public capable of\norganization into a state is that of drawing lines between the too\nclose and intimate and the too remote and disconnected. Immediate\ncontiguity, face to face relationships, have consequences which\ngenerate a community of interests, a sharing of values, too direct and\nvital to occasion a need for political organization. Connections within\na family are familiar; they are matters of immediate acquaintance and\nconcern. The so-called blood-tie which has played such a part in\ndemarcation of social units is largely imputed on the basis of sharing\nimmediately in the results of conjoint behavior. What one does in the\nhousehold affects others directly and the consequences are appreciated\nat once and in an intimate way. As we say, they \u201ccome home.\u201d Special\norganization to care for them is a superfluity. Only when the tie has\nextended to a union of families in a clan and of clans in a tribe\ndo consequences become so indirect that special measures are called\nfor. The neighborhood is constituted largely on the same pattern of\nassociation that is exemplified in the family. Custom and measures\nimprovised to meet special emergencies as they arise suffice for its\nregulation.\n\nConsider the village in Wiltshire so beautifully described by Hudson:\n\u201cEach house has its center of human life with life of bird and beast,\nand the centers were in touch with one another, connected like a row\nof children linked together by their hands; all together forming\none organism, instinct with one life, moved by one mind, like a\nmany-colored serpent lying at rest, extended at full length upon the\nground. I imagined the case of a cottager at one end of the village\noccupied in chopping up a tough piece of wood or stump and accidentally\nletting fall his heavy sharp axe on to his foot, inflicting a grievous\nwound. The tidings of the accident would fly from mouth to mouth to\nthe other extremity of the village, a mile distant; not only would\neach villager quickly know of it, but have at the same time a vivid\nmental image of his fellow villager at the moment of his misadventure,\nthe sharp glittering axe falling on to his foot, the red blood flowing\nfrom the wound; and he would at the same time feel the wound in his\nown foot and the shock to his system. In like manner all thoughts and\nfeelings would pass freely from one to another, though not necessarily\ncommunicated by speech; and all would be participants in virtue of\nthat sympathy and solidarity uniting the members of a small isolated\ncommunity. No one would be capable of a thought or emotion which\nwould seem strange to the others. The temper, the mood, the outlook\nof the individual and the village, would be the same.\u201d[1] With such a\ncondition of intimacy, the state is an impertinence.\n\nFor long periods of human history, especially in the Orient, the state\nis hardly more than a shadow thrown upon the family and neighborhood\nby remote personages, swollen to gigantic form by religious beliefs.\nIt rules but it does not regulate; for its rule is confined to receipt\nof tribute and ceremonial deference. Duties are within the family;\nproperty is possessed by the family. Personal loyalties to elders\ntake the place of political obedience. The relationships of husband\nand wife, parent and children, older and younger children, friend and\nfriend, are the bonds from which authority proceeds. Politics is not a\nbranch of morals; it is submerged in morals. All virtues are summed up\nin filial piety. Wrongdoing is culpable because it reflects upon one\u2019s\nancestry and kin. Officials are known but only to be shunned. To submit\na dispute to them is a disgrace. The measure of value of the remote\nand theocratic state lies in what it does _not_ do. Its perfection is\nfound in its identification with the processes of nature, in virtue of\nwhich the seasons travel their constant round, so that fields under\nthe beneficent rule of sun and rain produce their harvest, and the\nneighborhood prospers in peace. The intimate and familiar propinquity\ngroup is not a social unity within an inclusive whole. It is, for\nalmost all purposes, society itself.\n\nAt the other limit there are social groups so separated by rivers, seas\nand mountains, by strange languages and gods, that what one of them\ndoes--save in war--has no appreciable consequences for another. There\nis therefore no common interest, no public, and no need nor possibility\nof an inclusive state. The plurality of states is such a universal and\nnotorious phenomenon that it is taken for granted. It does not seem to\nrequire explanation. But it sets up, as we have noted, a test difficult\nfor some theories to meet. Except upon the basis of a freakish\nlimitation in the common will and reason which is alleged to be the\nfoundation of the state, the difficulty is insuperable. It is peculiar,\nto say the least, that universal reason should be unable to cross a\nmountain range and objective will be balked by a river current. The\ndifficulty is not so great for many other theories. But only the theory\nwhich makes recognition of consequences the critical factor can find in\nthe fact of many states a corroborating trait. Whatever is a barrier\nto the spread of the consequences of associated behavior by that very\nfact operates to set up political boundaries. The explanation is as\ncommonplace as is the thing to be explained.\n\nSomewhere between associations that are narrow, close and intimate and\nthose which are so remote as to have only infrequent and casual contact\nlies, then, the province of a state. We do not find and should not\nexpect to find sharp and fast demarcations. Villages and neighborhoods\nshade imperceptibly into a political public. Different states may pass\nthrough federations and alliances into a larger whole which has some of\nthe marks of statehood. This condition, which we should anticipate in\nvirtue of the theory, is confirmed by historical facts. The wavering\nand shifting line of distinction between a state and other forms of\nsocial union is, again, an obstacle in the way of theories of the\nstate which imply as their concrete counterpart something as sharply\nmarked off as is the concept. On the basis of empirical consequences,\nit is just the sort of thing which should occur. There are empires\ndue to conquest where political rule exists only in forced levies of\ntaxes and soldiers, and in which, though the word state may be used,\nthe characteristic signs of a public are notable for their absence.\nThere are political communities like the city-states of ancient Greece\nin which the fiction of common descent is a vital factor, in which\nhousehold gods and worship are replaced by community divinities,\nshrines, and cults: states in which much of the intimacy of the vivid\nand prompt personal touch of the family endures, while there has been\nadded the transforming inspiration of a varied, freer, fuller life,\nwhose issues are so momentous that in comparison the life of the\nneighborhood is parochial and that of the household dull.\n\nMultiplicity and constant transformation in the forms which the state\nassumes are as comprehensible upon the hypothesis proposed as is\nthe numerical diversity of independent states. The consequences of\nconjoint behavior differ in kind and in range with changes in \u201cmaterial\nculture,\u201d especially those involved in exchange of raw materials,\nfinished products and above all in technology, in tools, weapons and\nutensils. These in turn are immediately affected by inventions in\nmeans of transit, transportation and intercommunication. A people\nthat lives by tending flocks of sheep and cattle adapts itself to\nvery different conditions than those of a people which ranges freely,\nmounted on horses. One form of nomadism is usually peaceful; the other\nwarlike. Roughly speaking, tools and implements determine occupations,\nand occupations determine the consequences of associated activity.\nIn determining consequences, they institute publics with different\ninterests, which exact different types of political behavior to care\nfor them.\n\nIn spite of the fact that diversity of political forms rather than\nuniformity is the rule, belief in _the_ state as an archetypal entity\npersists in political philosophy and science. Much dialectical\ningenuity has been expended in construction of an essence or intrinsic\nnature in virtue of which any particular association is entitled to\nhave applied to it the concept of statehood. Equal ingenuity has been\nexpended in explaining away all divergencies from this morphological\ntype, and (the favored device) in ranking states in a hierarchical\norder of value as they approach the defining essence. The idea that\nthere is a model pattern which makes a state a _good_ or true state\nhas affected practice as well as theory. It, more than anything else,\nis responsible for the effort to form constitutions offhand and impose\nthem ready-made on peoples. Unfortunately, when the falsity of this\nview was perceived, it was replaced by the idea that states \u201cgrow\u201d or\ndevelop instead of being made. This \u201cgrowth\u201d did not mean simply that\nstates alter. Growth signified an evolution through regular stages to\na predetermined end because of some intrinsic nisus or principle. This\ntheory discouraged recourse to the only method by which alterations\nof political forms might be directed: namely, the use of intelligence\nto judge consequences. Equally with the theory which it displaced, it\npresumed the existence of a single standard form which defines _the_\nstate as the essential and true article. After a false analogy with\nphysical science, it was asserted that only the assumption of such\na uniformity of process renders a \u201cscientific\u201d treatment of society\npossible. Incidentally, the theory flattered the conceit of those\nnations which, being politically \u201cadvanced,\u201d assumed that they were so\nnear the apex of evolution as to wear the crown of statehood.\n\nThe hypothesis presented makes possible a consistently empirical\nor _historical_ treatment of the changes in political forms and\narrangements, free from any overriding conceptual domination such as is\ninevitable when a \u201ctrue\u201d state is postulated, whether that be thought\nof as deliberately made or as evolving by its own inner law. Intrusions\nfrom non-political internal occurrences, industrial and technological,\nand from external events, borrowings, travel, migrations, explorations,\nwars, modify the consequences of pre\u00ebxisting associations to such an\nextent that new agencies and functions are necessitated. Political\nforms are also subject to alterations of a more indirect sort.\nDevelopments of better methods of thinking bring about observation of\nconsequences which were concealed from a vision which used coarser\nintellectual tools. Quickened intellectual insight also makes possible\ninvention of new political devices. Science has not indeed played a\nlarge r\u00f4le. But intuitions of statesmen and of political theorists\nhave occasionally penetrated into the operations of social forces\nin such a way that a new turn has been given to legislation and to\nadministration. There is a margin of toleration in the body politic\nas well as in an organic body. Measures not in any sense inevitable\nare accommodated to after they have once been taken; and a further\ndiversity is thereby introduced in political manners.\n\nIn short, the hypothesis which holds that publics are constituted by\nrecognition of extensive and enduring indirect consequences of acts\naccounts for the relativity of states, while the theories which define\nthem in terms of specific causal authorship imply an absoluteness which\nis contradicted by facts. The attempt to find by the \u201ccomparative\nmethod\u201d structures which are common to antique and modern, to\noccidental and oriental states, has involved a great waste of industry.\nThe only constant is the function of caring for and regulating the\ninterests which accrue as the result of the complex indirect expansion\nand radiation of conjoint behavior.\n\nWe conclude, then, that temporal and local diversification is a prime\nmark of political organization, and one which, when it is analyzed,\nsupplies a confirming test of our theory. A second mark and evidence\nis found in an otherwise inexplicable fact that the quantitative\nscope of results of conjoint behavior generates a public with need\nfor organization. As we already noted, what are now crimes subject\nto public cognizance and adjudication were once private ebullitions,\nhaving the status now possessed by an insult proffered by one to\nanother. An interesting phase of the transition from the relatively\nprivate to the public, at least from a limited public to a larger one,\nis seen in the development in England of the King\u2019s Peace. Justice\nuntil the twelfth century was administered mainly by feudal and shire\ncourts, courts of hundreds, etc. Any lord who had a sufficient number\nof subjects and tenants decided controversies and imposed penalties.\nThe court and justice of the king was but one among many, and primarily\nconcerned with royalty\u2019s tenants, servants, properties and dignities.\nThe monarchs wished, however, to increase their revenues and expand\ntheir power and prestige. Various devices were invented and fictions\nset up by means of which the jurisdiction of kingly courts was\nextended. The method was to allege that various offenses, formerly\nattended to by local courts, were infractions of the king\u2019s peace. The\ncentralizing movement went on till the king\u2019s justice had a monopoly.\nThe instance is significant. A measure instigated by desire to increase\nthe power and profit of the royal dynasty became an impersonal public\nfunction by bare extension. The same sort of thing has repeatedly\noccurred when personal prerogatives have passed into normal political\nprocesses. Something of the same sort is manifested in contemporary\nlife when modes of private business become \u201caffected with a public\ninterest\u201d because of quantitative expansion.\n\nA converse instance is presented in transfer from public to private\ndomain of religious rites and beliefs. As long as the prevailing\nmentality thought that the consequences of piety and irreligion\naffected the entire community, religion was of necessity a public\naffair. Scrupulous adherence to the customary cult was of the highest\npolitical import. Gods were tribal ancestors or founders of the\ncommunity. They granted communal prosperity when they were duly\nacknowledged and were the authors of famine, pestilence and defeat in\nwar if their interests were not zealously attended to. Naturally when\nreligious acts had such extended consequences, temples were public\nbuildings, like the agora and forum; rites were civic functions and\npriests public officials. Long after theocracy vanished, theurgy was a\npolitical institution. Even when disbelief was rife, few there were who\nwould run the risk of neglecting the ceremonials.\n\nThe revolution by which piety and worship were relegated to the\nprivate sphere is often attributed to the rise of personal conscience\nand assertion of its rights. But this rise is just the thing to be\naccounted for. The supposition that it was there all the time in a\nsubmerged condition and finally dared to show itself reverses the\norder of events. Social changes, both intellectual and in the internal\ncomposition and external relations of peoples, took place so that men\nno longer connected attitudes of reverence or disrespect to the gods\nwith the weal and woe of the community. Faith and unbelief still had\nserious consequences, but these were now thought to be confined to the\ntemporal and eternal happiness of the persons directly concerned.\nGiven the other belief, and persecution and intolerance are as\njustifiable as is organized hostility to any crime; impiety is the most\ndangerous of all threats to public peace and well-being. But social\nchanges gradually effected as one of the new functions of the life of\nthe community the rights of private conscience and creed.\n\nIn general, behavior in intellectual matters has moved from the public\nto the private realm. This radical change was, of course, urged and\njustified on the ground of intrinsic and sacred private right. But,\nas in the special case of religious beliefs, it is strange, if this\nreason be accepted, that mankind lived so long in total unawareness of\nthe existence of the right. In fact, the idea of a purely private area\nof consciousness, where whatever goes on has no external consequences,\nwas in the first instance a product of institutional change, political\nand ecclesiastic, although, like other beliefs, once it was established\nit had political results. The observation that the interests of the\ncommunity are better cared for when there is permitted a large measure\nof personal judgment and choice in the formation of intellectual\nconclusions, is an observation which could hardly have been made until\nsocial mobility and heterogeneity had brought about initiation and\ninvention in technological matters and industry, and until secular\npursuits had become formidable rivals to church and state. Even yet,\nhowever, toleration in matters of judgment and belief is largely a\nnegative matter. We agree to leave one another alone (within limits)\nmore from recognition of evil consequences which have resulted from\nthe opposite course rather than from any profound belief in its\npositive social beneficence. As long as the latter consequence is not\nwidely perceived, the so-called natural right to private judgment will\nremain a somewhat precarious rationalization of the moderate amount of\ntoleration which has come into being. Such phenomena as the Ku Klux\nand legislative activity to regulate science show that the belief in\nliberty of thought is still superficial.\n\nIf I make an appointment with a dentist or doctor, the transaction\nis primarily between us. It is my health which is affected and his\npocket-book, skill and reputation. But exercise of the professions\nhas consequences so widespread that the examination and licensing of\npersons who practice them becomes a public matter. John Smith buys or\nsells real estate. The transaction is effected by himself and some\nother person. Land, however, is of prime importance to society, and the\nprivate transaction is hedged about with legal regulations; evidence\nof transfer and ownership has to be recorded with a public official in\nforms publicly prescribed. The choice of a mate and the act of sexual\nunion are intimately personal. But the act is the condition of bearing\nof offspring who are the means of the perpetuation of the community.\nThe public interest is manifested in formalities which are necessary\nto make a union legal and for its legal termination. Consequences, in\na word, affect large numbers beyond those immediately concerned in\nthe transaction. It is often thought that in a socialistic state the\nformation and dissolution of marriages would cease to have a public\nphase. It is possible. But it is also possible that such a state would\nbe even more alive than is the community at present to the consequences\nof the union of man and woman not only upon children but upon its\nown well-being and stability. In that case certain regulations would\nbe relaxed, but there might be imposed stringent rules as to health,\neconomic capacity and psychologic compatibility as preconditions of\nwedlock.\n\nNo one can take into account all the consequences of the acts he\nperforms. It is a matter of necessity for him, as a rule, to limit his\nattention and foresight to matters which, as we say, are distinctively\nhis own business. Any one who looked too far abroad with regard to\nthe outcome of what he is proposing to do would, if there were no\ngeneral rules in existence, soon be lost in a hopelessly complicated\nmuddle of considerations. The man of most generous outlook has to\ndraw the line somewhere, and he is forced to draw it in whatever\nconcerns those closely associated with himself. In the absence of some\nobjective regulation, effects upon them are all he can be sure of in\nany reasonable degree. Much of what is called selfishness is but the\noutcome of limitation of observation and imagination. Hence when\nconsequences concern a large number, a number so mediately involved\nthat a person cannot readily prefigure how they are to be affected,\nthat number is constituted a public which intervenes. It is not merely\nthat the combined observations of a number cover more ground than those\nof a single person. It is rather that the public itself, being unable\nto forecast and estimate all consequences, establishes certain dikes\nand channels so that actions are confined within prescribed limits, and\ninsofar have moderately predictable consequences.\n\nThe regulations and laws of the state are therefore misconceived when\nthey are viewed as commands. The \u201ccommand\u201d theory of common and statute\nlaw is in reality a dialectical consequence of the theories, previously\ncriticized, which define the state in terms of an antecedent causation,\nspecifically of that theory which takes \u201cwill\u201d to be the causal force\nwhich generates the state. If a will is the origin of the state, then\nstate-action expresses itself in injunctions and prohibitions imposed\nby its will upon the wills of subjects. Sooner or later, however,\nthe question arises as to the justification of the will which issues\ncommands. Why should the will of the rulers have more authority than\nthat of others? Why should the latter submit? The logical conclusion\nis that the ground of obedience lies ultimately in superior force. But\nthis conclusion is an obvious invitation to trial of forces to see\nwhere superior force lies. In fact the idea of authority is abolished,\nand that of force substituted. The next dialectical conclusion is that\nthe will in question is something over and above any private will or\nany collection of such wills: is some overruling \u201cgeneral will.\u201d This\nconclusion was drawn by Rousseau, and under the influence of German\nmetaphysics was erected into a dogma of a mystic and transcendent\nabsolute will, which in turn was not another name for force only\nbecause it was identified with absolute reason. The alternative to one\nor other of these conclusions is surrender of the causal authorship\ntheory and the adoption of that of widely distributed consequences,\nwhich, when they are perceived, create a common interest and the need\nof special agencies to care for it.\n\nRules of law are in fact the institution of conditions under which\npersons make their arrangements with one another. They are structures\nwhich canalize action; they are active forces only as are banks which\nconfine the flow of a stream, and are commands only in the sense in\nwhich the banks command the current. If individuals had no stated\nconditions under which they come to agreement with one another, any\nagreement would either terminate in a twilight zone of vagueness\nor would have to cover such an enormous amount of detail as to be\nunwieldy and unworkable. Each agreement, moreover, might vary so from\nevery other that nothing could be inferred from one arrangement as\nto the probable consequences of any other. Legal rules state certain\nconditions which when met make an agreement a contract. The terms of\nthe agreement are thereby canalized within manageable limits, and it\nis possible to generalize and predict from one to another. Only the\nexigencies of a theory lead one to hold that there is a command that\nan agreement be made in such and such a form.[2] What happens is that\ncertain conditions are set such that _if_ a person conform to them, he\ncan count on certain consequences, while if he fails to do so he cannot\nforecast consequences. He takes a chance and runs the risk of having\nthe whole transaction invalidated to his loss. There is no reason\nto interpret even the \u201cprohibitions\u201d of criminal law in any other\nway. Conditions are stated in reference to consequences which may be\nincurred if they are infringed or transgressed. We can similarly state\nthe undesirable results which will happen if a stream breaks through\nits banks; if the stream were capable of foreseeing these consequences\nand directing its behavior by the foresight, we might metaphorically\nconstrue the banks as issuing a prohibition.\n\nThis account explains both the large arbitrary and contingent element\nin laws and their plausible identification with reason, dissimilar\nas are the two considerations. There are many transactions in which\nthe thing of chief importance is that consequences be determinate in\n_some_ fashion rather than that they be determined by some inherent\nprinciple to be just such and such. In other words, within limits it\nis indifferent what results are fixed by the conditions settled upon;\nwhat is important is that the consequences be certain enough to be\npredictable. The rule of the road is typical of a large number of\nrules. So is the fixing of sunset or of a specified hour as the exact\ntime when the felonious entering of the premises of another takes on a\nmore serious quality. On the other hand, rules of law are reasonable\nso that \u201creason\u201d is appealed to by some as their fount and origin on\nthe ground pointed out by Hume.[3] Men are naturally shortsighted,\nand the shortsightedness is increased and perverted by the influence\nof appetite and passion. \u201cThe law\u201d formulates remote and long-run\nconsequences. It then operates as a condensed available check on the\nnaturally overweening influence of immediate desire and interest over\ndecision. It is a means of doing for a person what otherwise only his\nown foresight, if thoroughly reasonable, could do. For a rule of law,\nalthough it may be laid down because of a special act as its occasion,\nis formulated in view of an indefinite variety of other possible\nacts. It is necessarily a generalization; for it is generic as to the\npredictable consequences of a _class_ of facts. If the incidents of a\nparticular occasion exercise undue influence upon the content of a rule\nof law, it will soon be overruled, either explicitly or by neglect.\nUpon this theory, the law as \u201cembodied reason\u201d means a formulated\ngeneralization of means and procedures in behavior which are adapted\nto secure what is wanted. Reason expresses a function, not a causal\norigin. Law is reasonable as a man is sensible who selects and arranges\nconditions adapted to produce the ends he regards as desirable. A\nrecent writer, who regards \u201creason\u201d as that which generates laws, says,\n\u201cA debt does not in reason cease to be a debt because time has passed,\nbut the law sets up a limitation. A trespass does not cease in reason\nto be a trespass because it is indefinitely repeated, yet the law shows\na tendency to admit an unresisted trespass in time to the status of\nright. Time, distance and chance are indifferent to pure reason; but\nthey play their part in the legal order.\u201d[4] But if reasonableness is\na matter of adaptation of means to consequences, time and distance are\nthings to be given great weight; for they effect both consequences and\nthe ability to foresee them and to act upon them. Indeed, we might\nselect statutes of limitation as excellent examples of the kind of\nrationality the law contains. Only if reason is looked upon as \u201cpure,\u201d\nthat is as a matter of formal logic, do the instances cited manifest\nlimitation of reason.\n\nA third mark of the public organized as a state, a mark which also\nprovides a test of our hypothesis, is that it is concerned with modes\nof behavior which are old and hence well established, engrained.\nInvention is a peculiarly personal act, even when a number of persons\ncombine to make something new. A novel idea is the kind of thing\nthat has to occur to somebody in the singular sense. A new project\nis something to be undertaken and set agoing by private initiative.\nThe newer an idea or plan, the more it deviates from what is already\nrecognized and established in practice. By the nature of the case an\ninnovation is a departure from the customary. Hence the resistance it\nis likely to encounter. We, to be sure, live in an era of discoveries\nand inventions. Speaking generically, innovation itself has become a\ncustom. Imagination is wonted to it; it is expected. When novelties\ntake the form of mechanical appliances, we incline to welcome them. But\nthis is far from always having been the case. The rule has been to look\nwith suspicion and greet with hostility the appearance of anything new,\neven a tool or utensil. For an innovation _is_ a departure, and one\nwhich brings in its train some incalculable disturbance of the behavior\nto which we have grown used and which seems \u201cnatural.\u201d As a recent\nwriter has clearly shown, inventions have made their way insidiously;\nand because of some immediate convenience. If their effects, their\nlong-run consequences, in altering habits of behavior had been\nforeseen, it is safe to say that most of them would have been destroyed\nas wicked, just as many of them were retarded in adoption because they\nwere felt to be sacrilegious.[5] In any case, we cannot think of their\ninvention being the work of the state.[6]\n\nThe organized community is still hesitant with reference to new ideas\nof a non-technical and non-technological nature. They are felt to\nbe disturbing to social behavior; and rightly so, as far as old and\nestablished behavior is concerned. Most persons object to having\ntheir habits unsettled, their habits of belief no less than habits\nof overt action. A new idea _is_ an unsettling of received beliefs;\notherwise, it would not be a new idea. This is only to say that the\nproduction of new ideas is peculiarly a private performance. About the\nmost we can ask of the state, judging from states which have so far\nexisted, is that it put up with their production by private individuals\nwithout undue meddling. A state which will organize to manufacture and\ndisseminate new ideas and new ways of thinking may come into existence\nsome time, but such a state is a matter of faith, not sight. When it\ncomes it will arrive because the beneficial consequences of new ideas\nhave become an article of common faith and repute. It may, indeed, be\nsaid that even now the state provides those conditions of security\nwhich are necessary if private persons are to engage effectually\nin discovery and invention. But this service is a by-product; it\nis foreign to the grounds on which the conditions in question are\nmaintained by the public. And it must be offset by noting the extent to\nwhich the state of affairs upon which the public heart is most set is\nunfavorable to thinking in other than technical lines. In any case, it\nis absurd to expect the public, because it is called in no matter how\neulogistic a sense the state, to rise above the intellectual level of\nits average constituents.\n\nWhen, however, a mode of behavior has become old and familiar, and when\nan instrumentality has come into use as a matter of course, provided\nit is a prerequisite of other customary pursuits, it tends to come\nwithin the scope of the state. An individual may make his own track in\na forest; but highways are usually public concerns. Without roads which\none is free to use at will, men might almost as well be castaways on\na desert island. Means of transit and communication affect not only\nthose who utilize them but all who are dependent in any way upon what\nis transported, whether as producers or consumers. The increase of easy\nand rapid intercommunication means that production takes place more and\nmore for distant markets and it puts a premium upon mass-production.\nThus it becomes a disputed question whether railroads as well as\nhighways should not be administered by public officials, and in any\ncase some measure of official regulation is instituted, as they become\nsettled bases of social life.\n\nThe tendency to put what is old and established in uniform lines\nunder the regulation of the state has psychological support. Habits\neconomize intellectual as well as muscular energy. They relieve the\nmind from thought of means, thus freeing thought to deal with new\nconditions and purposes. Moreover, interference with a well-established\nhabit is followed by uneasiness and antipathy. The efficiency of\nliberation from attention to whatever is regularly recurrent is\nre\u00ebnforced by an emotional tendency to get rid of bother. Hence there\nis a general disposition to turn over activities which have become\nhighly standardized and uniform to representatives of the public. It\nis possible that the time will come when not only railways will have\nbecome routine in their operation and management, but also existing\nmodes of machine production, so that business men instead of opposing\npublic ownership will clamor for it in order that they may devote\ntheir energies to affairs which involve more novelty, variation and\nopportunities for risk and gain. They might conceivably, even under\na r\u00e9gime of continued private property in general, no more wish to\nbe bothered with routinized operations than they would want to take\nover the care of public streets. Even now the question of the public\u2019s\ntaking charge of the machinery of the manufacture of goods is less a\nmatter of wholesale \u201cindividualism\u201d versus \u201csocialism\u201d than it is of\nthe ratio of the experimental and novel in their management to the\nhabitual and matter-of-course; of that which is taken for granted as\na condition of other things to that which is significant in its own\noperation.\n\nA fourth mark of the public is indicated by the idea that children and\nother dependents (such as the insane, the permanently helpless) are\npeculiarly its wards. When the parties involved in any transaction are\nunequal in status, the relationship is likely to be one-sided, and the\ninterests of one party to suffer. If the consequences appear serious,\nespecially if they seem to be irretrievable, the public brings to bear\na weight that will equalize conditions. Legislatures are more ready to\nregulate the hours of labor of children than of adults, of women than\nof men. In general, labor legislation is justified against the charge\nthat it violates liberty of contract on the ground that the economic\nresources of the parties to the arrangement are so disparate that\nthe conditions of a genuine contract are absent; action by the state\nis introduced to form a level on which bargaining takes place. Labor\nunions often object, however, to such \u201cpaternalistic\u201d legislation on\nthe ground that voluntary combinations to ensure collective bargaining\nis better for those concerned than action taken without the active\nparticipation of laborers. The general objection that paternalism tends\nto keep those affected by it permanently in the status of children,\nwithout an impetus to help themselves, rests on the same basis.\nThe difference here is nevertheless not as to the principle that\ninequality of status may call for public intervention, but as to the\nbest means of securing and maintaining equality.\n\nThere has been a steady tendency for the education of children to be\nregarded as properly a state charge in spite of the fact that children\nare primarily the care of a family. But the period in which education\nis possible to an effective degree is that of childhood; if this time\nis not taken advantage of the consequences are irreparable. The neglect\ncan rarely be made up later. In the degree, then, that a certain\nmeasure of instruction and training is deemed to have significant\nconsequences for the social body, rules are laid down affecting the\naction of parents in relation to their children, and those who are not\nparents are taxed--Herbert Spencer to the contrary notwithstanding--to\nmaintain schools. Again, the consequences of neglect of safeguards in\nindustries involving machines which are dangerous and those presenting\nunhygienic conditions, are so serious and irretrievable that the modern\npublic has intervened to maintain conditions conducive to safety and\nhealth. Movements which aim at insurance against illness and old-age\nunder governmental auspices illustrate the same principle. While public\nregulation of a minimum wage is still a disputed matter, the argument\nin behalf of it appeals to the criterion stated. The argument in effect\nis that a living wage is a matter of such serious indirect consequences\nto society that it cannot be safely left to the parties directly\nconcerned, owing to the fact that immediate need may incapacitate one\nparty to the transaction from effective bargaining.\n\nIn what has been said there is no attempt to lay down criteria to be\napplied in a predetermined way to ensure just such and such results. We\nare not concerned to predict the special forms which state action will\ntake in the future. We have simply been engaged in pointing out the\nmarks by which public action as distinct from private is characterized.\nTransactions between singular persons and groups bring a public into\nbeing when their indirect consequences--their effects beyond those\nimmediately engaged in them--are of importance. Vagueness is not\neliminated from the idea of importance. But at least we have pointed\nout some of the factors which go to make up importance: namely, the\nfar-reaching character of consequences, whether in space or time; their\nsettled, uniform and recurrent nature, and their irreparableness. Each\none of these matters involves questions of degree. There is no sharp\nand clear line which draws itself, pointing out beyond peradventure,\nlike the line left by a receding high tide, just where a public comes\ninto existence which has interests so significant that they must be\nlooked after and administered by special agencies, or governmental\nofficers. Hence there is often room for dispute. The line of\ndemarcation between actions left to private initiative and management\nand those regulated by the state has to be discovered experimentally.\n\nAs we shall see later, there are assignable reasons why it will be\ndrawn very differently at different times and places. The very fact\nthat the public depends upon consequences of acts and the perception\nof consequences, while its organization into a state depends upon the\nability to invent and employ special instrumentalities, shows how and\nwhy publics and political institutions differ widely from epoch to\nepoch and from place to place. To suppose that an _a priori_ conception\nof the intrinsic nature and limits of the individual on one side and\nthe state on the other will yield good results once for all is absurd.\nIf, however, the state has a definite nature, as it should have if it\nwere formed by fixed causal agencies, or if individuals have a nature\nfixed once for all apart from conditions of association, a final and\nwholesale partitioning of the realms of personal and state activity is\nthe logical conclusion. The failure of such a theory to reach practical\nsolutions is, therefore, a further confirmation of the theory which\nemphasizes the consequences of activity as the essential affair.\n\nIn conclusion, we shall make explicit what has been implied regarding\nthe relation to one another of public, government and state.[7] There\nhave been two extreme views about this point. On one hand, the state\nhas been identified with government. On the other hand, the state,\nhaving a necessary existence of its own, _per se_, is said then to\nproceed to form and employ certain agencies forming government, much\nas a man hires servants and assigns them duties. The latter view is\nappropriate when the causal agency theory is relied upon. Some force,\nwhether a general will or the singular wills of assembled individuals,\ncalls the state into being. Then the latter as a secondary operation\nchooses certain persons through whom to act. Such a theory helps those\nwho entertain it to retain the idea of the inherent sanctity of the\nstate. Concrete political evils such as history exhibits in abundance\ncan be laid at the door of fallible and corrupt governments, while\nthe state keeps its honor unbesmirched. The identification of the\nstate with government has the advantage of keeping the mind\u2019s eye\nupon concrete and observable facts; but it involves an unaccountable\nseparation between rulers and people. If a government exists by itself\nand on its own account, why should there be government? Why should\nthere persist the habits of loyalty and obedience which permit it to\nrule?\n\nThe hypothesis which has been advanced frees us from the perplexities\nwhich cluster about both of these two notions. The lasting, extensive\nand serious consequences of associated activity bring into existence a\npublic. In itself it is unorganized and formless. By means of officials\nand their special powers it becomes a state. A public articulated and\noperating through representative officers is the state; there is no\nstate without a government, but also there is none without the public.\nThe officers are still singular beings, but they exercise new and\nspecial powers. These may be turned to their private account. Then\ngovernment is corrupt and arbitrary. Quite apart from deliberate graft,\nfrom using unusual powers for private glorification and profit, density\nof mind and pomposity of behavior, adherence to class-interest and its\nprejudices, are strengthened by position. \u201cPower is poison\u201d was the\nremark of one of the best, shrewdest and most experienced observers\nof Washington politicians. On the other hand, occupancy of office may\nenlarge a man\u2019s views and stimulate his social interest so that he\nexhibits as a statesman traits foreign to his private life.\n\nBut since the public forms a state only by and through officials\nand their acts, and since holding official position does not work\na miracle of transubstantiation, there is nothing perplexing nor\neven discouraging in the spectacle of the stupidities and errors of\npolitical behavior. The facts which give rise to the spectacle should,\nhowever, protect us from the illusion of expecting extraordinary change\nto follow from a mere change in political agencies and methods. Such\na change sometimes occurs, but when it does, it is because the social\nconditions, in generating a new public, have prepared the way for it;\nthe state sets a formal seal upon forces already in operation by giving\nthem a defined channel through which to act. Conceptions of \u201cThe State\u201d\nas something _per se_, something intrinsically manifesting a general\nwill and reason, lend themselves to illusions. They make such a sharp\ndistinction between _the_ state and _a_ government that, from the\nstandpoint of the theories, a government may be corrupt and injurious\nand yet The State by the same idea retain its inherent dignity and\nnobility. Officials may be mean, obstinate, proud and stupid and\nyet the nature of the state which they serve remain essentially\nunimpaired. Since, however, a public is organized into a state through\nits government, the state is as its officials are. Only through\nconstant watchfulness and criticism of public officials by citizens can\na state be maintained in integrity and usefulness.\n\nThe discussion also returns with some added illumination to the problem\nof the relation of state and society. The problem of the relation of\nindividuals to associations--sometimes posed as the relation of _the_\nindividual to society--is a meaningless one. We might as well make\na problem out of the relation of the letters of an alphabet to the\nalphabet. An alphabet is letters, and \u201csociety\u201d is individuals in their\nconnections with one another. The mode of combination of letters with\none another is obviously a matter of importance; letters form words\nand sentences when combined, and have no point nor sense except in\nsome combination. I would not say that the latter statement applies\nliterally to individuals, but it cannot be gainsaid that singular\nhuman beings exist and behave in constant and varied association with\none another. These modes of conjoint action and their consequences\nprofoundly affect not only the outer habits of singular persons, but\ntheir dispositions in emotion, desire, planning and valuing.\n\n\u201cSociety,\u201d however, is either an abstract or a collective noun. In\nthe concrete, there are societies, associations, groups of an immense\nnumber of kinds, having different ties and instituting different\ninterests. They may be gangs, criminal bands; clubs for sport,\nsociability and eating; scientific and professional organizations;\npolitical parties and unions within them; families; religious\ndenominations, business partnerships and corporations; and so on\nin an endless list. The associations may be local, nationwide and\ntrans-national. Since there is no one _thing_ which may be called\nsociety, except their indefinite overlapping, there is no unqualified\neulogistic connotation adhering to the term \u201csociety.\u201d Some societies\nare in the main to be approved; some to be condemned, on account of\ntheir consequences upon the character and conduct of those engaged\nin them and because of their remoter consequences upon others. All\nof them, like all things human, are mixed in quality; \u201csociety\u201d is\nsomething to be approached and judged critically and discriminatingly.\n\u201cSocialization\u201d of some sort--that is, the reflex modification of\nwants, beliefs and work because of share in a united action--is\ninevitable. But it is as marked in the formation of frivolous,\ndissipated, fanatical, narrow-minded and criminal persons as in that\nof competent inquirers, learned scholars, creative artists and good\nneighbors.\n\nConfining our notice to the results which are desirable, it appears\nthat there is no reason for assigning all the values which are\ngenerated and maintained by means of human associations to the\nwork of states. Yet the same unbridled generalizing and fixating\ntendency of the mind which leads to a monistic fixation of society\nhas extended beyond the hypostatizing of \u201csociety\u201d and produced a\nmagnified idealization of The State. All values which result from any\nkind of association are habitually imputed by one school of social\nphilosophers to the state. Naturally the result is to place the state\nbeyond criticism. Revolt against the state is then thought to be the\none unforgivable social sin. Sometimes the deification proceeds from\na special need of the time, as in the cases of Spinoza and Hegel.\nSometimes it springs from a prior belief in universal will and reason\nand a consequent need of finding some empirical phenomena which may\nbe identified with the externalization of this absolute spirit. Then\nthis is employed, by circular logic, as evidence for the existence of\nsuch a spirit. The net import of our discussion is that a state is a\ndistinctive and secondary form of association, having a specifiable\nwork to do and specified organs of operation.\n\nIt is quite true that most states, after they have been brought into\nbeing, react upon the primary groupings. When a state is a good state,\nwhen the officers of the public genuinely serve the public interests,\nthis reflex effect is of great importance. It renders the desirable\nassociations solider and more coherent; indirectly it clarifies their\naims and purges their activities. It places a discount upon injurious\ngroupings and renders their tenure of life precarious. In performing\nthese services, it gives the individual members of valued associations\ngreater liberty and security: it relieves them of hampering conditions\nwhich if they had to cope with personally would absorb their energies\nin mere negative struggle against evils. It enables individual members\nto count with reasonable certainty upon what others will do, and thus\nfacilitates mutually helpful co\u00f6perations. It creates respect for\nothers and for one\u2019s self. A measure of the goodness of a state is the\ndegree in which it relieves individuals from the waste of negative\nstruggle and needless conflict and confers upon him positive assurance\nand re\u00ebnforcement in what he undertakes. This is a great service, and\nthere is no call to be niggardly in acknowledging the transformations\nof group and personal action which states have historically effected.\n\nBut this recognition cannot be legitimately converted into the\nmonopolistic absorption of all associations into The State, nor of all\nsocial values into political value. The all-inclusive nature of the\nstate signifies only that officers of the public (including, of course,\nlaw-makers) may act so as to fix conditions under which _any_ form of\nassociation operates; its comprehensive character refers only to the\nimpact of its behavior. A war like an earthquake may \u201cinclude\u201d in its\nconsequences all elements in a given territory, but the inclusion is\nby way of effects, not by inherent nature or right. A beneficent law,\nlike a condition of general economic prosperity, may favorably affect\nall interests in a particular region, but it cannot be called a whole\nof which the elements influenced are parts. Nor can the liberating and\nconfirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale\nidealization of states in contrast with other associations. For state\nactivity is often injurious to the latter. One of the chief occupations\nof states has been the waging of war and the suppression of dissentient\nminorities. Moreover, their action, even when benign, presupposes\nvalues due to non-political forms of living together which are but\nextended and re\u00ebnforced by the public through its agents.\n\nThe hypothesis which we have supported has obvious points of contact\nwith what is known as the pluralistic conception of the state. It\npresents also a marked point of difference. Our doctrine of plural\nforms is a statement of a fact: that there exist a plurality of social\ngroupings, good, bad and indifferent. It is not a doctrine which\nprescribes inherent limits to state action. It does not intimate that\nthe function of the state is limited to settling conflicts among other\ngroups, as if each one of them had a fixed scope of action of its own.\nWere that true, the state would be only an umpire to avert and remedy\ntrespasses of one group upon another. Our hypothesis is neutral as to\nany general, sweeping implications as to how far state activity may\nextend. It does not indicate any particular polity of public action.\nAt times, the consequences of the conjoint behavior of some persons\nmay be such that a large public interest is generated which can be\nfulfilled only by laying down conditions which involve a large measure\nof reconstruction within that group. There is no more an inherent\nsanctity in a church, trade-union, business corporation, or family\ninstitution than there is in the state. Their value is also to be\nmeasured by their consequences. The consequences vary with concrete\nconditions; hence at one time and place a large measure of state\nactivity may be indicated and at another time a policy of quiescence\nand _laissez-faire_. Just as publics and states vary with conditions of\ntime and place, so do the concrete functions which should be carried on\nby states. There is no antecedent universal proposition which can be\nlaid down because of which the functions of a state should be limited\nor should be expanded. Their scope is something to be critically and\nexperimentally determined.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE DEMOCRATIC STATE\n\n\nSingular persons are the foci of action, mental and moral, as well\nas overt. They are subject to all kinds of social influences which\ndetermine _what_ they can think of, plan and choose. The conflicting\nstreams of social influence come to a single and conclusive issue\nonly in personal consciousness and deed. When a public is generated,\nthe same law holds. It arrives at decisions, makes terms and executes\nresolves only through the medium of individuals. They are officers;\nthey represent a Public, but the Public acts only through them. We\nsay in a country like our own that legislators and executives are\nelected by the public. The phrase might appear to indicate that the\nPublic acts. But, after all, individual men and women exercise the\nfranchise; the public is here a collective name for a multitude of\npersons each voting as an anonymous unit. As a citizen-voter each one\nof these persons is, however, an officer of the public. He expresses\nhis will as a representative of the public interest as much so as\ndoes a senator or sheriff. His vote may express his hope to profit in\nprivate purse by the election of some man or the ratification of some\nproposed law. He may fail, in other words, in effort to represent the\ninterest entrusted to him. But in this respect he does not differ\nfrom those explicitly designated public officials who have also been\nknown to betray the interest committed to them instead of faithfully\nrepresenting it.\n\nIn other words, every officer of the public, whether he represents it\nas a voter or as a stated official, has a dual capacity. From this fact\nthe most serious problem of government arises. We commonly speak of\nsome governments as representative in contrast with others which are\nnot. By our hypothesis all governments are representative in that they\npurport to stand for the interests which a public has in the behavior\nof individuals and groups. There is, however, no contradiction here.\nThose concerned in government are still human beings. They retain\ntheir share of the ordinary traits of human nature. They still have\nprivate interests to serve and interests of special groups, those of\nthe family, clique or class to which they belong. Rarely can a person\nsink himself in his political function; the best which most men attain\nto is the domination by the public weal of their other desires. What is\nmeant by \u201crepresentative\u201d government is that the public is definitely\norganized with the intent to secure this dominance. The dual capacity\nof every officer of the public leads to conflict in individuals between\ntheir genuinely political aims and acts and those which they possess in\ntheir non-political r\u00f4les. When the public adopts special measures to\nsee to it that the conflict is minimized and that the representative\nfunction overrides the private one, political institutions are termed\nrepresentative.\n\nIt may be said that not until recently have publics been conscious\nthat they were publics, so that it is absurd to speak of their\norganizing themselves to protect and secure their interests. Hence\nstates are a recent development. The facts are, indeed, fatally\nagainst attribution of any long history to states provided we use a\nhard and fast conceptual definition of states. But our definition is\nfounded on the exercise of a function, not on any inherent essence\nor structural nature. Hence it is more or less a verbal matter just\nwhat countries and peoples are called states. What is of importance is\nthat the facts which significantly differentiate various forms from\none another be recognized. The objection just urged points to a fact\nof great significance, whether the word \u201cstate\u201d be used or not. It\nindicates that for long stretches of time the public r\u00f4le of rulers has\nbeen incidental to other ends for which they have used their powers.\nThere has been a machinery of government, but it has been employed for\npurposes which in the strict sense are non-political, the deliberate\nadvancement of dynastic interests. Thus we come upon the primary\nproblem of the public: to achieve such recognition of itself as will\ngive it weight in the selection of official representatives and in\nthe definition of their responsibilities and rights. Consideration of\nthis problem leads us, as we shall see, into the discussion of the\ndemocratic state.\n\nTaking history as a whole, the selection of rulers and equipment of\nthem with powers has been a matter of political accident. Persons have\nbeen selected as judges, executives and administrators for reasons\nindependent of capacity to serve public interests. Some of the Greek\nstates of antiquity and the examination system of China stand out for\nthe very reason that they are exceptions to this statement. History\nshows that, in the main, persons have ruled because of some prerogative\nand conspicuous place which was independent of their definitively\npublic r\u00f4le. If we introduce the idea of the public at all, we are\nbound to say that it was assumed without question that certain persons\nwere fit to be rulers because of traits independent of political\nconsiderations. Thus in many societies the male elders exercised such\nrule as obtained in virtue of the mere fact that they were old men.\nGerontocracy is a familiar and widespread fact. Doubtless there was a\npresumption that age was a sign of knowledge of group traditions and\nof matured experience, but it can hardly be said that this presumption\nwas consciously the influential factor in giving old men a monopoly of\nrule. Rather they had it _ipso facto_, because they had it. A principle\nof inertia, of least resistance and least action, operated. Those who\nwere already conspicuous in some respect, were it only for long gray\nbeards, had political powers conferred upon them.\n\nSuccess in military achievement is an irrelevant factor which has\ncontrolled the selection of men to rule. Whether or no \u201ccamps are the\ntrue mothers of cities,\u201d whether or no Herbert Spencer was right in\ndeclaring that government originated in chieftainship for war purposes,\nthere is no doubt that, in most communities, the ability of a man to\nwin battles has seemed to mark him out as a predestined manager of\nthe civil affairs of a community. There is no need to argue that the\ntwo positions demand different gifts, and that achievement in one is\nno proof of fitness for the other. The fact remains. Nor do we have\nto look at ancient states for evidence of its effective operation.\nStates nominally democratic show the same tendency to assume that a\nwinning general has some quasi-divine appointment to political office.\nReason would teach that oftentimes even the politicians who are most\nsuccessful in instigating the willingness of the civilian population\nto support a war are by that very fact incapacitated for the offices\nof making a just and enduring peace. But the treaty of Versailles is\nthere to show how difficult it is to make a shift of personnel even\nwhen conditions radically alter so that there is need for men of a\nchanged outlook and interests. To those who have, it shall be given. It\nis human nature to think along the easiest lines, and this induces men\nwhen they want conspicuous leaders in the civil function to fasten upon\nthose who are already conspicuous, no matter what the reason.\n\nAside from old men and warriors, medicine men and priests have had\na ready-made, predestined vocation to rule. Where the community\nwelfare is precarious and dependent upon the favor of supernatural\nbeings, those skilled in the arts by which the wrath and jealousy\nof the gods are averted and their favor procured, have the marks of\nsuperior capacity to administer states. Success in living to an old\nage, in battle and in occult arts, have, however, been most signalized\nin the _initiation_ of political r\u00e9gimes. What has counted most in\nthe long run is the dynastic factor. _Beati possidentes._ The family\nfrom which a ruler has been taken occupies in virtue of that fact a\nconspicuous position and superior power. Pre\u00ebminence in status is\nreadily taken for excellence. Divine favor _ex officio_ attends a\nfamily in which rule has been exercised for enough generations so that\nthe memory of original exploits has grown dim or become legendary. The\nemoluments, pomp and power which go with rule are not thought to need\njustification. They not only embellish and dignify it, but are regarded\nas symbols of intrinsic worthiness to possess it. Custom consolidates\nwhat accident may have originated; established power has a way of\nlegitimizing itself. Alliances with other potent families within and\nwithout the country, possession of large landed estates, a retinue of\ncourtiers and access to revenues of the state, with a multitude of\nother things irrelevant to the public interest, establish a dynastic\nposition at the same time that they divert the genuine political\nfunction to private ends.\n\nAn additional complication is introduced because the glory, wealth\nand power of rulers constitutes in itself an invitation to seize and\nexploit office. The causes which operate to induce men to strive\nfor any shining object operate with increased appeal in the case of\ngovernmental power. The centralization and scope of functions which\nare needed in order to serve the interests of the public become, in\nother words, seductions to draw state officials into subserving private\nends. All history shows how difficult it is for human beings to bear\neffectually in mind the objects for the nominal sake of which they are\nclothed with power and pomp; it shows the ease with which they employ\ntheir panoply to advance private and class interests. Were actual\ndishonesty the only, or even chief, foe, the problem would be much\nsimpler. The ease of routine, the difficulty of ascertaining public\nneeds, the intensity of the glare which attends the seat of the mighty,\ndesire for immediate and visible results, play the larger part. One\noften hears it said by socialists justly impatient with the present\neconomic r\u00e9gime that \u201cindustry should be taken out of private hands.\u201d\nOne recognizes what they intend: that it should cease to be regulated\nby desire for private profit and should function for the benefit of\nproducers and consumers, instead of being sidetracked to the advantage\nof financiers and stockholders. But one wonders whether those who\nso readily utter this saying have asked themselves into whose hands\nindustry is to pass? Into those of the public? But, alas, the public\nhas no hands except those of individual human beings. The essential\nproblem is that of transforming the action of such hands so that it\nwill be animated by regard for social ends. There is no magic by which\nthis result can be accomplished. The same causes which have led men to\nutilize concentrated political power to serve private purposes will\ncontinue to act to induce men to employ concentrated economic power\nin behalf of non-public aims. This fact does not imply the problem\nis insoluble. But it indicates where the problem resides, whatever\nguise it assumes. Since officers of the public have a dual make-up and\ncapacity, what conditions and what technique are necessary in order\nthat insight, loyalty and energy may be enlisted on the side of the\npublic and political r\u00f4le?\n\nThese commonplace considerations have been adduced as a background for\ndiscussion of the problems and prospects of democratic government.\nDemocracy is a word of many meanings. Some of them are of such a broad\nsocial and moral import as to be irrelevant to our immediate theme.\nBut one of the meanings is distinctly political, for it denotes a\nmode of government, a specified practice in selecting officials and\nregulating their conduct as officials. This is not the most inspiring\nof the different meanings of democracy; it is comparatively special in\ncharacter. But it contains about all that is relevant to _political_\ndemocracy. Now the theories and practices regarding the selection and\nbehavior of public officials which constitute political democracy have\nbeen worked out against the historical background just alluded to. They\nrepresent an effort in the first place to counteract the forces that\nhave so largely determined the possession of rule by accidental and\nirrelevant factors, and in the second place an effort to counteract the\ntendency to employ political power to serve private instead of public\nends. To discuss democratic government at large apart from its historic\nbackground is to miss its point and to throw away all means for an\nintelligent criticism of it. In taking the distinctively historical\npoint of view we do not derogate from the important and even superior\nclaims of democracy as an ethical and social ideal. We limit the topic\nfor discussion in such a way as to avoid \u201cthe great bad,\u201d the mixing of\nthings which need to be kept distinct.\n\nViewed as a historical tendency exhibited in a chain of movements which\nhave affected the forms of government over almost the entire globe\nduring the last century and a half, democracy is a complex affair.\nThere is a current legend to the effect that the movement originated\nin a single clear-cut idea, and has proceeded by a single unbroken\nimpetus to unfold itself to a predestined end, whether triumphantly\nglorious or fatally catastrophic. The myth is perhaps rarely held in\nso simple and unmixed a form. But something approaching it is found\nwhenever men either praise or damn democratic government absolutely,\nthat is, without comparing it with alternative polities. Even the\nleast accidental, the most deliberately planned, political forms do not\nembody some absolute and unquestioned good. They represent a choice,\namid a complex of contending forces, of that particular possibility\nwhich appears to promise the most good with the least attendant evil.\n\nSuch a statement, moreover, immensely oversimplifies. Political forms\ndo not originate in a once for all way. The greatest change, once it\nis accomplished, is simply the outcome of a vast series of adaptations\nand responsive accommodations, each to its own particular situation.\nLooking back, it is possible to make out a trend of more or less steady\nchange in a single direction. But it is, we repeat, mere mythology\nto attribute such unity of result as exists (which is always easy to\nexaggerate) to single force or principle. Political democracy has\nemerged as a kind of net consequence of a vast multitude of responsive\nadjustments to a vast number of situations, no two of which were alike,\nbut which tended to converge to a common outcome. The democratic\nconvergence, moreover, was not the result of distinctively political\nforces and agencies. Much less is democracy the product _of_ democracy,\nof some inherent nisus, or immanent idea. The temperate generalization\nto the effect that the unity of the democratic movement is found in\neffort to remedy evils experienced in consequence of prior political\ninstitutions realizes that it proceeded step by step, and that each\nstep was taken without foreknowledge of any ultimate result, and, for\nthe most part, under the immediate influence of a number of differing\nimpulses and slogans.\n\nIt is even more important to realize that the conditions out of which\nthe efforts at remedy grew and which it made possible for them to\nsucceed were primarily non-political in nature. For the evils were\nof long standing, and any account of the movement must raise two\nquestions: Why were efforts at improvement not made earlier, and, when\nthey were made, why did they take just the form which they did take?\nThe answers to both questions will be found in distinctive religious,\nscientific and economic changes which finally took effect in the\npolitical field, being themselves primarily non-political and innocent\nof democratic intent. Large questions and far-ranging ideas and ideals\narose during the course of the movement. But theories of the nature\nof the individual and his rights, of freedom and authority, progress\nand order, liberty and law, of the common good and a general will, of\ndemocracy itself, did not produce the movement. They reflected it in\nthought; after they emerged, they entered into subsequent strivings and\nhad practical effect.\n\nWe have insisted that the development of political democracy\nrepresents the convergence of a great number of social movements, no\none of which owed either its origin or its impetus to inspiration of\ndemocratic ideals or to planning for the eventual outcome. This fact\nmakes irrelevant both p\u00e6ans and condemnations based upon conceptual\ninterpretations of democracy, which, whether true or false, good or\nbad, are reflections of facts in thought, not their causal authors. In\nany case, the complexity of the historic events which have operated is\nsuch as to preclude any thought of rehearsing them in these pages, even\nif I had a knowledge and competency which are lacking. Two general and\nobvious considerations need, however, to be mentioned. Born in revolt\nagainst established forms of government and the state, the events which\nfinally culminated in democratic political forms were deeply tinged by\nfear of government, and were actuated by a desire to reduce it to a\nminimum so as to limit the evil it could do.\n\nSince established political forms were tied up with other institutions,\nespecially ecclesiastical, and with a solid body of tradition and\ninherited belief, the revolt also extended to the latter. Thus it\nhappened that the intellectual terms in which the movement expressed\nitself had a negative import even when they seemed to be positive.\nFreedom presented itself as an end in itself, though it signified in\nfact liberation from oppression and tradition. Since it was necessary,\nupon the intellectual side, to find justification for the movements\nof revolt, and since established authority was upon the side of\ninstitutional life, the natural recourse was appeal to some inalienable\nsacred authority resident in the protesting individuals. Thus\n\u201cindividualism\u201d was born, a theory which endowed singular persons in\nisolation from any associations, except those which they deliberately\nformed for their own ends, with native or natural rights. The revolt\nagainst old and limiting associations was converted, intellectually,\ninto the doctrine of independence of any and all associations.\n\nThus the practical movement for the limitation of the powers of\ngovernment became associated, as in the influential philosophy of\nJohn Locke, with the doctrine that the ground and justification of\nthe restriction was prior non-political rights inherent in the very\nstructure of the individual. From these tenets, it was a short step to\nthe conclusion that the sole end of government was the protection of\nindividuals in the rights which were theirs by nature. The American\nrevolution was a rebellion against an established government, and\nit naturally borrowed and expanded these ideas as the ideological\ninterpretation of the effort to obtain independence of the colonies.\nIt is now easy for the imagination to conceive circumstances under\nwhich revolts against prior governmental forms would have found its\ntheoretical formulation in an assertion of the rights of groups, of\nother associations than those of a political nature. There was no logic\nwhich rendered necessary the appeal to the individual as an independent\nand isolated being. In abstract logic, it would have sufficed to\nassert that some primary groupings had claims which the state could\nnot legitimately encroach upon. In that case, the celebrated modern\nantithesis of the Individual and Social, and the problem of their\nreconciliation, would not have arisen. The problem would have taken the\nform of defining the relationship which non-political groups bear to\npolitical union. But, as we have already remarked, the obnoxious state\nwas closely bound up in fact and in tradition with other associations,\necclesiastic (and through its influence with the family), and economic,\nsuch as gilds and corporations, and, by means of the church-state, even\nwith unions for scientific inquiry and with educational institutions.\nThe easiest way out was to go back to the naked individual, to sweep\naway all associations as foreign to his nature and rights save as they\nproceeded from his own voluntary choice, and guaranteed his own private\nends.\n\nNothing better exhibits the scope of the movement than the fact that\nphilosophic theories of knowledge made the same appeal to the self, or\nego, in the form of personal consciousness identified with mind itself,\nthat political theory made to the natural individual, as the court\nof ultimate resort. The schools of Locke and Descartes, however much\nthey were opposed in other respects, agreed in this, differing only\nas to whether the sentient or rational nature of the individual was\nthe fundamental thing. From philosophy the idea crept into psychology,\nwhich became an introspective and introverted account of isolated\nand ultimate private consciousness. Henceforth moral and political\nindividualism could appeal to \u201cscientific\u201d warrant for its tenets and\nemploy a vocabulary made current by psychology:--although in fact\nthe psychology appealed to as its scientific foundation was its own\noffspring.\n\nThe \u201cindividualistic\u201d movement finds a classic expression in the great\ndocuments of the French Revolution, which at one stroke did away with\nall forms of association, leaving, in theory, the bare individual\nface to face with the state. It would hardly have reached this point,\nhowever, if it had not been for a second factor, which must be noted.\nA new scientific movement had been made possible by the invention and\nuse of new mechanical appliances--the lens is typical--which focused\nattention upon tools like the lever and pendulum, which, although\nthey had long been in use, had not formed points of departure for\nscientific theory. This new development in inquiry brought, as Bacon\nforetold, great economic changes in its wake. It more than paid its\ndebt to tools by leading to the invention of machines. The use of\nmachinery in production and commerce was followed by the creation of\nnew powerful social conditions, personal opportunities and wants. Their\nadequate manifestation was limited by established political and legal\npractices. The legal regulations so affected every phase of life which\nwas interested in taking advantage of the new economic agencies as\nto hamper and oppress the free play of manufacture and exchange. The\nestablished custom of states, expressed intellectually in the theory of\nmercantilism against which Adam Smith wrote his account of \u201cThe (True)\nWealth of Nations,\u201d prevented the expansion of trade between nations,\na restriction which reacted to limit domestic industry. Internally,\nthere was a network of restrictions inherited from feudalism. The\nprices of labor and staples were not framed in the market by higgling\nbut were set by justices of the peace. The development of industry\nwas hampered by laws regulating choice of a calling, apprenticeship,\nmigration of workers from place to place,--and so on.\n\nThus fear of government and desire to limit its operations, because\nthey were hostile to the development of the new agencies of production\nand distribution of services and commodities, received powerful\nre\u00ebnforcement. The economic movement was perhaps the more influential\nbecause it operated, not in the name of the individual and his inherent\nrights, but in the name of Nature. Economic \u201claws,\u201d that of labor\nspringing from natural wants and leading to the creation of wealth, of\npresent abstinence in behalf of future enjoyment leading to creation\nof capital effective in piling up still more wealth, the free play\nof competitive exchange, designated the law of supply and demand,\nwere \u201cnatural\u201d laws. They were set in opposition to political laws as\nartificial, man-made affairs. The inherited tradition which remained\nleast questioned was a conception of Nature which made Nature something\nto conjure with. The older metaphysical conception of Natural Law\nwas, however, changed into an economic conception; laws of nature,\nimplanted in human nature, regulated the production and exchange of\ngoods and services, and in such a way that when they were kept free\nfrom artificial, that is political, meddling, they resulted in the\nmaximum possible social prosperity and progress. Popular opinion is\nlittle troubled by questions of logical consistency. The economic\ntheory of _laissez-faire_, based upon belief in beneficent natural laws\nwhich brought about harmony of personal profit and social benefit, was\nreadily fused with the doctrine of natural rights. They both had the\nsame practical import, and what is logic between friends? Thus the\nprotest of the utilitarian school, which sponsored the economic theory\nof natural law in economics, against natural right theories had no\neffect in preventing the popular amalgam of the two sides.\n\nThe utilitarian economic theory was such an important factor in\ndeveloping the theory, as distinct from the practice, of democratic\ngovernment that it is worth while to expound it in outline. Each person\nnaturally seeks the betterment of his own lot. This can be attained\nonly by industry. Each person is naturally the best judge of his\nown interests, and, if left free from the influence of artificially\nimposed restrictions, will express his judgment in his choice of work\nand exchange of services and goods. Thus, barring accident, he will\ncontribute to his own happiness in the measure of his energy in work,\nhis shrewdness in exchange and his self-denying thrift. Wealth and\nsecurity are the natural rewards of economic virtues. At the same\ntime, the industry, commercial zeal, and ability of individuals\ncontribute to the social good. Under the invisible hand of a beneficent\nprovidence which has framed natural laws, work, capital and trade\noperate harmoniously to the advantage and advance of men collectively\nand individually. The foe to be dreaded is interference of government.\nPolitical regulation is needed only because individuals accidentally\nand purposely--since the possession of property by the industrious\nand able is a temptation to the idle and shiftless--encroach upon\none another\u2019s activities and properties. This encroachment is the\nessence of injustice, and the function of government is to secure\njustice--which signifies chiefly the protection of property and of\nthe contracts which attend commercial exchange. Without the existence\nof the state men might appropriate one another\u2019s property. This\nappropriation is not only unfair to the laborious individual, but by\nmaking property insecure discourages the forthputting of energy at\nall and thus weakens or destroys the spring of social progress. On\nthe other hand, this doctrine of the function of the state operates\nautomatically as a limit imposed to governmental activities. The state\nis itself just only when it acts to secure justice--in the sense just\ndefined.\n\nThe political problem thus conceived is essentially a problem of\ndiscovering and instating a technique which will confine the operations\nof government as far as may be to its legitimate business of protecting\neconomic interests, of which the interest a man has in the integrity\nof his own life and body is a part. Rulers share the ordinary cupidity\nto possess property with a minimum of personal effort. Left to\nthemselves they take advantage of the power with which their official\nposition endows them to levy arbitrarily on the wealth of others. If\nthey protect the industry and property of private citizens against the\ninvasions of other private citizens, it is only that they may have\nmore resources upon which to draw for their own ends. The essential\nproblem of government thus reduces itself to this: What arrangements\nwill prevent rulers from advancing their own interests at the expense\nof the ruled? Or, in positive terms, by what political means shall the\ninterests of the governors be identified with those of the governed?\n\nThe answer was given, notably by James Mill, in a classic formulation\nof the nature of political democracy. Its significant features were\npopular election of officials, short terms of office and frequent\nelections. If public officials were dependent upon citizens for\nofficial position and its rewards, their personal interests would\ncoincide with those of people at large--at least of industrious and\nproperty-owning persons. Officials chosen by popular vote would find\ntheir election to office dependent upon presenting evidence of their\nzeal and skill in protecting the interests of the populace. Short\nterms and frequent elections would ensure their being held to regular\naccount; the polling-booth would constitute their day of judgment. The\nfear of it would operate as a constant check.\n\nOf course in this account I have oversimplified what was already\nan oversimplification. The dissertation of James Mill was written\nbefore the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. Taken pragmatically,\nit was an argument for the extension of the suffrage, then largely in\nthe hands of hereditary landowners, to manufacturers and merchants.\nJames Mill had nothing but dread of pure democracies. He opposed the\nextension of the franchise to women.[8] He was interested in the new\n\u201cmiddle-class\u201d forming under the influence of the application of\nsteam to manufacture and trade. His attitude is well expressed in his\nconviction that even if the suffrage were extended downwards, the\nmiddle-class \u201cwhich gives to science, art and legislation itself its\nmost distinguished ornaments, and which is the chief source of all\nthat is refined and exalted in human nature, is that portion of the\ncommunity of which the influence would ultimately decide.\u201d In spite,\nhowever, of oversimplification, and of its special historic motivation,\nthe doctrine claimed to rest upon universal psychological truth;\nit affords a fair picture of the principles which were supposed to\njustify the movement toward democratic government. It is unnecessary to\nindulge in extensive criticism. The differences between the conditions\npostulated by the theory and those which have actually obtained with\nthe development of democratic governments speak for themselves. The\ndiscrepancy is a sufficient criticism. This disparity itself shows,\nhowever, that what has happened sprang from no theory but was inherent\nin what was going on not only without respect to theories but without\nregard to politics: because, generally speaking, of the use of steam\napplied to mechanical inventions.\n\nIt would be a great mistake, however, to regard the idea of the\nisolated individual possessed of inherent rights \u201cby nature\u201d apart from\nassociation, and the idea of economic laws as natural, in comparison\nwith which political laws being artificial are injurious (save when\ncarefully subordinated), as idle and impotent. The ideas were something\nmore than flies on the turning wheels. They did not originate the\nmovement toward popular government, but they did profoundly influence\nthe forms which it assumed. Or perhaps it would be truer to say\nthat persistent older conditions, to which the theories were more\nfaithful than to the state of affairs they professed to report, were\nso re\u00ebnforced by the professed philosophy of the democratic state, as\nto exercise a great influence. The result was a skew, a deflection\nand distortion, in democratic forms. Putting the \u201cindividualistic\u201d\nmatter in a gross statement, which has to be corrected by later\nqualifications, we may say that \u201cthe individual,\u201d about which the new\nphilosophy centered itself, was in process of complete submergence\nin fact at the very time in which he was being elevated on high in\ntheory. As to the alleged subordination of political affairs to natural\nforces and laws, we may say that actual economic conditions were\nthoroughly artificial, in the sense in which the theory condemned the\nartificial. They supplied the man-made instrumentalities by which the\nnew governmental agencies were grasped and used to suit the desires of\nthe new class of business men.\n\nBoth of these statements are formal as well as sweeping. To acquire\nintelligible meaning they must be developed in some detail. Graham\nWallas prefixed to the first chapter of his book entitled \u201cThe Great\nSociety\u201d the following words of Woodrow Wilson, taken from _The New\nFreedom_: \u201cYesterday and ever since history began, men were related to\none another as individuals.... To-day, the everyday relationships of\nmen are largely with great impersonal concerns, with organizations, not\nwith other individuals. Now this is nothing short of a new social age,\na new age of human relationships, a new stage-setting for the drama of\nlife.\u201d If we accept these words as containing even a moderate degree\nof truth, they indicate the enormous ineptitude of the individualistic\nphilosophy to meet the needs and direct the factors of the new age.\nThey suggest what is meant by saying the theory of an individual\npossessed of desires and claims and endued with foresight and prudence\nand love of bettering himself was framed at just the time when the\nindividual was counting for less in the direction of social affairs, at\na time when mechanical forces and vast impersonal organizations were\ndetermining the frame of things.\n\nThe statement that \u201cyesterday and even since history began, men were\nrelated to one another as individuals\u201d is not true. Men have always\nbeen associated together in living, and association in conjoint\nbehavior has affected their relations to one another as individuals.\nIt is enough to recall how largely human relations have been permeated\nby patterns derived directly and indirectly from the family; even the\nstate was a dynastic affair. But none the less the contrast which Mr.\nWilson had in mind is a fact. The earlier associations were mostly of\nthe type well termed by Cooley[9] \u201cface-to-face.\u201d Those which were\nimportant, which really counted in forming emotional and intellectual\ndispositions, were local and contiguous and consequently visible. Human\nbeings, if they shared in them at all, shared directly and in a way\nof which they were aware in both their affections and their beliefs.\nThe state, even when it despotically interfered, was remote, an agency\nalien to daily life. Otherwise it entered men\u2019s lives through custom\nand common law. No matter how widespread their operation might be,\nit was not their breadth and inclusiveness which counted but their\nimmediate local presence. The church was indeed both a universal and\nan intimate affair. But it entered into the life of most human beings\nnot through its universality, as far as their thoughts and habits\nwere concerned, but through an immediate ministration of rites and\nsacraments. The new technology applied in production and commerce\nresulted in a social revolution. The local communities without intent\nor forecast found their affairs conditioned by remote and invisible\norganizations. The scope of the latter\u2019s activities was so vast\nand their impact upon face-to-face associations so pervasive and\nunremitting that it is no exaggeration to speak of \u201ca new age of human\nrelations.\u201d The Great Society created by steam and electricity may be\na society, but it is no community. The invasion of the community by\nthe new and relatively impersonal and mechanical modes of combined\nhuman behavior is the outstanding fact of modern life. In these ways\nof aggregate activity the community, in its strict sense, is not\na conscious partner, and over them it has no direct control. They\nwere, however, the chief factors in bringing into being national and\nterritorial states. The need of some control over them was the chief\nagency in making the government of these states democratic or popular\nin the current sense of these words.\n\nWhy, then, was a movement, which involved so much submerging of\npersonal action in the overflowing consequences of remote and\ninaccessible collective actions, reflected in a philosophy of\nindividualism? A complete answer is out of the question. Two\nconsiderations are, however, obvious and significant. The new\nconditions involved a release of human potentialities previously\ndormant. While their impact was unsettling to the community, it was\nliberating with respect to single persons, while its oppressive\nphase was hidden in the impenetrable mists of the future. Speaking\nwith greater correctness, the oppressive phase affected primarily\nthe elements of the community which were also depressed in the\nolder and semi-feudal conditions. Since they did not count for much\nanyway, being traditionally the drawers of water and hewers of wood,\nhaving emerged only in a legal sense from serfdom, the effect of new\neconomic conditions upon the laboring masses went largely unnoted. Day\nlaborers were still in effect, as openly in the classic philosophy,\nunderlying conditions of community life rather than members of it.\nOnly gradually did the effect upon them become apparent; by that time\nthey had attained enough power--were sufficiently important factors in\nthe new economic r\u00e9gime--to obtain political emancipation, and thus\nfigure in the forms of the democratic state. Meanwhile the liberating\neffect was markedly conspicuous with respect to the members of the\n\u201cmiddle-class,\u201d the manufacturing and mercantile class. It would be\nshort-sighted to limit the release of powers to opportunities to\nprocure wealth and enjoy its fruits, although the creation of material\nwants and ability to satisfy them are not to be lightly passed over.\nInitiative, inventiveness, foresight and planning were also stimulated\nand confirmed. This manifestation of new powers was on a sufficiently\nlarge scale to strike and absorb attention. The result was formulated\nas the discovery of the individual. The customary is taken for granted;\nit operates subconsciously. Breach of wont and use is focal; it forms\n\u201cconsciousness.\u201d The necessary and persistent modes of association\nwent unnoticed. The new ones, which were voluntarily undertaken,\noccupied thought exclusively. They monopolized the observed horizon.\n\u201cIndividualism\u201d was a doctrine which stated what was focal in thought\nand purpose.\n\nThe other consideration is akin. In the release of new powers singular\npersons were emancipated from a mass of old habits, regulations and\ninstitutions. We have already noted how the methods of production and\nexchange made possible by the new technology were hampered by the\nrules and customs of the prior r\u00e9gime. The latter were then felt to\nbe intolerably restrictive and oppressive. Since they hampered the\nfree play of initiative and commercial activity, they were artificial\nand enslaving. The struggle for emancipation from their influence was\nidentified with the liberty of the individual as such; in the intensity\nof the struggle, associations and institutions were condemned wholesale\nas foes of freedom save as they were products of personal agreement and\nvoluntary choice. That many forms of association remained practically\nuntouched was easily overlooked, just because they were matters of\ncourse. Indeed, any attempt to touch them, notably the established\nform of family association and the legal institution of property, were\nlooked upon as subversive, as license, not liberty, in the sanctified\nphrase. The identification of democratic forms of government with this\nindividualism was easy. The right of suffrage represented for the mass\na release of hitherto dormant capacity and also, in appearance at\nleast, a power to shape social relations on the basis of individual\nvolition.\n\nPopular franchise and majority rule afforded the imagination a picture\nof individuals in their untrammeled individual sovereignty making the\nstate. To adherents and opponents alike it presented the spectacle of a\npulverizing of established associations into the desires and intentions\nof atomic individuals. The forces, springing from combination and\ninstitutional organization which controlled below the surface the acts\nwhich formally issued from individuals, went unnoted. It is the essence\nof ordinary thought to grasp the external scene and hold it as reality.\nThe familiar eulogies of the spectacle of \u201cfree men\u201d going to the polls\nto determine by their personal volitions the political forms under\nwhich they should live is a specimen of this tendency to take whatever\nis readily seen as the full reality of a situation. In physical matters\nnatural science has successfully challenged this attitude. In human\nmatters it remains in almost full force.\n\nThe opponents of popular government were no more prescient than its\nsupporters, although they showed more logical sense in following the\nassumed individualistic premise to its conclusion: the disintegration\nof society. Carlyle\u2019s savage attacks upon the notion of a society\nheld together only by a \u201ccash-nexus\u201d are well known. Its inevitable\nterminus to him was \u201canarchy plus a constable.\u201d He did not see that\nthe new industrial r\u00e9gime was forging social bonds as rigid as those\nwhich were disappearing and much more extensive--whether desirable ties\nor not is another matter. Macaulay, the intellectualist of the Whigs,\nasserted that the extension of suffrage to the masses would surely\nresult in arousing the predatory impulses of the propertyless masses\nwho would use their new political power to despoil the middle as well\nas upper class. He added that while there was no longer danger that the\ncivilized portions of humanity would be overthrown by the savage and\nbarbarous portions, it was possible that in the bosom of civilization\nwould be engendered the malady which would destroy it.\n\nIncidentally we have trenched upon the other doctrine, the idea that\nthere is something inherently \u201cnatural\u201d and amenable to \u201cnatural law\u201d\nin the working of economic forces, in contrast with the man-made\nartificiality of political institutions. The idea of a natural\nindividual in his isolation possessed of full-fledged wants, of\nenergies to be expended according to his own volition, and of a\nready-made faculty of foresight and prudent calculation is as much a\nfiction in psychology as the doctrine of the individual in possession\nof antecedent political rights is one in politics. The liberalist\nschool made much of desires, but to them desire was a conscious\nmatter deliberately directed upon a known goal of pleasures. Desire\nand pleasure were both open and above-board affairs. The mind was\nseen as if always in the bright sunlight, having no hidden recesses,\nno unexplorable nooks, nothing underground. Its operations were like\nthe moves in a fair game of chess. They are in the open; the players\nhave nothing up their sleeves; the changes of position take place by\nexpress intent and in plain sight; they take place according to rules\nall of which are known in advance. Calculation and skill, or dullness\nand inaptitude, determine the result. Mind was \u201cconsciousness,\u201d and the\nlatter was a clear, transparent, self-revealing medium in which wants,\nefforts and purposes were exposed without distortion.\n\nTo-day it is generally admitted that conduct proceeds from conditions\nwhich are largely out of focal attention, and which can be discovered\nand brought to light only by inquiries more exacting than those which\nteach us the concealed relationships involved in gross physical\nphenomena. What is not so generally acknowledged is that the underlying\nand generative conditions of concrete behavior are social as well as\norganic: much more social than organic as far as the manifestation\nof _differential_ wants, purposes and methods of operation is\nconcerned. To those who appreciate this fact, it is evident that\nthe desires, aims and standards of satisfaction which the dogma of\n\u201cnatural\u201d economic processes and laws assumes are themselves socially\nconditioned phenomena. They are reflections into the singular human\nbeing of customs and institutions; they are not natural, that is,\n\u201cnative,\u201d organic propensities. They mirror a state of civilization.\nEven more true, if possible, is it that the form in which work is\ndone, industry carried on, is the outcome of accumulated culture, not\nan original possession of persons in their own structure. There is\nlittle that can be called industry and still less that constitutes a\nstore of wealth until tools exist, and tools are the results of slow\nprocesses of transmission. The development of tools into machines,\nthe characteristic of the industrial age, was made possible only by\ntaking advantage of science socially accumulated and transmitted. The\ntechnique of employing tools and machines was equally something which\nhad to be learned; it was no natural endowment but something acquired\nby observing others, by instruction and communication.\n\nThese sentences are a poor and pallid way of conveying the outstanding\nfact. There are organic or native needs, of course, as for food,\nprotection and mates. There are innate structures which facilitate\nthem in securing the external objects through which they are met.\nBut the only kind of industry they are capable of giving rise to is\na precarious livelihood obtained by gathering such edible plants and\nanimals as chance might throw in the way: the lowest type of savagery\njust emerging from a brute condition. Nor, strictly speaking, could\nthey effect even this meager result. For because of the phenomenon\nof helpless infancy even such a primitive r\u00e9gime depends upon the\nassistance of associated action, including that most valuable form of\nassistance: learning from others. What would even savage industry be\nwithout the use of fire, of weapons, of woven articles, all of which\ninvolve communication and tradition? The industrial r\u00e9gime which the\nauthors of \u201cnatural\u201d economy contemplated presupposed wants, tools,\nmaterials, purposes, techniques and abilities in a thousand ways\ndependent upon associated behavior. Thus in the sense in which the\nauthors of the doctrine employed the word \u201cartificial,\u201d these things\nwere intensely and cumulatively artificial. What they were really after\nwas a changed direction of custom and institutions. The outcome of\nthe acts of those who were engaged in forwarding the new industry and\ncommerce was a new set of customs and institutions. The latter were as\nmuch extensive and enduring conjoint modes of life as were those which\nthey displaced; more so in their sweep and force.\n\nThe bearing of this fact upon political theory and practice is evident.\nNot only were the wants and intentions which actually operated\nfunctions of associated life, but they re-determined the forms and\ntemper of this life. Athenians did not buy Sunday newspapers, make\ninvestments in stocks and bonds, nor want motor cars. Nor do we to-day\nwant for the most part beautiful bodies and beauty of architectural\nsurroundings. We are mostly satisfied with the result of cosmetics and\nwith ugly slums, and oftentimes with equally ugly palaces. We do not\n\u201cnaturally\u201d or organically need them, but we _want_ them. If we do not\ndemand them directly we demand them none the less effectively. For they\nare necessary consequences of the things upon which we have set our\nhearts. In other words, a community wants (in the only intelligible\nsense of wanting, effective demand) either education or ignorance,\nlovely or squalid surroundings, railway trains or ox-carts, stocks and\nbonds, pecuniary profit or constructive arts, according as associated\nactivity presents these things to them habitually, esteems them, and\nsupplies the means of attaining them. But that is only half the tale.\n\nAssociated behavior directed toward objects which fulfill wants not\nonly produces those objects, but brings customs and institutions\ninto being. The indirect and unthought-of consequences are usually\nmore important than the direct. The fallacy of supposing that the\nnew industrial r\u00e9gime would produce just and for the most part\nonly the consequences consciously forecast and aimed at was the\ncounterpart of the fallacy that the wants and efforts characteristic\nof it were functions of \u201cnatural\u201d human beings. They arose out of\ninstitutionalized action and they resulted in institutionalized\naction. The disparity between the results of the industrial revolution\nand the conscious intentions of those engaged in it is a remarkable\ncase of the extent to which indirect consequences of conjoint\nactivity outweigh, beyond the possibility of reckoning, the results\ndirectly contemplated. Its outcome was the development of those\nextensive and invisible bonds, those \u201cgreat impersonal concerns,\norganizations,\u201d which now pervasively affect the thinking, willing and\ndoing of everybody, and which have ushered in the \u201cnew era of human\nrelationships.\u201d\n\nEqually undreamed of was the effect of the massive organizations and\ncomplicated interactions upon the state. Instead of the independent,\nself-moved individuals contemplated by the theory, we have standardized\ninterchangeable units. Persons are joined together, not because they\nhave voluntarily chosen to be united in these forms, but because\nvast currents are running which bring men together. Green and red\nlines, marking out political boundaries, are on the maps and affect\nlegislation and jurisdiction of courts, but railways, mails and\ntelegraph-wires disregard them. The consequences of the latter\ninfluence more profoundly those living within the legal local units\nthan do boundary lines. The forms of associated action characteristic\nof the present economic order are so massive and extensive that\nthey determine the most significant constituents of the public and\nthe residence of power. Inevitably they reach out to grasp the\nagencies of government; they are controlling factors in legislation\nand administration. Not chiefly because of deliberate and planned\nself-interest, large as may be its r\u00f4le, but because they are the most\npotent and best organized of social forces. In a word, the new forms\nof combined action due to the modern economic r\u00e9gime control present\npolitics, much as dynastic interests controlled those of two centuries\nago. They affect thinking and desire more than did the interests which\nformerly moved the state.\n\nWe have spoken as if the displacement of old legal and political\ninstitutions was all but complete. That is a gross exaggeration. Some\nof the most fundamental of traditions and habits have hardly been\naffected at all. It is enough to mention the institution of property.\nThe na\u00efvet\u00e9 with which the philosophy of \u201cnatural\u201d economics ignored\nthe effect upon industry and commerce of the legal status of property,\nthe way in which it identified wealth and property in the legal form\nin which the latter had existed, is almost incredible to-day. But the\nsimple fact is that technological industry has not operated with any\ngreat degree of freedom. It has been confined and deflected at every\npoint; it has never taken its own course. The engineer has worked in\nsubordination to the business manager whose primary concern is not with\nwealth but with the interests of property as worked out in the feudal\nand semi-feudal period. Thus the one point in which the philosophers of\n\u201cIndividualism\u201d predicted truly was that in which they did not predict\nat all, but in which they merely clarified and simplified established\nwont and use: when, that is, they asserted that the main business of\ngovernment is to make property interests secure.\n\nA large part of the indictments which are now drawn against\ntechnological industry are chargeable to the unchanged persistence\nof a legal institution inherited from the pre-industrial age. It is\nconfusing, however, to identify in a wholesale way this issue with the\nquestion of private property. It is conceivable that private property\nmay function socially. It does so even now to a considerable degree.\nOtherwise it could not be supported for a day. The extent of its social\nutility is what blinds us to the numerous and great social disutilities\nthat attend its present working, or at least reconcile us to its\ncontinuation. The real issue or at least the issue to be first settled\nconcerns the conditions under which the institution of private property\nlegally and politically functions.\n\nWe thus reach our conclusion. The same forces which have brought about\nthe forms of democratic government, general suffrage, executives and\nlegislators chosen by majority vote, have also brought about conditions\nwhich halt the social and humane ideals that demand the utilization\nof government as the genuine instrumentality of an inclusive and\nfraternally associated public. \u201cThe new age of human relationships\u201d\nhas no political agencies worthy of it. The democratic public is still\nlargely inchoate and unorganized.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ECLIPSE OF THE PUBLIC\n\n\nOptimism about democracy is to-day under a cloud. We are familiar with\ndenunciation and criticism which, however, often reveal their emotional\nsource in their peevish and undiscriminating tone. Many of them suffer\nfrom the same error into which earlier laudations fell. They assume\nthat democracy is the product of an idea, of a single and consistent\nintent. Carlyle was no admirer of democracy, but in a lucid moment\nhe said: \u201cInvent the printing press and democracy is inevitable.\u201d\nAdd to this: Invent the railway, the telegraph, mass manufacture\nand concentration of population in urban centers, and some form of\ndemocratic government is, humanly speaking, inevitable. Political\ndemocracy as it exists to-day calls for adverse criticism in abundance.\nBut the criticism is only an exhibition of querulousness and spleen or\nof a superiority complex, unless it takes cognizance of the conditions\nout of which popular government has issued. All intelligent political\ncriticism is comparative. It deals not with all-or-none situations, but\nwith practical alternatives; an absolutistic indiscriminate attitude,\nwhether in praise or blame, testifies to the heat of feeling rather\nthan the light of thought.\n\nAmerican democratic polity was developed out of genuine community\nlife, that is, association in local and small centers where industry\nwas mainly agricultural and where production was carried on mainly\nwith hand tools. It took form when English political habits and legal\ninstitutions worked under pioneer conditions. The forms of association\nwere stable, even though their units were mobile and migratory. Pioneer\nconditions put a high premium upon personal work, skill, ingenuity,\ninitiative and adaptability, and upon neighborly sociability. The\ntownship or some not much larger area was the political unit, the\ntown meeting the political medium, and roads, schools, the peace of\nthe community, were the political objectives. The state was a sum of\nsuch units, and the national state a federation--unless perchance a\nconfederation--of states. The imagination of the founders did not\ntravel far beyond what could be accomplished and understood in a\ncongeries of self-governing communities. The machinery provided for the\nselection of the chief executive of the federal union is illustrative\nevidence. The electoral college assumed that citizens would choose men\nlocally known for their high standing; and that these men when chosen\nwould gather together for consultation to name some one known to them\nfor his probity and public spirit and knowledge. The rapidity with\nwhich the scheme fell into disuse is evidence of the transitoriness of\nthe state of affairs that was predicated. But at the outset there was\nno dream of the time when the very names of the presidential electors\nwould be unknown to the mass of the voters, when they would plump for\na \u201cticket\u201d arranged in a more or less private caucus, and when the\nelectoral college would be an impersonal registering machine, such\nthat it would be treachery to employ the personal judgment which was\noriginally contemplated as the essence of the affair.\n\nThe local conditions under which our institutions took shape is well\nindicated by our system, apparently so systemless, of public education.\nAny one who has tried to explain it to a European will understand\nwhat is meant. One is asked, say, what method of administration is\nfollowed, what is the course of study and what the authorized methods\nof teaching. The American member to the dialogue replies that in this\nstate, or more likely county, or town, or even some section of a town\ncalled a district, matters stand thus and thus; somewhere else, so and\nso. The participant from this side is perhaps thought by the foreigner\nto be engaged in concealing his ignorance; and it would certainly take\na veritable cyclopedic knowledge to state the matter in its entirety.\nThe impossibility of making any moderately generalized reply renders\nit almost indispensable to resort to a historical account in order to\nbe intelligible. A little colony, the members of which are probably\nmostly known to one another in advance, settle in what is almost, or\nquite, a wilderness. From belief in its benefits and by tradition,\nchiefly religious, they wish their children to know at least how to\nread, write and figure. Families can only rarely provide a tutor; the\nneighbors over a certain area, in New England an area smaller even than\nthe township, combine in a \u201cschool district.\u201d They get a schoolhouse\nbuilt, perhaps by their own labor, and hire a teacher by means of a\ncommittee, and the teacher is paid from the taxes. Custom determines\nthe limited course of study, and tradition the methods of the teacher,\nmodified by whatever personal insight and skill he may bring to bear.\nThe wilderness is gradually subdued; a network of highways, then of\nrailways, unite the previously scattered communities. Large cities grow\nup; studies grow more numerous and methods more carefully scrutinized.\nThe larger unit, the state, but not the federal state, provides schools\nfor training teachers and their qualifications are more carefully\nlooked into and tested. But subject to certain quite general conditions\nimposed by the state-legislature, but not the national state, local\nmaintenance and control remain the rule. The community pattern is\nmore complicated, but is not destroyed. The instance seems richly\ninstructive as to the state of affairs under which our borrowed,\nEnglish, political institutions were reshaped and forwarded.\n\nWe have inherited, in short, local town-meeting practices and ideas.\nBut we live and act and have our being in a continental national\nstate. We are held together by non-political bonds, and the political\nforms are stretched and legal institutions patched in an _ad hoc_\nand improvised manner to do the work they have to do. Political\nstructures fix the channels in which non-political, industrialized\ncurrents flow. Railways, travel and transportation, commerce, the\nmails, telegraph and telephone, newspapers, create enough similarity\nof ideas and sentiments to keep the thing going as a whole, for they\ncreate interaction and interdependence. The unprecedented thing is that\nstates, as distinguished from military empires, can exist over such a\nwide area. The notion of maintaining a unified state, even nominally\nself-governing, over a country as extended as the United States and\nconsisting of a large and racially diversified population would once\nhave seemed the wildest of fancies. It was assumed that such a state\ncould be found only in territories hardly larger than a city-state\nand with a homogeneous population. It seemed almost self-evident to\nPlato--as to Rousseau later--that a genuine state could hardly be\nlarger than the number of persons capable of personal acquaintance\nwith one another. Our modern state-unity is due to the consequences\nof technology employed so as to facilitate the rapid and easy\ncirculation of opinions and information, and so as to generate constant\nand intricate interaction far beyond the limits of face-to-face\ncommunities. Political and legal forms have only piece-meal and\nhaltingly, with great lag, accommodated themselves to the industrial\ntransformation. The elimination of distance, at the base of which are\nphysical agencies, has called into being the new form of political\nassociation.\n\nThe wonder of the performance is the greater because of the odds\nagainst which it has been achieved. The stream of immigrants which has\npoured in is so large and heterogeneous that under conditions which\nformerly obtained it would have disrupted any semblance of unity as\nsurely as the migratory invasion of alien hordes once upset the social\nequilibrium of the European continent. No deliberately adopted measures\ncould have accomplished what has actually happened. Mechanical forces\nhave operated, and it is no cause for surprise if the effect is more\nmechanical than vital. The reception of new elements of population in\nlarge number from heterogeneous peoples, often hostile to one another\nat home, and the welding them into even an outward show of unity is an\nextraordinary feat. In many respects, the consolidation has occurred so\nrapidly and ruthlessly that much of value has been lost which different\npeoples might have contributed. The creation of political unity has\nalso promoted social and intellectual uniformity, a standardization\nfavorable to mediocrity. Opinion has been regimented as well as outward\nbehavior. The temper and flavor of the pioneer have evaporated with\nextraordinary rapidity; their precipitate, as is often noted, is\napparent only in the wild-west romance and the movie. What Bagehot\ncalled the cake of custom formed with increasing acceleration, and the\ncake is too often flat and soggy. Mass production is not confined to\nthe factory.\n\nThe resulting political integration has confounded the expectations of\nearlier critics of popular government as much as it must surprise its\nearly backers if they are gazing from on high upon the present scene.\nThe critics predicted disintegration, instability. They foresaw the\nnew society falling apart, dissolving into mutually repellent animated\ngrains of sand. They, too, took seriously the theory of \u201cIndividualism\u201d\nas the basis of democratic government. A stratification of society\ninto immemorial classes within which each person performed his stated\nduties according to his fixed position seemed to them the only warrant\nof stability. They had no faith that human beings released from the\npressure of this system could hold together in any unity. Hence they\nprophesied a flux of governmental r\u00e9gimes, as individuals formed\nfactions, seized power, and then lost it as some newly improvised\nfaction proved stronger. Had the facts conformed to the theory of\nIndividualism, they would doubtless have been right. But, like the\nauthors of the theory, they ignored the technological forces making for\nconsolidation.\n\nIn spite of attained integration, or rather perhaps because of its\nnature, the Public seems to be lost; it is certainly bewildered.[10]\nThe government, officials and their activities, are plainly with us.\nLegislatures make laws with luxurious abandon; subordinate officials\nengage in a losing struggle to enforce some of them; judges on the\nbench deal as best they can with the steadily mounting pile of disputes\nthat come before them. But where is the public which these officials\nare supposed to represent? How much more is it than geographical names\nand official titles? The United States, the state of Ohio or New York,\nthe county of this and the city of that? Is the public much more than\nwhat a cynical diplomat once called Italy: a geographical expression?\nJust as philosophers once imputed a substance to qualities and traits\nin order that the latter might have something in which to inhere and\nthereby gain a conceptual solidity and consistency which they lacked\non their face, so perhaps our political \u201ccommon-sense\u201d philosophy\nimputes a public only to support and substantiate the behavior of\nofficials. How can the latter be public officers, we despairingly ask,\nunless there is a public? If a public exists, it is surely as uncertain\nabout its own whereabouts as philosophers since Hume have been about\nthe residence and make-up of the self. The number of voters who take\nadvantage of their majestic right is steadily decreasing in proportion\nto those who might use it. The ratio of actual to eligible voters is\nnow about one-half. In spite of somewhat frantic appeal and organized\neffort, the endeavor to bring voters to a sense of their privileges\nand duties has so far been noted for failure. A few preach the\nimpotence of all politics; the many nonchalantly practice abstinence\nand indulge in indirect action. Skepticism regarding the efficacy of\nvoting is openly expressed, not only in the theories of intellectuals,\nbut in the words of lowbrow masses: \u201cWhat difference does it make\nwhether I vote or not? Things go on just the same anyway. My vote never\nchanged anything.\u201d Those somewhat more reflective add: \u201cIt is nothing\nbut a fight between the ins and the outs. The only difference made by\nan election is as to who get the jobs, draw the salaries and shake down\nthe plum tree.\u201d\n\nThose still more inclined to generalization assert that the whole\napparatus of political activities is a kind of protective coloration\nto conceal the fact that big business rules the governmental roost\nin any case. Business is the order of the day, and the attempt to\nstop or deflect its course is as futile as Mrs. Partington essaying\nto sweep back the tides with a broom. Most of those who hold these\nopinions would profess to be shocked if the doctrine of economic\ndeterminism were argumentatively expounded to them, but they act upon\na virtual belief in it. Nor is acceptance of the doctrine limited\nto radical socialists. It is implicit in the attitude of men of big\nbusiness and financial interests, who revile the former as destructive\n\u201cBolshevists.\u201d For it is their firm belief that \u201cprosperity\u201d--a\nword which has taken on religious color--is the great need of the\ncountry, that they are its authors and guardians, and hence by right\nthe determiners of polity. Their denunciations of the \u201cmaterialism\u201d\nof socialists is based simply upon the fact that the latter want a\ndifferent distribution of material force and well-being than that which\nsatisfies those now in control.\n\nThe unfitness of whatever public exists, with respect to the government\nwhich is nominally its organ, is made manifest in the extra-legal\nagencies which have grown up. Intermediary groups are closest to the\npolitical conduct of affairs. It is interesting to compare the English\nliterature of the eighteenth century regarding factions with the\nstatus actually occupied by parties. Factionalism was decried by all\nthinkers as the chief enemy to political stability. Their voice of\ncondemnation is re\u00ebchoed in the writing of early nineteenth-century\nAmerican writers on politics. Extensive and consolidated factions\nunder the name of parties are now not only a matter of course, but\npopular imagination can conceive of no other way by which officials\nmay be selected and governmental affairs carried on. The centralizing\nmovement has reached a point where even a third party can lead only a\nspasmodic and precarious existence. Instead of individuals who in the\nprivacy of their consciousness make choices which are carried into\neffect by personal volition, there are citizens who have the blessed\nopportunity to vote for a ticket of men mostly unknown to them, and\nwhich is made up for them by an under-cover machine in a caucus whose\noperations constitute a kind of political predestination. There are\nthose who speak as if ability to choose between two tickets were a high\nexercise of individual freedom. But it is hardly the kind of liberty\ncontemplated by the authors of the individualistic doctrine. \u201cNature\nabhors a vacuum.\u201d When the public is as uncertain and obscure as it\nis to-day, and hence as remote from government, bosses with their\npolitical machines fill the void between government and the public.\nWho pulls the strings which move the bosses and generates power to run\nthe machines is a matter of surmise rather than of record, save for an\noccasional overt scandal.\n\nQuite aside, however, from the allegation that \u201cBig Business\u201d plays\nthe tune and pulls the strings to which bosses dance, it is true\nthat parties are not creators of policies to any large extent at the\npresent time. For parties yield in piece-meal accommodation to social\ncurrents, irrespective of professed principles. As these lines are\nwritten a weekly periodical remarks: \u201cSince the end of the Civil War\npractically all the more important measures which have been embodied\nin federal legislation have been reached without a national election\nwhich turned upon the issue and which divided the two major parties.\u201d\nReform of civil service, regulation of railways, popular election of\nsenators, national income tax, suffrage for women, and prohibition are\nsupported to substantiate the statement. Hence its other remark appears\njustified: \u201cAmerican party politics seem at times to be a device for\npreventing issues which may excite popular feeling and involve bitter\ncontroversies from being put up to the American people.\u201d\n\nA negatively corroborating fact is seen in the fate of the Child Labor\namendment. The need of giving to Congress power to regulate child\nlabor, denied it by decisions of the Supreme Court, had been asserted\nin the platforms of all political parties; the idea was endorsed by\nthe last three of the presidents belonging to the party in power. Yet\nso far, the proposed amendment to the constitution has not begun to\nsecure the needed support. Political parties may rule, but they do not\ngovern. The public is so confused and eclipsed that it cannot even use\nthe organs through which it is supposed to mediate political action and\npolity.\n\nThe same lesson is taught by the breakdown of the theory of the\nresponsibility of elected representatives to the electorate, to say\nnothing of their alleged liability to be called before the bar of the\nprivate judgment of individuals. It is at least suggestive that the\nterms of the theory are best met in legislation of the \u201cpork-barrel\u201d\ntype. There a representative may be called to account for failure\nto meet local desire, or be rewarded for pertinacity and success in\nfulfilling its wishes. But only rarely is the theory borne out in\nimportant matters, although occasionally it works. But the instances\nare so infrequent that any skilled political observer could enumerate\nthem by name. The reason for the lack of personal liability to the\nelectorate is evident. The latter is composed of rather amorphous\ngroups. Their political ideas and beliefs are mostly in abeyance\nbetween elections. Even in times of political excitement, artificially\naccelerated, their opinions are moved collectively by the current of\nthe group rather than by independent personal judgment. As a rule, what\ndecides the fate of a person who comes up for election is neither his\npolitical excellence nor his political defects. The current runs for\nor against the party in power and the individual candidate sinks or\nswims as runs the current. At times there is a general consensus of\nsentiment, a definite trend in favor of \u201cprogressive legislation\u201d or\na desire for a \u201creturn to normalcy.\u201d But even then only exceptional\ncandidates get by on any basis of personal responsibility to the\nelectorate. The \u201ctidal wave\u201d swamps some; the \u201clandslide\u201d carries\nothers into office. At other times, habit, party funds, the skill of\nmanagers of the machine, the portrait of a candidate with his firm jaw,\nhis lovely wife and children, and a multitude of other irrelevancies,\ndetermine the issue.\n\nThese scattered comments are not made in the belief that they convey\nany novel truth. Such things are familiar; they are the common-places\nof the political scene. They could be extended indefinitely by\nany careful observer of the scene. The significant thing is that\nfamiliarity has bred indifference if not contempt. Indifference is the\nevidence of current apathy, and apathy is testimony to the fact that\nthe public is so bewildered that it cannot find itself. The remarks\nare not made with a view to drawing a conclusion. They are offered\nwith a view to outlining a problem: What is the public? If there is\na public, what are the obstacles in the way of its recognizing and\narticulating itself? Is the public a myth? Or does it come into being\nonly in periods of marked social transition when crucial alternative\nissues stand out, such as that between throwing one\u2019s lot in with\nthe conservation of established institutions or with forwarding new\ntendencies? In a reaction against dynastic rule which has come to be\nfelt as despotically oppressive? In a transfer of social power from\nagrarian classes to industrial?\n\nIs not the problem at the present time that of securing experts to\nmanage administrative matters, other than the framing of policies?\nIt may be urged that the present confusion and apathy are due to\nthe fact that the real energy of society is now directed in all\nnon-political matters by trained specialists who manage things,\nwhile politics are carried on with a machinery and ideas formed in\nthe past to deal with quite another sort of situation. There is no\nparticular public concerned in finding expert school instructors,\ncompetent doctors, or business managers. Nothing called a public\nintervenes to instruct physicians in the practice of the healing art\nor merchants in the art of salesmanship. The conduct of these callings\nand others characteristic of our time are decided by science and\npseudo-science. The important governmental affairs at present, it may\nbe argued, are also technically complicated matters to be conducted\nproperly by experts. And if at present people are not educated to the\nrecognition of the importance of finding experts and of entrusting\nadministration to them, it may plausibly be asserted that the prime\nobstruction lies in the superstitious belief that there is a public\nconcerned to determine the formation and execution of general social\npolicies. Perhaps the apathy of the electorate is due to the irrelevant\nartificiality of the issues with which it is attempted to work up\nfactitious excitement. Perhaps this artificiality is in turn mainly\ndue to the survival of political beliefs and machinery from a period\nwhen science and technology were so immature as not to permit of a\ndefinite technique for handling definite social situations and meeting\nspecific social needs. The attempt to decide by law that the legends\nof a primitive Hebrew people regarding the genesis of man are more\nauthoritative than the results of scientific inquiry might be cited\nas a typical example of the sort of thing which is bound to happen\nwhen the accepted doctrine is that a public organized for political\npurposes, rather than experts guided by specialized inquiry, is the\nfinal umpire and arbiter of issues.\n\nThe questions of most concern at present may be said to be matters\nlike sanitation, public health, healthful and adequate housing,\ntransportation, planning of cities, regulation and distribution of\nimmigrants, selection and management of personnel, right methods\nof instruction and preparation of competent teachers, scientific\nadjustment of taxation, efficient management of funds, and so on. These\nare technical matters, as much so as the construction of an efficient\nengine for purposes of traction or locomotion. Like it they are to be\nsettled by inquiry into facts; and as the inquiry can be carried on\nonly by those especially equipped, so the results of inquiry can be\nutilized only by trained technicians. What has counting heads, decision\nby majority and the whole apparatus of traditional government to do\nwith such things? Given such considerations, and the public and its\norganization for political ends is not only a ghost, but a ghost which\nwalks and talks, and obscures, confuses and misleads governmental\naction in a disastrous way.\n\nPersonally I am far from thinking that such considerations, pertinent\nas they are to administrative activities, cover the entire political\nfield. They ignore forces which have to be composed and resolved before\ntechnical and specialized action can come into play. But they aid in\ngiving definiteness and point to a fundamental question: What, after\nall, is the public under present conditions? What are the reasons for\nits eclipse? What hinders it from finding and identifying itself?\nBy what means shall its inchoate and amorphous estate be organized\ninto effective political action relevant to present social needs and\nopportunities? What has happened to the Public in the century and\na half since the theory of political democracy was urged with such\nassurance and hope?\n\nPrevious discussion has brought to light some conditions out of which\nthe public is generated. It has also set forth some of the causes\nthrough which a \u201cnew age of human relationships\u201d has been brought\ninto being. These two arguments form the premises which, when they\nare related to each other, will provide our answer to the questions\njust raised. Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences of\nconjoint and interacting behavior call a public into existence having\na common interest in controlling these consequences. But the machine\nage has so enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated\nthe scope of the indirect consequences, have formed such immense and\nconsolidated unions in action, on an impersonal rather than a community\nbasis, that the resultant public cannot identify and distinguish\nitself. And this discovery is obviously an antecedent condition of\nany effective organization on its part. Such is our thesis regarding\nthe eclipse which the public idea and interest have undergone. There\nare too many publics and too much of public concern for our existing\nresources to cope with. The problem of a democratically organized\npublic is primarily and essentially an intellectual problem, in a\ndegree to which the political affairs of prior ages offer no parallel.\n\nOur concern at this time is to state how it is that the machine age in\ndeveloping the Great Society has invaded and partially disintegrated\nthe small communities of former times without generating a Great\nCommunity. The facts are familiar enough; our especial affair is\nto point out their connections with the difficulties under which\nthe organization of a democratic public is laboring. For the very\nfamiliarity with the phenomena conceals their significance and blinds\nus to their relation to immediate political problems.\n\nThe scope of the Great War furnishes an urgent as well as convenient\nstarting point for the discussion. The extent of that war is\nunparalleled, because the conditions involved in it are so new. The\ndynastic conflicts of the seventeenth century are called by the same\nname: we have only one word, \u201cwar.\u201d The sameness of the word too easily\nconceals from us the difference in significance. We think of all wars\nas much the same thing, only the last one was horrible beyond others.\nColonies were drawn in: self-governing ones entered voluntarily;\npossessions were levied upon for troops; alliances were formed with\nremote countries in spite of diversities of race and culture, as in\nthe cases of Great Britain and Japan, Germany and Turkey. Literally\nevery continent upon the globe was involved. Indirect effects were as\nbroad as direct. Not merely soldiers, but finance, industry and opinion\nwere mobilized and consolidated. Neutrality was a precarious affair.\nThere was a critical epoch in the history of the world when the Roman\nEmpire assembled in itself the lands and peoples of the Mediterranean\nbasin. The World War stands out as an indubitable proof that what then\nhappened for a region has now happened for the world, only there is now\nno comprehensive political organization to include the various divided\nyet interdependent countries. Any one who even partially visualizes the\nscene has a convincing reminder of the meaning of the Great Society:\nthat it exists, and that it is not integrated.\n\nExtensive, enduring, intricate and serious indirect consequences of\nthe conjoint activity of a comparatively few persons traverse the\nglobe. The similes of the stone cast into the pool, ninepins in a row,\nthe spark which kindles a vast conflagration, are pale in comparison\nwith the reality. The spread of the war seemed like the movement of\nan uncontrolled natural catastrophe. The consolidation of peoples in\nenclosed, nominally independent, national states has its counterpart in\nthe fact that their acts affect groups and individuals in other states\nall over the world. The connections and ties which transferred energies\nset in motion in one spot to all parts of the earth were not tangible\nand visible; they do not stand out as do politically bounded states.\nBut the war is there to show that they are as real, and to prove\nthat they are not organized and regulated. It suggests that existing\npolitical and legal forms and arrangements are incompetent to deal with\nthe situation. For the latter is the joint product of the existing\nconstitution of the political state and the working of non-political\nforces not adjusted to political forms. We cannot expect the causes of\na disease to combine effectually to cure the disease they create. The\nneed is that the non-political forces organize themselves to transform\nexisting political structures: that the divided and troubled publics\nintegrate.\n\nIn general, the non-political forces are the expressions of a\ntechnological age injected into an inherited political scheme which\noperates to deflect and distort their normal operation. The industrial\nand commercial relations that created the situation of which the war\nis a manifestation are as evident in small things as great. They were\nexhibited, not only in the struggle for raw materials, for distant\nmarkets, and in staggering national debts, but in local and unimportant\nphenomena. Travelers finding themselves away from home could not\nget their letters of credit cashed even in countries not then at\nwar. Stock-markets closed on one hand, and profiteers piled up their\nmillions on the other. One instance may be cited from domestic affairs.\nThe plight of the farmer since the war has created a domestic political\nissue. A great demand was generated for food and other agricultural\nproducts; prices rose. In addition to this economic stimulus, farmers\nwere objects of constant political exhortation to increase their crops.\nInflation and temporary prosperity followed. The end of active warfare\ncame. Impoverished countries could not buy and pay for foodstuffs up to\neven a pre-war level. Taxes were enormously increased. Currencies were\ndepreciated; the world\u2019s gold supply centered here. The stimulus of war\nand of national extravagance piled up the inventories of factories and\nmerchants. Wages and the prices of agricultural implements increased.\nWhen deflation came it found a restricted market, increased costs of\nproduction, and farmers burdened with mortgages lightly assumed during\nthe period of frenzied expansion.\n\nThis instance is not cited because it is peculiarly important in\ncomparison with other consequences which have happened, especially\nin Europe. It is relatively insignificant by contrast with them,\nand in contrast with the arousal of nationalistic sentiments which\nhas everywhere taken place since the war in so-called backward\ncountries. But it shows the ramifying consequences of our intricate and\ninterdependent economic relations, and it shows how little prevision\nand regulation exist. The farming population could hardly have acted\nwith knowledge of the consequences of the fundamental relations in\nwhich they were implicated. They could make a momentary and improvised\nresponse to them, but they could not manage their affairs in controlled\nadaptation to the course of events. They present themselves as hapless\nsubjects of overwhelming operations with which they were hardly\nacquainted and over which they had no more control than over the\nvicissitudes of climate.\n\nThe illustration cannot be objected to on the ground that it rests\nupon the abnormal situation of war. The war itself was a normal\nmanifestation of the underlying unintegrated state of society. The\nlocal face-to-face community has been invaded by forces so vast,\nso remote in initiation, so far-reaching in scope and so complexly\nindirect in operation, that they are, from the standpoint of the\nmembers of local social units, unknown. Man, as has been often\nremarked, has difficulty in getting on either with or without his\nfellows, even in neighborhoods. He is not more successful in getting\non with them when they act at a great distance in ways invisible to\nhim. An inchoate public is capable of organization only when indirect\nconsequences are perceived, and when it is possible to project agencies\nwhich order their occurrence. At present, many consequences are felt\nrather than perceived; they are suffered, but they cannot be said to\nbe known, for they are not, by those who experience them, referred to\ntheir origins. It goes, then, without saying that agencies are not\nestablished which canalize the streams of social action and thereby\nregulate them. Hence the publics are amorphous and unarticulated.\n\nThere was a time when a man might entertain a few general political\nprinciples and apply them with some confidence. A citizen believed in\nstates\u2019 rights or in a centralized federal government; in free trade or\nprotection. It did not involve much mental strain to imagine that by\nthrowing in his lot with one party or another he could so express his\nviews that his belief would count in government. For the average voter\nto-day the tariff question is a complicated medley of infinite detail,\nschedules of rates specific and _ad valorem_ on countless things, many\nof which he does not recognize by name, and with respect to which he\ncan form no judgment. Probably not one voter in a thousand even reads\nthe scores of pages in which the rates of toll are enumerated and he\nwould not be much wiser if he did. The average man gives it up as a bad\njob. At election time, appeal to some time-worn slogan may galvanize\nhim into a temporary notion that he has convictions on an important\nsubject, but except for manufacturers and dealers who have some\ninterest at stake in this or that schedule, belief lacks the qualities\nwhich attach to beliefs about matters of personal concern. Industry is\ntoo complex and intricate.\n\nAgain the voter may by personal predilection or inherited belief\nincline towards magnifying the scope of local governments and\ninveigh against the evils of centralization. But he is vehemently\nsure of social evils attending the liquor traffic. He finds that\nthe prohibitory law of his locality, township, county or state, is\nlargely nullified by the importation of liquor from outside, made easy\nby modern means of transportation. So he becomes an advocate of a\nnational amendment giving the central government power to regulate the\nmanufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks. This brings in its train\na necessary extension of federal officials and powers. Thus to-day,\nthe south, the traditional home of the states\u2019 rights doctrine, is\nthe chief supporter of national prohibition and Volstead Act. It would\nnot be possible to say how many voters have thought of the relation\nbetween their professed general principle and their special position on\nthe liquor question: probably not many. On the other hand, life-long\nHamiltonians, proclaimers of the dangers of particularistic local\nautonomy, are opposed to prohibition. Hence they play a tune _ad hoc_\non the Jeffersonian flute. Gibes at inconsistency are, however, as\nirrelevant as they are easy. The social situation has been so changed\nby the factors of an industrial age that traditional general principles\nhave little practical meaning. They persist as emotional cries rather\nthan as reasoned ideas.\n\nThe same criss-crossing occurs with reference to regulation of\nrailways. The opponent of a strong federal government finds, being a\nfarmer or shipper, that rates are too high; he also finds that railways\npay little attention to state boundaries, that lines once local are\nparts of vast systems and that state legislation and administration are\nineffectual for his purpose. He calls for national regulation. Some\npartisan of the powers of the central government, on the other hand,\nbeing an investor in stocks and bonds, finds that his income is likely\nto be unfavorably affected by federal action and he promptly protests\nagainst the vexatious tendency to appeal to national aid, which has now\nbecome in his eyes a foolish paternalism. The developments of industry\nand commerce have so complicated affairs that a clear-cut, generally\napplicable, standard of judgment becomes practically impossible. The\nforest cannot be seen for the trees nor the trees for the forest.\n\nA striking example of the shift of the actual tenor of doctrines--that\nis, of their consequences in application--is presented in the history\nof the doctrine of Individualism, interpreted to signify a minimum of\ngovernmental \u201cinterference\u201d with industry and trade. At the outset, it\nwas held by \u201cprogressives,\u201d by those who were protesting against the\ninherited r\u00e9gime of rules of law and administration. Vested interests,\non the contrary, were mainly in favor of the old status. To-day the\nindustrial-property r\u00e9gime being established, the doctrine is the\nintellectual bulwark of the standpatter and reactionary. He it is that\nnow wants to be let alone, and who utters the war-cry of liberty for\nprivate industry, thrift, contract and their pecuniary fruit. In the\nUnited States the name \u201cliberal,\u201d as a party designation, is still\nemployed to designate a progressive in political matters. In most other\ncountries, the \u201cliberal\u201d party is that which represents established\nand vested commercial and financial interests in protest against\ngovernmental regulation. The irony of history is nowhere more evident\nthan in the reversal of the practical meaning of the term \u201cliberalism\u201d\nin spite of a literal continuity of theory.\n\nPolitical apathy, which is a natural product of the discrepancies\nbetween actual practices and traditional machinery, ensues from\ninability to identify one\u2019s self with definite issues. These are hard\nto find and locate in the vast complexities of current life. When\ntraditional war-cries have lost their import in practical policies\nwhich are consonant with them, they are readily dismissed as bunk. Only\nhabit and tradition, rather than reasoned conviction, together with a\nvague faith in doing one\u2019s civic duty, send to the polls a considerable\npercentage of the fifty per cent. who still vote. And of them it is a\ncommon remark that a large number vote against something or somebody\nrather than for anything or anybody, except when powerful agencies\ncreate a scare. The old principles do not fit contemporary life as it\nis lived, however well they may have expressed the vital interests of\nthe times in which they arose. Thousands feel their hollowness even\nif they cannot make their feeling articulate. The confusion which has\nresulted from the size and ramifications of social activities has\nrendered men skeptical of the efficiency of political action. Who is\nsufficient unto these things? Men feel that they are caught in the\nsweep of forces too vast to understand or master. Thought is brought\nto a standstill and action paralyzed. Even the specialist finds it\ndifficult to trace the chain of \u201ccause and effect\u201d; and even he\noperates only after the event, looking backward, while meantime social\nactivities have moved on to effect a new state of affairs.\n\nSimilar considerations account for depreciation of the machinery of\ndemocratic political action in contrast with a rising appreciation of\nthe need of expert administrators. For example, one of the by-products\nof the war was the investment of the government at Muscle Shoals for\nthe manufacture of nitrogen, a chemical product of great importance\nto the farmer, as well as to armies in the field. The disposition and\nutilization of the plant have become matters of political dispute.\nThe questions involved, questions of science, agriculture, industry\nand finance, are highly technical. How many voters are competent to\nmeasure all the factors involved in arriving at a decision? And if they\nwere competent after studying it, how many have the time to devote to\nit? It is true that this matter does not come before the electorate\ndirectly, but the technical difficulty of the problem is reflected\nin the confused paralysis of the legislators whose business it is to\ndeal with it. The confused situation is further complicated by the\ninvention of other and cheaper methods of producing nitrates. Again,\nthe rapid development of hydro-electric and super-power is a matter of\npublic concern. In the long run, few questions exceed it in importance.\nAside from business corporations which have a direct interest in it\nand some engineers, how many citizens have the data or the ability to\nsecure and estimate the facts involved in its settlement? One further\nillustration: Two things which intimately concern a local public are\nstreet-railway transportation and the marketing of food products. But\nthe history of municipal politics shows in most cases a flare-up of\nintense interest followed by a period of indifference. Results come\nhome to the masses of the people. But the very size, heterogeneity\nand nobility of urban populations, the vast capital required, the\ntechnical character of the engineering problems involved, soon tire\nthe attention of the average voter. I think the three instances are\nfairly typical. The ramification of the issues before the public is so\nwide and intricate, the technical matters involved are so specialized,\nthe details are so many and so shifting, that the public cannot for\nany length of time identify and hold itself. It is not that there is\nno public, no large body of persons having a common interest in the\nconsequences of social transactions. There is too much public, a public\ntoo diffused and scattered and too intricate in composition. And there\nare too many publics, for conjoint actions which have indirect, serious\nand enduring consequences are multitudinous beyond comparison, and\neach one of them crosses the others and generates its own group of\npersons especially affected with little to hold these different publics\ntogether in an integrated whole.\n\nThe picture is not complete without taking into account the many\ncompetitors with effective political interest. Political concerns\nhave, of course, always had strong rivals. Persons have always been,\nfor the most part, taken up with their more immediate work and play.\nThe power of \u201cbread and the circus\u201d to divert attention from public\nmatters is an old story. But now the industrial conditions which\nhave enlarged, complicated and multiplied public interests have also\nmultiplied and intensified formidable rivals to them. In countries\nwhere political life has been most successfully conducted in the past,\nthere was a class specially set aside, as it were, who made political\naffairs their special business. Aristotle could not conceive a body of\ncitizens competent to carry on politics consisting of others than those\nwho had leisure, that is, of those who were relieved from all other\npreoccupations, especially that of making a livelihood. Political life,\ntill recent times, bore out his belief. Those who took an active part\nin politics were \u201cgentlemen,\u201d persons who had had property and money\nlong enough, and enough of it, so that its further pursuit was vulgar\nand beneath their station. To-day, so great and powerful is the sweep\nof the industrial current, the person of leisure is usually an idle\nperson. Persons have their own business to attend to, and \u201cbusiness\u201d\nhas its own precise and specialized meaning. Politics thus tends to\nbecome just another \u201cbusiness\u201d: the especial concern of bosses and the\nmanagers of the machine.\n\nThe increase in the number, variety and cheapness of amusements\nrepresents a powerful diversion from political concern. The members\nof an inchoate public have too many ways of enjoyment, as well as of\nwork, to give much thought to organization into an effective public.\nMan is a consuming and sportive animal as well as a political one.\nWhat is significant is that access to means of amusement has been\nrendered easy and cheap beyond anything known in the past. The present\nera of \u201cprosperity\u201d may not be enduring. But the movie, radio, cheap\nreading matter and motor car with all they stand for have come to stay.\nThat they did not originate in deliberate desire to divert attention\nfrom political interests does not lessen their effectiveness in that\ndirection. The political elements in the constitution of the human\nbeing, those having to do with citizenship, are crowded to one side.\nIn most circles it is hard work to sustain conversation on a political\ntheme; and once initiated, it is quickly dismissed with a yawn. Let\nthere be introduced the topic of the mechanism and accomplishment of\nvarious makes of motor cars or the respective merits of actresses, and\nthe dialogue goes on at a lively pace. The thing to be remembered is\nthat this cheapened and multiplied access to amusement is the product\nof the machine age, intensified by the business tradition which causes\nprovision of means for an enjoyable passing of time to be one of the\nmost profitable of occupations.\n\nOne phase of the workings of a technological age, with its\nunprecedented command of natural energies, while it is implied in what\nhas been said, needs explicit attention. The older publics, in being\nlocal communities, largely homogeneous with one another, were also, as\nthe phrase goes, static. They changed, of course, but barring war,\ncatastrophe and great migrations, the modifications were gradual. They\nproceeded slowly and were largely unperceived by those undergoing them.\nThe newer forces have created mobile and fluctuating associational\nforms. The common complaints of the disintegration of family life may\nbe placed in evidence. The movement from rural to urban assemblies is\nalso the result and proof of this mobility. Nothing stays long put,\nnot even the associations by which business and industry are carried\non. The mania for motion and speed is a symptom of the restless\ninstability of social life, and it operates to intensify the causes\nfrom which it springs. Steel replaces wood and masonry for buildings;\nferro-concrete modifies steel, and some invention may work a further\nrevolution. Muscle Shoals was acquired to produce nitrogen, and new\nmethods have already made antiquated the supposed need of great\naccumulation of water power. Any selected illustration suffers because\nof the heterogeneous mass of cases to select from. How can a public\nbe organized, we may ask, when literally it does not stay in place?\nOnly deep issues or those which can be made to appear such can find a\ncommon denominator among all the shifting and unstable relationships.\nAttachment is a very different function of life from affection.\nAffections will continue as long as the heart beats. But attachment\nrequires something more than organic causes. The very things which\nstimulate and intensify affections may undermine attachments. For\nthese are bred in tranquil stability; they are nourished in constant\nrelationships. Acceleration of mobility disturbs them at their root.\nAnd without abiding attachments associations are too shifting and\nshaken to permit a public readily to locate and identify itself.\n\nThe new era of human relationships in which we live is one marked by\nmass production for remote markets, by cable and telephone, by cheap\nprinting, by railway and steam navigation. Only geographically did\nColumbus discover a new world. The actual new world has been generated\nin the last hundred years. Steam and electricity have done more to\nalter the conditions under which men associate together than all the\nagencies which affected human relationships before our time. There\nare those who lay the blame for all the evils of our lives on steam,\nelectricity and machinery. It is always convenient to have a devil as\nwell as a savior to bear the responsibilities of humanity. In reality,\nthe trouble springs rather from the ideas and absence of ideas in\nconnection with which technological factors operate. Mental and moral\nbeliefs and ideals change more slowly than outward conditions. If\nthe ideals associated with the higher life of our cultural past have\nbeen impaired, the fault is primarily with them. Ideals and standards\nformed without regard to the means by which they are to be achieved\nand incarnated in flesh are bound to be thin and wavering. Since the\naims, desires and purposes created by a machine age do not connect\nwith tradition, there are two sets of rival ideals, and those which\nhave actual instrumentalities at their disposal have the advantage.\nBecause the two are rivals and because the older ones retain their\nglamor and sentimental prestige in literature and religion, the newer\nones are perforce harsh and narrow. For the older symbols of ideal life\nstill engage thought and command loyalty. Conditions have changed,\nbut every aspect of life, from religion and education to property and\ntrade, shows that nothing approaching a transformation has taken place\nin ideas and ideals. Symbols control sentiment and thought, and the\nnew age has no symbols consonant with its activities. Intellectual\ninstrumentalities for the formation of an organized public are more\ninadequate than its overt means. The ties which hold men together in\naction are numerous, tough and subtle. But they are invisible and\nintangible. We have the physical tools of communication as never\nbefore. The thoughts and aspirations congruous with them are not\ncommunicated, and hence are not common. Without such communication the\npublic will remain shadowy and formless, seeking spasmodically for\nitself, but seizing and holding its shadow rather than its substance.\nTill the Great Society is converted into a Great Community, the\nPublic will remain in eclipse. Communication can alone create a great\ncommunity. Our Babel is not one of tongues but of the signs and symbols\nwithout which shared experience is impossible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nSEARCH FOR THE GREAT COMMUNITY\n\n\nWe have had occasion to refer in passing to the distinction between\ndemocracy as a social idea and political democracy as a system of\ngovernment. The two are, of course, connected. The idea remains barren\nand empty save as it is incarnated in human relationships. Yet in\ndiscussion they must be distinguished. The idea of democracy is a wider\nand fuller idea than can be exemplified in the state even at its best.\nTo be realized it must affect all modes of human association, the\nfamily, the school, industry, religion. And even as far as political\narrangements are concerned, governmental institutions are but a\nmechanism for securing to an idea channels of effective operation.\nIt will hardly do to say that criticisms of the political machinery\nleave the believer in the idea untouched. For, as far as they are\njustified--and no candid believer can deny that many of them are only\ntoo well grounded--they arouse him to bestir himself in order that the\nidea may find a more adequate machinery through which to work. What\nthe faithful insist upon, however, is that the idea and its external\norgans and structures are not to be identified. We object to the common\nsupposition of the foes of existing democratic government that the\naccusations against it touch the social and moral aspirations and ideas\nwhich underlie the political forms. The old saying that the cure for\nthe ills of democracy is more democracy is not apt if it means that\nthe evils may be remedied by introducing more machinery of the same\nkind as that which already exists, or by refining and perfecting that\nmachinery. But the phrase may also indicate the need of returning to\nthe idea itself, of clarifying and deepening our apprehension of it,\nand of employing our sense of its meaning to criticize and re-make its\npolitical manifestations.\n\nConfining ourselves, for the moment, to political democracy, we must,\nin any case, renew our protest against the assumption that the idea has\nitself produced the governmental practices which obtain in democratic\nstates: General suffrage, elected representatives, majority rule, and\nso on. The idea has influenced the concrete political movement, but it\nhas not caused it. The transition from family and dynastic government\nsupported by the loyalties of tradition to popular government was the\noutcome primarily of technological discoveries and inventions working\na change in the customs by which men had been bound together. It was\nnot due to the doctrines of doctrinaires. The forms to which we are\naccustomed in democratic governments represent the cumulative effect of\na multitude of events, unpremeditated as far as political effects were\nconcerned and having unpredictable consequences. There is no sanctity\nin universal suffrage, frequent elections, majority rule, congressional\nand cabinet government. These things are devices evolved in the\ndirection in which the current was moving, each wave of which involved\nat the time of its impulsion a minimum of departure from antecedent\ncustom and law. The devices served a purpose; but the purpose was\nrather that of meeting existing needs which had become too intense to\nbe ignored, than that of forwarding the democratic idea. In spite of\nall defects, they served their own purpose well.\n\nLooking back, with the aid which _ex post facto_ experience can give,\nit would be hard for the wisest to devise schemes which, under the\ncircumstances, would have met the needs better. In this retrospective\nglance, it is possible, however, to see how the doctrinal formulations\nwhich accompanied them were inadequate, one-sided and positively\nerroneous. In fact they were hardly more than political war-cries\nadopted to help in carrying on some immediate agitation or in\njustifying some particular practical polity struggling for recognition,\neven though they were asserted to be absolute truths of human nature\nor of morals. The doctrines served a particular local pragmatic need.\nBut often their very adaptation to immediate circumstances unfitted\nthem, pragmatically, to meet more enduring and more extensive needs.\nThey lived to cumber the political ground, obstructing progress, all\nthe more so because they were uttered and held not as hypotheses with\nwhich to direct social experimentation but as final truths, dogmas. No\nwonder they call urgently for revision and displacement.\n\nNevertheless the current has set steadily in one direction: toward\ndemocratic forms. That government exists to serve its community, and\nthat this purpose cannot be achieved unless the community itself\nshares in selecting its governors and determining their policies, are\na deposit of fact left, as far as we can see, permanently in the wake\nof doctrines and forms, however transitory the latter. They are not\nthe whole of the democratic idea, but they express it in its political\nphase. Belief in this political aspect is not a mystic faith as if\nin some overruling providence that cares for children, drunkards and\nothers unable to help themselves. It marks a well-attested conclusion\nfrom historic facts. We have every reason to think that whatever\nchanges may take place in existing democratic machinery, they will be\nof a sort to make the interest of the public a more supreme guide and\ncriterion of governmental activity, and to enable the public to form\nand manifest its purposes still more authoritatively. In this sense\nthe cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy. The prime\ndifficulty, as we have seen, is that of discovering the means by which\na scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as\nto define and express its interests. This discovery is necessarily\nprecedent to any fundamental change in the machinery. We are not\nconcerned therefore to set forth counsels as to advisable improvements\nin the political forms of democracy. Many have been suggested. It is no\nderogation of their relative worth to say that consideration of these\nchanges is not at present an affair of primary importance. The problem\nlies deeper; it is in the first instance an intellectual problem: the\nsearch for conditions under which the Great Society may become the\nGreat Community. When these conditions are brought into being they will\nmake their own forms. Until they have come about, it is somewhat futile\nto consider what political machinery will suit them.\n\nIn a search for the conditions under which the inchoate public now\nextant may function democratically, we may proceed from a statement of\nthe nature of the democratic idea in its generic social sense.[11] From\nthe standpoint of the individual, it consists in having a responsible\nshare according to capacity in forming and directing the activities\nof the groups to which one belongs and in participating according to\nneed in the values which the groups sustain. From the standpoint of\nthe groups, it demands liberation of the potentialities of members\nof a group in harmony with the interests and goods which are common.\nSince every individual is a member of many groups, this specification\ncannot be fulfilled except when different groups interact flexibly and\nfully in connection with other groups. A member of a robber band may\nexpress his powers in a way consonant with belonging to that group and\nbe directed by the interest common to its members. But he does so only\nat the cost of repression of those of his potentialities which can\nbe realized only through membership in other groups. The robber band\ncannot interact flexibly with other groups; it can act only through\nisolating itself. It must prevent the operation of all interests save\nthose which circumscribe it in its separateness. But a good citizen\nfinds his conduct as a member of a political group enriching and\nenriched by his participation in family life, industry, scientific\nand artistic associations. There is a free give-and-take: fullness of\nintegrated personality is therefore possible of achievement, since the\npulls and responses of different groups re\u00ebnforce one another and their\nvalues accord.\n\nRegarded as an idea, democracy is not an alternative to other\nprinciples of associated life. It is the idea of community life itself.\nIt is an ideal in the only intelligible sense of an ideal: namely, the\ntendency and movement of some thing which exists carried to its final\nlimit, viewed as completed, perfected. Since things do not attain\nsuch fulfillment but are in actuality distracted and interfered with,\ndemocracy in this sense is not a fact and never will be. But neither\nin this sense is there or has there ever been anything which is a\ncommunity in its full measure, a community unalloyed by alien elements.\nThe idea or ideal of a community presents, however, actual phases\nof associated life as they are freed from restrictive and disturbing\nelements, and are contemplated as having attained their limit of\ndevelopment. Wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are\nappreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and\nwhere the realization of the good is such as to effect an energetic\ndesire and effort to sustain it in being just because it is a good\nshared by all, there is in so far a community. The clear consciousness\nof a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of\ndemocracy.\n\nOnly when we start from a community as a fact, grasp the fact in\nthought so as to clarify and enhance its constituent elements, can\nwe reach an idea of democracy which is not utopian. The conceptions\nand shibboleths which are traditionally associated with the idea of\ndemocracy take on a veridical and directive meaning only when they\nare construed as marks and traits of an association which realizes\nthe defining characteristics of a community. Fraternity, liberty and\nequality isolated from communal life are hopeless abstractions. Their\nseparate assertion leads to mushy sentimentalism or else to extravagant\nand fanatical violence which in the end defeats its own aims. Equality\nthen becomes a creed of mechanical identity which is false to facts\nand impossible of realization. Effort to attain it is divisive of the\nvital bonds which hold men together; as far as it puts forth issue, the\noutcome is a mediocrity in which good is common only in the sense of\nbeing average and vulgar. Liberty is then thought of as independence of\nsocial ties, and ends in dissolution and anarchy. It is more difficult\nto sever the idea of brotherhood from that of a community, and hence\nit is either practically ignored in the movements which identify\ndemocracy with Individualism, or else it is a sentimentally appended\ntag. In its just connection with communal experience, fraternity is\nanother name for the consciously appreciated goods which accrue from\nan association in which all share, and which give direction to the\nconduct of each. Liberty is that secure release and fulfillment of\npersonal potentialities which take place only in rich and manifold\nassociation with others: the power to be an individualized self\nmaking a distinctive contribution and enjoying in its own way the\nfruits of association. Equality denotes the unhampered share which\neach individual member of the community has in the consequences of\nassociated action. It is equitable because it is measured only by need\nand capacity to utilize, not by extraneous factors which deprive one\nin order that another may take and have. A baby in the family is equal\nwith others, not because of some antecedent and structural quality\nwhich is the same as that of others, but in so far as his needs for\ncare and development are attended to without being sacrificed to\nthe superior strength, possessions and matured abilities of others.\nEquality does not signify that kind of mathematical or physical\nequivalence in virtue of which any one element may be substituted\nfor another. It denotes effective regard for whatever is distinctive\nand unique in each, irrespective of physical and psychological\ninequalities. It is not a natural possession but is a fruit of the\ncommunity when its action is directed by its character as a community.\n\nAssociated or joint activity is a condition of the creation of a\ncommunity. But association itself is physical and organic, while\ncommunal life is moral, that is emotionally, intellectually,\nconsciously sustained. Human beings combine in behavior as directly and\nunconsciously as do atoms, stellar masses and cells; as directly and\nunknowingly as they divide and repel. They do so in virtue of their\nown structure, as man and woman unite, as the baby seeks the breast\nand the breast is there to supply its need. They do so from external\ncircumstances, pressure from without, as atoms combine or separate\nin presence of an electric charge, or as sheep huddle together from\nthe cold. Associated activity needs no explanation; things are made\nthat way. But no amount of aggregated collective action of itself\nconstitutes a community. For beings who observe and think, and whose\nideas are absorbed by impulses and become sentiments and interests,\n\u201cwe\u201d is as inevitable as \u201cI.\u201d But \u201cwe\u201d and \u201cour\u201d exist only when the\nconsequences of combined action are perceived and become an object of\ndesire and effort, just as \u201cI\u201d and \u201cmine\u201d appear on the scene only\nwhen a distinctive share in mutual action is consciously asserted or\nclaimed. Human associations may be ever so organic in origin and firm\nin operation, but they develop into societies in a human sense only as\ntheir consequences, being known, are esteemed and sought for. Even if\n\u201csociety\u201d were as much an organism as some writers have held, it would\nnot on that account be society. Interactions, transactions, occur _de\nfacto_ and the results of interdependence follow. But participation in\nactivities and sharing in results are additive concerns. They demand\n_communication_ as a prerequisite.\n\nCombined activity happens among human beings; but when nothing else\nhappens it passes as inevitably into some other mode of interconnected\nactivity as does the interplay of iron and the oxygen of water. What\ntakes place is wholly describable in terms of energy, or, as we say\nin the case of human interactions, of force. Only when there exist\n_signs_ or _symbols_ of activities and of their outcome can the flux\nbe viewed as from without, be arrested for consideration and esteem,\nand be regulated. Lightning strikes and rives a tree or rock, and the\nresulting fragments take up and continue the process of interaction,\nand so on and on. But when phases of the process are represented by\nsigns, a new medium is interposed. As symbols are related to one\nanother, the important relations of a course of events are recorded and\nare preserved as meanings. Recollection and foresight are possible;\nthe new medium facilitates calculation, planning, and a new kind of\naction which intervenes in what happens to direct its course in the\ninterest of what is foreseen and desired.\n\nSymbols in turn depend upon and promote communication. The results\nof conjoint experience are considered and transmitted. Events cannot\nbe passed from one to another, but meanings may be shared by means\nof signs. Wants and impulses are then attached to common meanings.\nThey are thereby transformed into desires and purposes, which, since\nthey implicate a common or mutually understood meaning, present new\nties, converting a conjoint activity into a community of interest\nand endeavor. Thus there is generated what, metaphorically, may be\ntermed a general will and social consciousness: desire and choice on\nthe part of individuals in behalf of activities that, by means of\nsymbols, are communicable and shared by all concerned. A community thus\npresents an order of energies transmuted into one of meanings which are\nappreciated and mutually referred by each to every other on the part\nof those engaged in combined action. \u201cForce\u201d is not eliminated but is\ntransformed in use and direction by ideas and sentiments made possible\nby means of symbols.\n\nThe work of conversion of the physical and organic phase of associated\nbehavior into a community of action saturated and regulated by mutual\ninterest in shared meanings, consequences which are translated into\nideas and desired objects by means of symbols, does not occur all at\nonce nor completely. At any given time, it sets a problem rather than\nmarks a settled achievement. We are born organic beings associated\nwith others, but we are not born members of a community. The young\nhave to be brought within the traditions, outlook and interests\nwhich characterize a community by means of education: by unremitting\ninstruction and by learning in connection with the phenomena of overt\nassociation. Everything which is distinctively human is learned, not\nnative, even though it could not be learned without native structures\nwhich mark man off from other animals. To learn in a human way and to\nhuman effect is not just to acquire added skill through refinement of\noriginal capacities.\n\nTo learn to be human is to develop through the give-and-take of\ncommunication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive\nmember of a community; one who understands and appreciates its beliefs,\ndesires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of\norganic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is\nnever finished. The old Adam, the unregenerate element in human nature,\npersists. It shows itself wherever the method obtains of attaining\nresults by use of force instead of by the method of communication\nand enlightenment. It manifests itself more subtly, pervasively and\neffectually when knowledge and the instrumentalities of skill which\nare the product of communal life are employed in the service of wants\nand impulses which have not themselves been modified by reference to\na shared interest. To the doctrine of \u201cnatural\u201d economy which held\nthat commercial exchange would bring about such an interdependence\nthat harmony would automatically result, Rousseau gave an adequate\nanswer in advance. He pointed out that interdependence provides just\nthe situation which makes it possible and worth while for the stronger\nand abler to exploit others for their own ends, to keep others in a\nstate of subjection where they can be utilized as animated tools.\nThe remedy he suggested, a return to a condition of independence\nbased on isolation, was hardly seriously meant. But its desperateness\nis evidence of the urgency of the problem. Its negative character\nwas equivalent to surrender of any hope of solution. By contrast it\nindicates the nature of the only possible solution: the perfecting\nof the means and ways of communication of meanings so that genuinely\nshared interest in the consequences of interdependent activities may\ninform desire and effort and thereby direct action.\n\nThis is the meaning of the statement that the problem is a moral one\ndependent upon intelligence and education. We have in our prior account\nsufficiently emphasized the r\u00f4le of technological and industrial\nfactors in creating the Great Society. What was said may even have\nseemed to imply acceptance of the deterministic version of an economic\ninterpretation of history and institutions. It is silly and futile to\nignore and deny economic facts. They do not cease to operate because\nwe refuse to note them, or because we smear them over with sentimental\nidealizations. As we have also noted, they generate as their result\novert and external conditions of action and these are known with\nvarious degrees of adequacy. What actually happens in consequence\nof industrial forces is dependent upon the presence or absence of\nperception and communication of consequences, upon foresight and its\neffect upon desire and endeavor. Economic agencies produce one result\nwhen they are left to work themselves out on the merely physical level,\nor on that level modified only as the knowledge, skill and technique\nwhich the community has accumulated are transmitted to its members\nunequally and by chance. They have a different outcome in the degree in\nwhich knowledge of consequences is equitably distributed, and action\nis animated by an informed and lively sense of a shared interest. The\ndoctrine of economic interpretation as usually stated ignores the\ntransformation which meanings may effect; it passes over the new medium\nwhich communication may interpose between industry and its eventual\nconsequences. It is obsessed by the illusion which vitiated the\n\u201cnatural economy\u201d: an illusion due to failure to note the difference\nmade in action by perception and publication of its consequences,\nactual and possible. It thinks in terms of antecedents, not of the\neventual; of origins, not fruits.\n\nWe have returned, through this apparent excursion, to the question in\nwhich our earlier discussion culminated: What are the conditions under\nwhich it is possible for the Great Society to approach more closely\nand vitally the status of a Great Community, and thus take form in\ngenuinely democratic societies and state? What are the conditions under\nwhich we may reasonably picture the Public emerging from its eclipse?\n\nThe study will be an intellectual or hypothetical one. There will be no\nattempt to state how the required conditions might come into existence,\nnor to prophesy that they will occur. The object of the analysis will\nbe to show that _unless_ ascertained specifications are realized, the\nCommunity cannot be organized as a democratically effective Public. It\nis not claimed that the conditions which will be noted will suffice,\nbut only that at least they are indispensable. In other words, we shall\nendeavor to frame a hypothesis regarding the democratic state to stand\nin contrast with the earlier doctrine which has been nullified by the\ncourse of events.\n\nTwo essential constituents in that older theory, as will be recalled,\nwere the notions that each individual is of himself equipped with the\nintelligence needed, under the operation of self-interest, to engage\nin political affairs; and that general suffrage, frequent elections of\nofficials and majority rule are sufficient to ensure the responsibility\nof elected rulers to the desires and interests of the public. As we\nshall see, the second conception is logically bound up with the first\nand stands or falls with it. At the basis of the scheme lies what\nLippmann has well called the idea of the \u201comni-competent\u201d individual:\ncompetent to frame policies, to judge their results; competent to\nknow in all situations demanding political action what is for his\nown good, and competent to enforce his idea of good and the will to\neffect it against contrary forces. Subsequent history has proved that\nthe assumption involved illusion. Had it not been for the misleading\ninfluence of a false psychology, the illusion might have been detected\nin advance. But current philosophy held that ideas and knowledge were\nfunctions of a mind or consciousness which originated in individuals\nby means of isolated contact with objects. But in fact, knowledge is a\nfunction of association and communication; it depends upon tradition,\nupon tools and methods socially transmitted, developed and sanctioned.\nFaculties of effectual observation, reflection and desire are habits\nacquired under the influence of the culture and institutions of\nsociety, not ready-made inherent powers. The fact that man acts from\ncrudely intelligized emotion and from habit rather than from rational\nconsideration, is now so familiar that it is not easy to appreciate\nthat the other idea was taken seriously as the basis of economic and\npolitical philosophy. The measure of truth which it contains was\nderived from observation of a relatively small group of shrewd business\nmen who regulated their enterprises by calculation and accounting,\nand of citizens of small and stable local communities who were so\nintimately acquainted with the persons and affairs of their locality\nthat they could pass competent judgment upon the bearing of proposed\nmeasures upon their own concerns.\n\nHabit is the mainspring of human action, and habits are formed for the\nmost part under the influence of the customs of a group. The organic\nstructure of man entails the formation of habit, for, whether we\nwish it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, every act effects\na modification of attitude and set which directs future behavior.\nThe dependence of habit-forming upon those habits of a group which\nconstitute customs and institutions is a natural consequence of the\nhelplessness of infancy. The social consequences of habit have been\nstated once for all by James: \u201cHabit is the enormous fly-wheel of\nsociety, its most precious conservative influence. It alone is what\nkeeps us within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of\nfortune from the uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest\nand most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought\nup to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea\nthrough the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the\ncountry-man to his log cabin and his lonely farm through all the months\nof snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and\nthe frozen zone. It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon\nthe lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of\na pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are\nfitted and it is too late to begin again. It keeps different social\nstrata from mixing.\u201d\n\nThe influence of habit is decisive because all distinctively human\naction has to be learned, and the very heart, blood and sinews of\nlearning is creation of habitudes. Habits bind us to orderly and\nestablished ways of action because they generate ease, skill and\ninterest in things to which we have grown used and because they\ninstigate fear to walk in different ways, and because they leave us\nincapacitated for the trial of them. Habit does not preclude the use\nof thought, but it determines the channels within which it operates.\nThinking is secreted in the interstices of habits. The sailor,\nminer, fisherman and farmer think, but their thoughts fall within\nthe framework of accustomed occupations and relationships. We dream\nbeyond the limits of use and wont, but only rarely does revery become\na source of acts which break bounds; so rarely that we name those in\nwhom it happens demonic geniuses and marvel at the spectacle. Thinking\nitself becomes habitual along certain lines; a specialized occupation.\nScientific men, philosophers, literary persons, are not men and women\nwho have so broken the bonds of habits that pure reason and emotion\nundefiled by use and wont speak through them. They are persons of a\nspecialized infrequent habit. Hence the idea that men are moved by an\nintelligent and calculated regard for their own good is pure mythology.\nEven if the principle of self-love actuated behavior, it would still\nbe true that the _objects_ in which men find their love manifested, the\nobjects which they take as constituting their peculiar interests, are\nset by habits reflecting social customs.\n\nThese facts explain why the social doctrinaires of the new industrial\nmovement had so little prescience of what was to follow in consequence\nof it. These facts explain why the more things changed, the more they\nwere the same; they account, that is, for the fact that instead of\nthe sweeping revolution which was expected to result from democratic\npolitical machinery, there was in the main but a transfer of vested\npower from one class to another. A few men, whether or not they were\ngood judges of their own true interest and good, were competent judges\nof the conduct of business for pecuniary profit, and of how the new\ngovernmental machinery could be made to serve their ends. It would\nhave taken a new race of human beings to escape, in the use made of\npolitical forms, from the influence of deeply engrained habits, of\nold institutions and customary social status, with their inwrought\nlimitations of expectation, desire and demand. And such a race, unless\nof disembodied angelic constitution, would simply have taken up the\ntask where human beings assumed it upon emergence from the condition\nof anthropoid apes. In spite of sudden and catastrophic revolutions,\nthe essential continuity of history is doubly guaranteed. Not only are\npersonal desire and belief functions of habit and custom, but the\nobjective conditions which provide the resources and tools of action,\ntogether with its limitations, obstructions and traps, are precipitates\nof the past, perpetuating, willy-nilly, its hold and power. The\ncreation of a _tabula rasa_ in order to permit the creation of a new\norder is so impossible as to set at naught both the hope of buoyant\nrevolutionaries and the timidity of scared conservatives.\n\nNevertheless, changes take place and are cumulative in character.\nObservation of them in the light of their recognized consequences\narouses reflection, discovery, invention, experimentation. When\na certain state of accumulated knowledge, of techniques and\ninstrumentalities is attained, the process of change is so accelerated,\nthat, as to-day, it appears externally to be the dominant trait. But\nthere is a marked lag in any corresponding change of ideas and desires.\nHabits of opinion are the toughest of all habits; when they have become\nsecond nature, and are supposedly thrown out of the door, they creep\nin again as stealthily and surely as does first nature. And as they\nare modified, the alteration first shows itself negatively, in the\ndisintegration of old beliefs, to be replaced by floating, volatile\nand accidentally snatched up opinions. Of course there has been an\nenormous increase in the amount of knowledge possessed by mankind,\nbut it does not equal, probably, the increase in the amount of errors\nand half-truths which have got into circulation. In social and human\nmatters, especially, the development of a critical sense and methods\nof discriminating judgment has not kept pace with the growth of\ncareless reports and of motives for positive misrepresentation.\n\nWhat is more important, however, is that so much of knowledge is\nnot knowledge in the ordinary sense of the word, but is \u201cscience.\u201d\nThe quotation marks are not used disrespectfully, but to suggest\nthe technical character of scientific material. The layman takes\ncertain conclusions which get into circulation to be science. But\nthe scientific inquirer knows that they constitute science only in\nconnection with the methods by which they are reached. Even when true,\nthey are not science in virtue of their correctness, but by reason of\nthe apparatus which is employed in reaching them. This apparatus is so\nhighly specialized that it requires more labor to acquire ability to\nuse and understand it than to get skill in any other instrumentalities\npossessed by man. Science, in other words, is a highly specialized\nlanguage, more difficult to learn than any natural language. It is an\nartificial language, not in the sense of being factitious, but in that\nof being a work of intricate art, devoted to a particular purpose and\nnot capable of being acquired nor understood in the way in which the\nmother tongue is learned. It is, indeed, conceivable that sometime\nmethods of instruction will be devised which will enable laymen to read\nand hear scientific material with comprehension, even when they do not\nthemselves use the apparatus which is science. The latter may then\nbecome for large numbers what students of language call a passive, if\nnot an active, vocabulary. But that time is in the future.\n\nFor most men, save the scientific workers, science is a mystery in\nthe hands of initiates, who have become adepts in virtue of following\nritualistic ceremonies from which the profane herd is excluded. They\nare fortunate who get as far as a sympathetic appreciation of the\nmethods which give pattern to the complicated apparatus: methods of\nanalytic, experimental observation, mathematical formulation and\ndeduction, constant and elaborate check and test. For most persons,\nthe reality of the apparatus is found only in its embodiments in\npractical affairs, in mechanical devices and in techniques which\ntouch life as it is lived. For them, electricity is _known_ by means\nof the telephones, bells and lights they use, by the generators and\nmagnetos in the automobiles they drive, by the trolley cars in which\nthey ride. The physiology and biology they are acquainted with is\nthat they have learned in taking precautions against germs and from\nthe physicians they depend upon for health. The science of what might\nbe supposed to be closest to them, of human nature, was for them an\nesoteric mystery until it was applied in advertising, salesmanship and\npersonnel selection and management, and until, through psychiatry, it\nspilled over into life and popular consciousness, through its bearings\nupon \u201cnerves,\u201d the morbidities and common forms of crankiness which\nmake it difficult for persons to get along with one another and with\nthemselves. Even now, popular psychology is a mass of cant, of slush\nand of superstition worthy of the most flourishing days of the medicine\nman.\n\nMeanwhile the technological application of the complex apparatus which\nis science has revolutionized the conditions under which associated\nlife goes on. This may be known as a fact which is stated in a\nproposition and assented to. But it is not known in the sense that men\nunderstand it. They do not know it as they know some machine which they\noperate, or as they know electric light and steam locomotives. They do\nnot understand _how_ the change has gone on nor _how_ it affects their\nconduct. Not understanding its \u201chow,\u201d they cannot use and control its\nmanifestations. They undergo the consequences, they are affected by\nthem. They cannot manage them, though some are fortunate enough--what\nis commonly called good fortune--to be able to exploit some phase of\nthe process for their own personal profit. But even the most shrewd and\nsuccessful man does not in any analytic and systematic way--in a way\nworthy to compare with the knowledge which he has won in lesser affairs\nby means of the stress of experience--know the system within which he\noperates. Skill and ability work within a framework which we have not\ncreated and do not comprehend. Some occupy strategic positions which\ngive them advance information of forces that affect the market; and\nby training and an innate turn that way they have acquired a special\ntechnique which enables them to use the vast impersonal tide to turn\ntheir own wheels. They can dam the current here and release it there.\nThe current itself is as much beyond them as was ever the river by the\nside of which some ingenious mechanic, employing a knowledge which\nwas transmitted to him, erected his saw-mill to make boards of trees\nwhich he had not grown. That within limits those successful in affairs\nhave knowledge and skill is not to be doubted. But such knowledge\ngoes relatively but little further than that of the competent skilled\noperator who manages a machine. It suffices to employ the conditions\nwhich are before him. Skill enables him to turn the flux of events this\nway or that in his own neighborhood. It gives him no control of the\nflux.\n\nWhy should the public and its officers, even if the latter are termed\nstatesmen, be wiser and more effective? The prime condition of a\ndemocratically organized public is a kind of knowledge and insight\nwhich does not yet exist. In its absence, it would be the height of\nabsurdity to try to tell what it would be like if it existed. But\nsome of the conditions which must be fulfilled if it is to exist can\nbe indicated. We can borrow that much from the spirit and method of\nscience even if we are ignorant of it as a specialized apparatus. An\nobvious requirement is freedom of social inquiry and of distribution\nof its conclusions. The notion that men may be free in their thought\neven when they are not in its expression and dissemination has been\nsedulously propagated. It had its origin in the idea of a mind complete\nin itself, apart from action and from objects. Such a consciousness\npresents in fact the spectacle of mind deprived of its normal\nfunctioning, because it is baffled by the actualities in connection\nwith which alone it is truly mind, and is driven back into secluded and\nimpotent revery.\n\nThere can be no public without full publicity in respect to all\nconsequences which concern it. Whatever obstructs and restricts\npublicity, limits and distorts public opinion and checks and distorts\nthinking on social affairs. Without freedom of expression, not even\nmethods of social inquiry can be developed. For tools can be evolved\nand perfected only in operation; in application to observing, reporting\nand organizing actual subject-matter; and this application cannot occur\nsave through free and systematic communication. The early history of\nphysical knowledge, of Greek conceptions of natural phenomena, proves\nhow inept become the conceptions of the best endowed minds when those\nideas are elaborated apart from the closest contact with the events\nwhich they purport to state and explain. The ruling ideas and methods\nof the human sciences are in much the same condition to-day. They are\nalso evolved on the basis of past gross observations, remote from\nconstant use in regulation of the material of new observations.\n\nThe belief that thought and its communication are now free simply\nbecause legal restrictions which once obtained have been done away\nwith is absurd. Its currency perpetuates the infantile state of social\nknowledge. For it blurs recognition of our central need to possess\nconceptions which are used as tools of directed inquiry and which are\ntested, rectified and caused to grow in actual use. No man and no mind\nwas ever emancipated merely by being left alone. Removal of formal\nlimitations is but a negative condition; positive freedom is not a\nstate but an act which involves methods and instrumentalities for\ncontrol of conditions. Experience shows that sometimes the sense of\nexternal oppression, as by censorship, acts as a challenge and arouses\nintellectual energy and excites courage. But a belief in intellectual\nfreedom where it does not exist contributes only to complacency in\nvirtual enslavement, to sloppiness, superficiality and recourse to\nsensations as a substitute for ideas: marked traits of our present\nestate with respect to social knowledge. On one hand, thinking deprived\nof its normal course takes refuge in academic specialism, comparable\nin its way to what is called scholasticism. On the other hand, the\nphysical agencies of publicity which exist in such abundance are\nutilized in ways which constitute a large part of the present meaning\nof publicity: advertising, propaganda, invasion of private life, the\n\u201cfeaturing\u201d of passing incidents in a way which violates all the\nmoving logic of continuity, and which leaves us with those isolated\nintrusions and shocks which are the essence of \u201csensations.\u201d\n\nIt would be a mistake to identify the conditions which limit free\ncommunication and circulation of facts and ideas, and which thereby\narrest and pervert social thought or inquiry, merely with overt forces\nwhich are obstructive. It is true that those who have ability to\nmanipulate social relations for their own advantage have to be reckoned\nwith. They have an uncanny instinct for detecting whatever intellectual\ntendencies even remotely threaten to encroach upon their control. They\nhave developed an extraordinary facility in enlisting upon their side\nthe inertia, prejudices and emotional partisanship of the masses by use\nof a technique which impedes free inquiry and expression. We seem to be\napproaching a state of government by hired promoters of opinion called\npublicity agents. But the more serious enemy is deeply concealed in\nhidden entrenchments.\n\nEmotional habituations and intellectual habitudes on the part of the\nmass of men create the conditions of which the exploiters of sentiment\nand opinion only take advantage. Men have got used to an experimental\nmethod in physical and technical matters. They are still afraid of\nit in human concerns. The fear is the more efficacious because like\nall deep-lying fears it is covered up and disguised by all kinds of\nrationalizations. One of its commonest forms is a truly religious\nidealization of, and reverence for, established institutions; for\nexample in our own politics, the Constitution, the Supreme Court,\nprivate property, free contract and so on. The words \u201csacred\u201d and\n\u201csanctity\u201d come readily to our lips when such things come under\ndiscussion. They testify to the religious aureole which protects the\ninstitutions. If \u201choly\u201d means that which is not to be approached nor\ntouched, save with ceremonial precautions and by specially anointed\nofficials, then such things are holy in contemporary political life.\nAs supernatural matters have progressively been left high and dry\nupon a secluded beach, the actuality of religious taboos has more and\nmore gathered about secular institutions, especially those connected\nwith the nationalistic state.[12] Psychiatrists have discovered that\none of the commonest causes of mental disturbance is an underlying\nfear of which the subject is not aware, but which leads to withdrawal\nfrom reality and to unwillingness to think things through. There is a\nsocial pathology which works powerfully against effective inquiry into\nsocial institutions and conditions. It manifests itself in a thousand\nways; in querulousness, in impotent drifting, in uneasy snatching at\ndistractions, in idealization of the long established, in a facile\noptimism assumed as a cloak, in riotous glorification of things \u201cas\nthey are,\u201d in intimidation of all dissenters--ways which depress and\ndissipate thought all the more effectually because they operate with\nsubtle and unconscious pervasiveness.\n\nThe backwardness of social knowledge is marked in its division into\nindependent and insulated branches of learning. Anthropology, history,\nsociology, morals, economics, political science, go their own ways\nwithout constant and systematized fruitful interaction. Only in\nappearance is there a similar division in physical knowledge. There is\ncontinuous cross-fertilization between astronomy, physics, chemistry\nand the biological sciences. Discoveries and improved methods are so\nrecorded and organized that constant exchange and intercommunication\ntake place. The isolation of the humane subjects from one another is\nconnected with their aloofness from physical knowledge. The mind still\ndraws a sharp separation between the world in which man lives and the\nlife of man in and by that world, a cleft reflected in the separation\nof man himself into a body and a mind, which, it is currently supposed,\ncan be known and dealt with apart. That for the past three centuries\nenergy should have gone chiefly into physical inquiry, beginning\nwith the things most remote from man such as heavenly bodies, was\nto have been expected. The history of the physical sciences reveals\na certain order in which they developed. Mathematical tools had to\nbe employed before a new astronomy could be constructed. Physics\nadvanced when ideas worked out in connection with the solar system\nwere used to describe happenings on the earth. Chemistry waited on\nthe advance of physics; the sciences of living things required the\nmaterial and methods of physics and chemistry in order to make headway.\nHuman psychology ceased to be chiefly speculative opinion only when\nbiological and physiological conclusions were available. All this is\nnatural and seemingly inevitable. Things which had the most outlying\nand indirect connection with human interests had to be mastered in some\ndegree before inquiries could competently converge upon man himself.\n\nNevertheless the course of development has left us of this age in\na plight. When we say that a subject of science is technically\nspecialized, or that it is highly \u201cabstract,\u201d what we practically mean\nis that it is not conceived in terms of its bearing upon human life.\nAll _merely_ physical knowledge is technical, couched in a technical\nvocabulary communicable only to the few. Even physical knowledge which\ndoes affect human conduct, which does modify what we do and undergo,\nis also technical and remote in the degree in which its bearings are\nnot understood and used. The sunlight, rain, air and soil have always\nentered in visible ways into human experience; atoms and molecules and\ncells and most other things with which the sciences are occupied affect\nus, but not visibly. Because they enter life and modify experience in\nimperceptible ways, and their consequences are not realized, speech\nabout them is technical; communication is by means of peculiar symbols.\nOne would think, then, that a fundamental and ever-operating aim would\nbe to translate knowledge of the subject-matter of physical conditions\ninto terms which are generally understood, into signs denoting human\nconsequences of services and disservices rendered. For ultimately all\nconsequences which enter human life depend upon physical conditions;\nthey can be understood and mastered only as the latter are taken into\naccount. One would think, then, that any state of affairs which tends\nto render the things of the environment unknown and incommunicable by\nhuman beings in terms of their own activities and sufferings would be\ndeplored as a disaster; that it would be felt to be intolerable, and to\nbe put up with only as far as it is, at any given time, inevitable.\n\nBut the facts are to the contrary. Matter and the material are words\nwhich in the minds of many convey a note of disparagement. They are\ntaken to be foes of whatever is of ideal value in life, instead of as\nconditions of its manifestation and sustained being. In consequence\nof this division, they do become in fact enemies, for whatever is\nconsistently kept apart from human values depresses thought and\nrenders values sparse and precarious in fact. There are even some who\nregard the materialism and dominance of commercialism of modern life\nas fruits of undue devotion to physical science, not seeing that the\nsplit between man and nature, artificially made by a tradition which\noriginated before there was understanding of the physical conditions\nthat are the medium of human activities, is the benumbing factor. The\nmost influential form of the divorce is separation between pure and\napplied science. Since \u201capplication\u201d signifies recognized bearing upon\nhuman experience and well-being, honor of what is \u201cpure\u201d and contempt\nfor what is \u201capplied\u201d has for its outcome a science which is remote\nand technical, communicable only to specialists, and a conduct of\nhuman affairs which is haphazard, biased, unfair in distribution of\nvalues. What is applied and employed as the alternative to knowledge\nin regulation of society is ignorance, prejudice, class-interest and\naccident. Science is converted into knowledge in its honorable and\nemphatic sense _only_ in application. Otherwise it is truncated,\nblind, distorted. When it is then applied, it is in ways which explain\nthe unfavorable sense so often attached to \u201capplication\u201d and the\n\u201cutilitarian\u201d: namely, use for pecuniary ends to the profit of a few.\n\nAt present, the application of physical science is rather _to_ human\nconcerns than _in_ them. That is, it is external, made in the interests\nof its consequences for a possessing and acquisitive class. Application\n_in_ life would signify that science was absorbed and distributed; that\nit was the instrumentality of that common understanding and thorough\ncommunication which is the precondition of the existence of a genuine\nand effective public. The use of science to regulate industry and trade\nhas gone on steadily. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth\ncentury was the precursor of the industrial revolution of the\neighteenth and nineteenth. In consequence, man has suffered the impact\nof an enormously enlarged control of physical energies without any\ncorresponding ability to control himself and his own affairs. Knowledge\ndivided against itself, a science to whose incompleteness is added an\nartificial split, has played its part in generating enslavement of men,\nwomen and children in factories in which they are animated machines to\ntend inanimate machines. It has maintained sordid slums, flurried and\ndiscontented careers, grinding poverty and luxurious wealth, brutal\nexploitation of nature and man in times of peace and high explosives\nand noxious gases in times of war. Man, a child in understanding of\nhimself, has placed in his hands physical tools of incalculable power.\nHe plays with them like a child, and whether they work harm or good is\nlargely a matter of accident. The instrumentality becomes a master and\nworks fatally as if possessed of a will of its own--not because it has\na will but because man has not.\n\nThe glorification of \u201cpure\u201d science under such conditions is a\nrationalization of an escape; it marks a construction of an asylum of\nrefuge, a shirking of responsibility. The true purity of knowledge\nexists not when it is uncontaminated by contact with use and service.\nIt is wholly a moral matter, an affair of honesty, impartiality\nand generous breadth of intent in search and communication. The\nadulteration of knowledge is due not to its use, but to vested bias\nand prejudice, to one-sidedness of outlook, to vanity, to conceit of\npossession and authority, to contempt or disregard of human concern in\nits use. Humanity is not, as was once thought, the end for which all\nthings were formed; it is but a slight and feeble thing, perhaps an\nepisodic one, in the vast stretch of the universe. But for man, man is\nthe center of interest and the measure of importance. The magnifying\nof the physical realm at the cost of man is but an abdication and a\nflight. To make physical science a rival of human interests is bad\nenough, for it forms a diversion of energy which can ill be afforded.\nBut the evil does not stop there. The ultimate harm is that the\nunderstanding by man of his own affairs and his ability to direct them\nare sapped at their root when knowledge of nature is disconnected from\nits human function.\n\nIt has been implied throughout that knowledge is communication as well\nas understanding. I well remember the saying of a man, uneducated\nfrom the standpoint of the schools, in speaking of certain matters:\n\u201cSometime they will be found out and not only found out, but they\nwill be known.\u201d The schools may suppose that a thing is known when\nit is found out. My old friend was aware that a thing is fully known\nonly when it is published, shared, socially accessible. Record and\ncommunication are indispensable to knowledge. Knowledge cooped up in\na private consciousness is a myth, and knowledge of social phenomena\nis peculiarly dependent upon dissemination, for only by distribution\ncan such knowledge be either obtained or tested. A fact of community\nlife which is not spread abroad so as to be a common possession is\na contradiction in terms. Dissemination is something other than\nscattering at large. Seeds are sown, not by virtue of being thrown\nout at random, but by being so distributed as to take root and have a\nchance of growth. Communication of the results of social inquiry is\nthe same thing as the formation of public opinion. This marks one of\nthe first ideas framed in the growth of political democracy as it will\nbe one of the last to be fulfilled. For public opinion is judgment\nwhich is formed and entertained by those who constitute the public\nand is about public affairs. Each of the two phases imposes for its\nrealization conditions hard to meet.\n\nOpinions and beliefs concerning the public presuppose effective and\norganized inquiry. Unless there are methods for detecting the energies\nwhich are at work and tracing them through an intricate network of\ninteractions to their consequences, what passes as public opinion will\nbe \u201copinion\u201d in its derogatory sense rather than truly public, no\nmatter how widespread the opinion is. The number who share error as to\nfact and who partake of a false belief measures power for harm. Opinion\ncasually formed and formed under the direction of those who have\nsomething at stake in having a lie believed can be _public_ opinion\nonly in name. Calling it by this name, acceptance of the name as a\nkind of warrant, magnifies its capacity to lead action estray. The more\nwho share it, the more injurious its influence. Public opinion, even if\nit happens to be correct, is intermittent when it is not the product of\nmethods of investigation and reporting constantly at work. It appears\nonly in crises. Hence its \u201crightness\u201d concerns only an immediate\nemergency. Its lack of continuity makes it wrong from the standpoint\nof the course of events. It is as if a physician were able to deal\nfor the moment with an emergency in disease but could not adapt his\ntreatment of it to the underlying conditions which brought it about.\nHe may then \u201ccure\u201d the disease--that is, cause its present alarming\nsymptoms to subside--but he does not modify its causes; his treatment\nmay even affect them for the worse. Only continuous inquiry, continuous\nin the sense of being connected as well as persistent, can provide the\nmaterial of enduring opinion about public matters.\n\nThere is a sense in which \u201copinion\u201d rather than knowledge, even under\nthe most favorable circumstances, is the proper term to use--namely,\nin the sense of judgment, estimate. For in its strict sense, knowledge\ncan refer only to what _has_ happened and been done. What is still _to\nbe_ done involves a forecast of a future still contingent, and cannot\nescape the liability to error in judgment involved in all anticipation\nof probabilities. There may well be honest divergence as to policies to\nbe pursued, even when plans spring from knowledge of the same facts.\nBut genuinely public policy cannot be generated unless it be informed\nby knowledge, and this knowledge does not exist except when there is\nsystematic, thorough, and well-equipped search and record.\n\nMoreover, inquiry must be as nearly contemporaneous as possible;\notherwise it is only of antiquarian interest. Knowledge of history is\nevidently necessary for connectedness of knowledge. But history which\nis not brought down close to the actual scene of events leaves a gap\nand exercises influence upon the formation of judgments about the\npublic interest only by guess-work about intervening events. Here, only\ntoo conspicuously, is a limitation of the existing social sciences.\nTheir material comes too late, too far after the event, to enter\neffectively into the formation of public opinion about the immediate\npublic concern and what is to be done about it.\n\nA glance at the situation shows that the physical and external means\nof collecting information in regard to what is happening in the world\nhave far outrun the intellectual phase of inquiry and organization of\nits results. Telegraph, telephone, and now the radio, cheap and quick\nmails, the printing press, capable of swift reduplication of material\nat low cost, have attained a remarkable development. But when we ask\nwhat sort of material is recorded and how it is organized, when we ask\nabout the intellectual form in which the material is presented, the\ntale to be told is very different. \u201cNews\u201d signifies something which\nhas just happened, and which is new just because it deviates from the\nold and regular. But its _meaning_ depends upon relation to what it\nimports, to what its social consequences are. This import cannot be\ndetermined unless the new is placed in relation to the old, to what\nhas happened and been integrated into the course of events. Without\nco\u00f6rdination and consecutiveness, events are not events, but mere\noccurrences, intrusions; an event implies that out of which a happening\nproceeds. Hence even if we discount the influence of private interests\nin procuring suppression, secrecy and misrepresentation, we have here\nan explanation of the triviality and \u201csensational\u201d quality of so much\nof what passes as news. The catastrophic, namely, crime, accident,\nfamily rows, personal clashes and conflicts, are the most obvious forms\nof breaches of continuity; they supply the element of shock which is\nthe strictest meaning of sensation; they are the _new_ par excellence,\neven though only the date of the newspaper could inform us whether they\nhappened last year or this, so completely are they isolated from their\nconnections.\n\nSo accustomed are we to this method of collecting, recording and\npresenting social changes, that it may well sound ridiculous to say\nthat a genuine social science would manifest its reality in the daily\npress, while learned books and articles supply and polish tools of\ninquiry. But the inquiry which alone can furnish knowledge as a\nprecondition of public judgments must be contemporary and quotidian.\nEven if social sciences as a specialized apparatus of inquiry were\nmore advanced than they are, they would be comparatively impotent in\nthe office of directing opinion on matters of concern to the public as\nlong as they are remote from application in the daily and unremitting\nassembly and interpretation of \u201cnews.\u201d On the other hand, the tools of\nsocial inquiry will be clumsy as long as they are forged in places and\nunder conditions remote from contemporary events.\n\nWhat has been said about the formation of ideas and judgments\nconcerning the public apply as well to the distribution of the\nknowledge which makes it an effective possession of the members of\nthe public. Any separation between the two sides of the problem is\nartificial. The discussion of propaganda and propagandism would alone,\nhowever, demand a volume, and could be written only by one much more\nexperienced than the present writer. Propaganda can accordingly\nonly be mentioned, with the remark that the present situation is\none unprecedented in history. The political forms of democracy and\nquasi-democratic habits of thought on social matters have compelled\na certain amount of public discussion and at least the simulation of\ngeneral consultation in arriving at political decisions. Representative\ngovernment must at least seem to be founded on public interests as they\nare revealed to public belief. The days are past when government can\nbe carried on without any pretense of ascertaining the wishes of the\ngoverned. In theory, their assent must be secured. Under the older\nforms, there was no need to muddy the sources of opinion on political\nmatters. No current of energy flowed from them. To-day the judgments\npopularly formed on political matters are so important, in spite of all\nfactors to the contrary, that there is an enormous premium upon all\nmethods which affect their formation.\n\nThe smoothest road to control of political conduct is by control of\nopinion. As long as interests of pecuniary profit are powerful, and\na public has not located and identified itself, those who have this\ninterest will have an unresisted motive for tampering with the springs\nof political action in all that affects them. Just as in the conduct of\nindustry and exchange generally the technological factor is obscured,\ndeflected and defeated by \u201cbusiness,\u201d so specifically in the management\nof publicity. The gathering and sale of subject-matter having a public\nimport is part of the existing pecuniary system. Just as industry\nconducted by engineers on a factual technological basis would be a\nvery different thing from what it actually is, so the assembling and\nreporting of news would be a very different thing if the genuine\ninterests of reporters were permitted to work freely.\n\nOne aspect of the matter concerns particularly the side of\ndissemination. It is often said, and with a great appearance of\ntruth, that the freeing and perfecting of inquiry would not have any\nespecial effect. For, it is argued, the mass of the reading public is\nnot interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate\ninvestigation. Unless these are read, they cannot seriously affect\nthe thought and action of members of the public; they remain in\nsecluded library alcoves, and are studied and understood only by a\nfew intellectuals. The objection is well taken save as the potency of\nart is taken into account. A technical high-brow presentation would\nappeal only to those technically high-brow; it would not be news to\nthe masses. Presentation is fundamentally important, and presentation\nis a question of art. A newspaper which was only a daily edition of a\nquarterly journal of sociology or political science would undoubtedly\npossess a limited circulation and a narrow influence. Even at that,\nhowever, the mere existence and accessibility of such material would\nhave some regulative effect. But we can look much further than that.\nThe material would have such an enormous and widespread human bearing\nthat its bare existence would be an irresistible invitation to a\npresentation of it which would have a direct popular appeal. The\nfreeing of the artist in literary presentation, in other words, is as\nmuch a precondition of the desirable creation of adequate opinion on\npublic matters as is the freeing of social inquiry. Men\u2019s conscious\nlife of opinion and judgment often proceeds on a superficial and\ntrivial plane. But their lives reach a deeper level. The function of\nart has always been to break through the crust of conventionalized and\nroutine consciousness. Common things, a flower, a gleam of moonlight,\nthe song of a bird, not things rare and remote, are means with which\nthe deeper levels of life are touched so that they spring up as desire\nand thought. This process is art. Poetry, the drama, the novel, are\nproofs that the problem of presentation is not insoluble. Artists have\nalways been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward\nhappening in itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion,\nperception and appreciation.\n\nWe have but touched lightly and in passing upon the conditions which\nmust be fulfilled if the Great Society is to become a Great Community;\na society in which the ever-expanding and intricately ramifying\nconsequences of associated activities shall be known in the full sense\nof that word, so that an organized, articulate Public comes into being.\nThe highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate,\nvivid and responsive art of communication must take possession of the\nphysical machinery of transmission and circulation and breathe life\ninto it. When the machine age has thus perfected its machinery it\nwill be a means of life and not its despotic master. Democracy will\ncome into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of free and\nenriching communion. It had its seer in Walt Whitman. It will have its\nconsummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art\nof full and moving communication.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF METHOD\n\n\nPerhaps to most, probably to many, the conclusions which have been\nstated as to the conditions upon which depends the emergence of the\nPublic from its eclipse will seem close to denial of the possibility\nof realizing the idea of a democratic public. One might indeed point\nfor what it is worth to the enormous obstacles with which the rise of\na science of physical things was confronted a few short centuries ago,\nas evidence that hope need not be wholly desperate nor faith wholly\nblind. But we are not concerned with prophecy but with analysis. It\nis enough for present purposes if the problem has been clarified:--if\nwe have seen that the outstanding problem of the Public is discovery\nand identification of itself, and if we have succeeded, in however\ngroping a manner, in apprehending the conditions upon which the\nresolution of the problem depends. We shall conclude with suggesting\nsome implications and corollaries as to method, not, indeed, as to the\nmethod of resolution, but, once more, the intellectual antecedents of\nsuch a method.\n\nThe preliminary to fruitful discussion of social matters is that\ncertain obstacles shall be overcome, obstacles residing in our present\nconceptions of the method of social inquiry. One of the obstructions\nin the path is the seemingly engrained notion that the first and the\nlast problem which must be solved is the relation of the individual\nand the social:--or that the outstanding question is to determine the\nrelative merits of individualism and collective or of some compromise\nbetween them. In fact, both words, individual and social, are\nhopelessly ambiguous, and the ambiguity will never cease as long as we\nthink in terms of an antithesis.\n\nIn its approximate sense, anything is individual which moves and acts\nas a unitary thing. For common sense, a certain spatial separateness\nis the mark of this individuality. A thing is one when it stands,\nlies or moves as a unit independently of other things, whether it be\na stone, tree, molecule or drop of water, or a human being. But even\nvulgar common sense at once introduces certain qualifications. The\ntree stands only when rooted in the soil; it lives or dies in the\nmode of its connections with sunlight, air and water. Then too the\ntree is a collection of interacting parts; is the tree more a single\nwhole than its cells? A stone moves, apparently alone. But it is moved\nby something else and the course of its flight is dependent not only\nupon initial propulsion but upon wind and gravity. A hammer falls,\nand what was one stone becomes a heap of dusty particles. A chemist\noperates with one of the grains of dust, and forthwith it disappears\nin molecules, atoms and electrons--and then? Have we now reached a\nlonely, but not lonesome, individual? Or does, perhaps, an electron\ndepend for its single and unitary mode of action upon its connections,\nas much as the stone with which we started? Is its action also a\nfunction of some more inclusive and interacting scene?\n\nFrom another point of view, we have to qualify our approximate notion\nof an individual as being that which acts and moves as a unitary\nthing. We have to consider not only its connections and ties, but\nthe consequences with respect to which it acts and moves. We are\ncompelled to say that for some purposes, for some results, the tree\nis the individual, for others the cell, and for a third, the forest\nor the landscape. Is a book or a leaf or a folio or a paragraph, or a\nprinter\u2019s em _the_ individual? Is the binding or the contained thought\nthat which gives individual unity to a book? Or are all of these things\ndefiners of an individual according to the consequences which are\nrelevant in a particular situation? Unless we betake ourselves to the\nstock resort of common sense, dismissing _all_ questions as useless\nquibbles, it seems as if we could not determine an individual without\nreference to differences made as well as to antecedent and contemporary\nconnections. If so, an individual, whatever else it is or is not, is\nnot just the spatially isolated thing our imagination inclines to take\nit to be.\n\nSuch a discussion does not proceed upon a particularly high nor an\nespecially deep level. But it may at least render us wary of any\ndefinition of an individual which operates in terms of separateness.\nA _distinctive_ way of behaving in conjunction and _connection_ with\nother distinctive ways of acting, not a self-enclosed way of acting,\nindependent of everything else, is that toward which we are pointed.\nAny human being is in one respect an association, consisting of a\nmultitude of cells each living its own life. And as the activity of\neach cell is conditioned and directed by those with which it interacts,\nso the human being whom we fasten upon as individual _par excellence_\nis moved and regulated by his associations with others; what he does\nand what the consequences of his behavior are, what his experience\nconsists of, cannot even be described, much less accounted for, in\nisolation.\n\nBut while associated behavior is, as we have already noted, a universal\nlaw, the fact of association does not of itself make a society.\nThis demands, as we have also seen, perception of the consequences\nof a joint activity and of the distinctive share of each element in\nproducing it. Such perception creates a common interest; that is\nconcern on the part of each in the joint action and in the contribution\nof each of its members to it. Then there exists something truly social\nand not merely associative. But it is absurd to suppose that a society\ndoes away with the traits of its own constituents so that it can be set\nover against them. It can only be set over against the traits which\nthey and their like present in some _other_ combination. A molecule of\noxygen in water may act in certain respects differently than it would\nin some other chemical union. But as a constituent of water it acts as\nwater does as long as water is water. The only intelligible distinction\nwhich can be drawn is between the behaviors of oxygen in _its_\ndifferent relations, and between those of water in _its_ relations to\nvarious conditions, not between that of water and the oxygen which is\nconjoined with hydrogen in water.\n\nA single man when he is joined in marriage is different in that\nconnection to what he was as single or to what he is in some other\nunion, as a member, say, of a club. He has new powers and immunities,\nnew responsibilities. He can be contrasted with _himself_ as he behaves\nin other connections. He may be compared and contrasted with his wife\nin their distinctive r\u00f4les within the union. But _as_ a member of the\nunion he cannot be treated as antithetical to the union in which he\nbelongs. _As_ a member of the union, his traits and acts are evidently\nthose which he possesses in virtue of it, while those of the integrated\nassociation are what they are in virtue of his status in the union. The\nonly reason we fail to see this, or are confused by the statement of\nit, is because we pass so easily from the man in one connection to the\nman in some other connection, to the man not as husband but as business\nman, scientific investigator, church-member or citizen, in which\nconnections his acts and their consequences are obviously different to\nthose due to union in wedlock.\n\nA good example of the fact and of the current confusion as to\nits interpretation is found in the case of associations known as\nlimited liability joint-stock companies. A corporation as such is an\nintegrated collective mode of action having powers, rights, duties\nand immunities different from those of its singular members _in their\nother connections_. Its different constituents have also diverse\nstatuses--for example, the owners of stock from the officers and\ndirectors in certain matters. If we do not bear the facts steadily\nin mind, it is easy--as frequently happens--to create an artificial\nproblem. Since the corporation can do things which its individual\nmembers, _in their many relationships outside of their connections in\nthe corporation_, cannot do, the problem is raised as to the relation\nof the corporate collective union to that of individuals _as such_.\nIt is forgotten that as members of the corporation the individuals\nthemselves are different, have different characteristics, rights and\nduties, than they would possess if they were not its members and\ndifferent from those which they possess in other forms of conjoint\nbehavior. But what the individuals may do legitimately _as_ members of\nthe corporation in their respective corporate r\u00f4les, the corporation\ndoes, and vice versa. A collective unity may be taken _either_\ndistributively _or_ collectively, but when taken collectively it is the\nunion of its distributive constituents, and when taken distributively,\nit is a distribution of and within the collectivity. It makes nonsense\nto set up an antithesis between the distributive phase and the\ncollective. An individual cannot be opposed to the association of which\nhe is an integral part nor can the association be set against its\nintegrated members.\n\nBut groups may be opposed to one another, and individuals may be\nopposed to one another; and an individual as a member of different\ngroups may be divided within himself, and in a true sense have\nconflicting selves, or be a relatively disintegrated individual. A\nman may be one thing as a church member and another thing as a member\nof the business community. The difference may be carried as if in\nwater-tight compartments, or it may become such a division as to entail\ninternal conflict. In these facts we have the ground of the common\nantithesis set up between society and the individual. Then \u201csociety\u201d\nbecomes an unreal abstraction and \u201c_the_ individual\u201d an equally unreal\none. Because _an_ individual can be disassociated from this, that and\nthe other grouping, since he need not be married, or be a church-member\nor a voter, or belong to a club or scientific organization, there\ngrows up in the mind an image of a residual individual who is not a\nmember of any association at all. From this premise, and from this\nonly, there develops the unreal question of how individuals come to be\nunited in societies and groups: _the_ individual and _the_ social are\nnow opposed to each other, and there is the problem of \u201creconciling\u201d\nthem. Meanwhile, the genuine problem is that of adjusting groups and\nindividuals to one another.\n\nThe unreal problem becomes particularly acute, as we have already noted\nin another connection, in times of rapid social change, as when a\nnewly forming industrial grouping with its special needs and energies\nfinds itself in conflict with old established political institutions\nand their demands. Then it is likely to be forgotten that the actual\nproblem is one of reconstruction of the ways and forms in which men\nunite in associated activity. The scene presents itself as the struggle\nof the individual as such to liberate himself from society as such and\nto claim his inherent or \u201cnatural\u201d self-possessed and self-sufficing\nrights. When the new mode of economic association has grown strong and\nexercises an overweening and oppressive power over other groupings, the\nold fallacy persists. The problem is now conceived as that of bringing\nindividuals as such under the control of society as a collectivity. It\nshould still be put as a problem of readjusting social relationships;\nor, from the distributive side, as that of securing a more equable\nliberation of the powers of all individual members of all groupings.\n\nThus our excursion has brought us back to the theme of method, in\nthe interest of which the excursion was taken. One reason for the\ncomparative sterility of discussion of social matters is because so\nmuch intellectual energy has gone into the supposititious problem of\nthe relations of individualism and collectivism at large, wholesale,\nand because the image of the antithesis infects so many specific\nquestions. Thereby thought is diverted from the only fruitful\nquestions, those of investigation into factual subject-matter, and\nbecomes a discussion of concepts. The \u201cproblem\u201d of the relation of\nthe concept of authority to that of freedom, of personal rights to\nsocial obligations, with only a subsumptive illustrative reference\nto empirical facts, has been substituted for inquiry into the\n_consequences_ of some particular distribution, under given conditions,\nof specific freedoms and authorities, and for inquiry into what altered\ndistribution would yield more desirable consequences.\n\nAs we saw in our early consideration of the theme of the public, the\nquestion of what transactions should be left as far as possible to\nvoluntary initiative and agreement and what should come under the\nregulation of the public is a question of time, place and concrete\nconditions that can be known only by careful observation and reflective\ninvestigation. For it concerns consequences; and the nature of\nconsequences and the ability to perceive and act upon them varies with\nthe industrial and intellectual agencies which operate. A solution,\nor distributive adjustment, needed at one time is totally unfitted\nto another situation. That social \u201cevolution\u201d has been either from\ncollectivism to individualism or the reverse is sheer superstition. It\nhas consisted in a continuous re-distribution of social integrations\non the one hand and of capacities and energies of individuals on the\nother. Individuals find themselves cramped and depressed by absorption\nof their potentialities in some mode of association which has been\ninstitutionalized and become dominant. They may think they are\nclamoring for a purely personal liberty, but what they are doing is\nto bring into being a greater liberty to share in other associations,\nso that more of their individual potentialities will be released and\ntheir personal experience enriched. Life has been impoverished, not\nby a predominance of \u201csociety\u201d in general over individuality, but by\na domination of one form of association, the family, clan, church,\neconomic institutions, over other actual and possible forms. On the\nother hand, the problem of exercising \u201csocial control\u201d over individuals\nis in its reality that of regulating the doings and results of some\nindividuals in order that a larger number of individuals may have a\nfuller and deeper experience. Since both ends can be intelligently\nattained only by knowledge of actual conditions in their modes of\noperation and their consequences, it may be confidently asserted that\nthe chief enemy of a social thinking which would count in public\naffairs is the sterile and impotent, because totally irrelevant,\nchannels in which so much intellectual energy has been expended.\n\nThe second point with respect to method is closely related. Political\ntheories have shared in the absolutistic character of philosophy\ngenerally. By this is meant something much more than philosophies of\nthe Absolute. Even professedly empirical philosophies have assumed\na certain finality and foreverness in their theories which may be\nexpressed by saying that they have been non-historical in character.\nThey have isolated their subject-matter from its connections, and\nany isolated subject-matter becomes unqualified in the degree of its\ndisconnection. In social theory dealing with human nature, a certain\nfixed and standardized \u201cindividual\u201d has been postulated, from whose\nassumed traits social phenomena could be deduced. Thus Mill says in\nhis discussion of the logic of the moral and social sciences: \u201cThe\nlaws of the phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but the laws\nof the actions and passions of human beings united together in the\nsocial state. Men, however, in a state of society are still men; their\nactions and passions are obedient to the laws of _individual_ human\nnature.\u201d[13] Obviously what is ignored in such a statement is that \u201cthe\nactions and passions\u201d of individual men are in the concrete what they\nare, their beliefs and purposes included, because of the social medium\nin which they live; that they are influenced throughout by contemporary\nand transmitted culture, whether in conformity or protest. What is\ngeneric and the same everywhere is at best the organic structure of\nman, his biological make-up. While it is evidently important to take\nthis into account, it is also evident that none of the _distinctive_\nfeatures of _human_ association can be deduced from it. Thus, in spite\nof Mill\u2019s horror of the metaphysical absolute, his leading social\nconceptions were, logically, absolutistic. Certain social laws,\nnormative and regulative, at all periods and under all circumstances of\nproper social life were assumed to exist.\n\nThe doctrine of evolution modified this idea of method only\nsuperficially. For \u201cevolution\u201d was itself often understood\nnon-historically. That is, it was assumed that there is a predestined\ncourse of fixed stages through which social development must proceed.\nUnder the influence of concepts borrowed from the physical science\nof the time, it was taken for granted that the very possibility\nof a social science stood or fell with the determination of fixed\nuniformities. Now every such logic is fatal to free experimental social\ninquiry. Investigation into empirical facts was undertaken, of course,\nbut its results had to fit into certain ready-made and second-hand\nrubrics. When even _physical_ facts and laws are perceived and used,\nsocial change takes place. The phenomena and laws are not altered,\nbut invention based upon them modifies the human situation. For there\nis at once an effort to regulate their impact in life. The discovery\nof malaria does not alter its existential causation, intellectually\nviewed, but it does finally alter the facts from which the production\nof malaria arises, through draining and oiling swamps, etc., and by\ntaking other measures of precaution. If the laws of economic cycles\nof expansion and depression were understood, means would at once be\nsearched for to mitigate if not to do away with the swing. When men\nhave an idea of how social agencies work and their consequences are\nwrought, they at once strive to secure consequences as far as desirable\nand to avert them if undesirable. These are facts of the most ordinary\nobservation. But it is not often noted how fatal they are to the\nidentification of social with physical uniformities. \u201cLaws\u201d of social\nlife, when it is genuinely human, are like laws of engineering. If you\nwant certain results, certain means must be found and employed. The key\nto the situation is a clear conception of consequences wanted, and of\nthe technique for reaching them, together with, of course, the state\nof desires and aversions which causes some consequences to be wanted\nrather than others. All of these things are functions of the prevalent\nculture of the period.\n\nWhile the backwardness of social knowledge and art is of course\nconnected with retarded knowledge of human nature, or psychology, it\nis also absurd to suppose that an adequate psychological science would\nflower in a control of human activities similar to the control which\nphysical science has procured of physical energies. For increased\nknowledge of human nature would directly and in unpredictable ways\nmodify the workings of human nature, and lead to the need of new\nmethods of regulation, and so on without end. It is a matter of\nanalysis rather than of prophecy to say that the primary and chief\neffect of a better psychology would be found in education. The growth\nand diseases of grains and hogs are now recognized as proper subjects\nof governmental subsidy and attention. Instrumental agencies for a\nsimilar investigation of the conditions which make for the physical and\nmoral hygiene of the young are in a state of infancy. We spend large\nsums of money for school buildings and their physical equipment. But\nsystematic expenditure of public funds for scientific inquiry into the\nconditions which affect the mental and moral development of children is\njust beginning, and demands for a large increase in this direction are\nlooked upon askance.\n\nAgain, it is reported that there are more beds in hospitals and asylums\nfor cases of mental disturbance and retardation than for all diseases\ncombined. The public pays generously to take care of the results of bad\nconditions. But there is no comparable attention and willingness to\nexpend funds to investigate the causes of these troubles. The reason\nfor these anomalies is evident enough. There is no conviction that the\nsciences of human nature are far enough advanced to make public support\nof such activities worth while. A marked development of psychology and\nkindred subjects would change this situation. And we have been speaking\nonly of antecedent conditions of education. To complete the picture\nwe have to realize the difference which would be made in the methods\nof parents and teachers were there an adequate and generally shared\nknowledge of human nature.\n\nBut such an educational development, though intrinsically precious\nto the last degree, would not entail a control of human energies\ncomparable to that which already obtains of physical energies. To\nimagine that it would is simply to reduce human beings to the plane of\ninanimate things mechanically manipulated from without; it makes human\neducation something like the training of fleas, dogs and horses. What\nstands in the way is not anything called \u201cfree-will,\u201d but the fact that\nsuch a change in educational methods would release new potentialities,\ncapable of all kinds of permutations and combinations, which would then\nmodify social phenomena, while this modification would in its turn\naffect human nature and its educative transformation in a continuous\nand endless procession.\n\nThe assimilation of human science to physical science represents,\nin other words, only another form of absolutistic logic, a kind of\nphysical absolutism. We are doubtless but at the beginning of the\npossibilities of control of the physical conditions of mental and moral\nlife. Physiological chemistry, increased knowledge of the nervous\nsystem, of the processes and functions of glandular secretions, may in\ntime enable us to deal with phenomena of emotional and intellectual\ndisturbance before which mankind has been helpless. But control of\nthese conditions will not determine the uses to which human beings\nwill put their normalized potentialities. If any one supposes that it\nwill, let him consider the applications of such remedial or preventive\nmeasures to a man in a state of savage culture and one in a modern\ncommunity. Each, as long as the conditions of the social medium\nremained substantially unaltered, will still have his experience and\nthe direction of his restored energies affected by the objects and\ninstrumentalities of the human environment, and by what men at the time\ncurrently prize and hold dear. The warrior and merchant would be better\nwarriors and merchants, more efficient, but warriors and merchants\nstill.\n\nThese considerations suggest a brief discussion of the effect of the\npresent absolutistic logic upon the method and aims of education,\nnot just in the sense of schooling but with respect to all the ways\nin which communities attempt to shape the disposition and beliefs of\ntheir members. Even when the processes of education do not aim at\nthe unchanged perpetuation of existing institutions, it is assumed\nthat there must be a mental picture of some desired end, personal\nand social, which is to be attained, and that this conception of a\nfixed determinate end ought to control educative processes. Reformers\nshare this conviction with conservatives. The disciples of Lenin and\nMussolini vie with the captains of capitalistic society in endeavoring\nto bring about a formation of dispositions and ideas which will conduce\nto a preconceived goal. If there is a difference, it is that the former\nproceed more consciously. An experimental social method would probably\nmanifest itself first of all in surrender of this notion. Every care\nwould be taken to surround the young with the physical and social\nconditions which best conduce, as far as freed knowledge extends, to\nrelease of personal potentialities. The habits thus formed would have\nentrusted to them the meeting of future social requirements and the\ndevelopment of the future state of society. Then and then only would\nall social agencies that are available operate as resources in behalf\nof a bettered community life.\n\nWhat we have termed the absolutistic logic ends, as far as method\nin social matters is concerned, in a substitution of discussion of\nconcepts and their logical relations to one another for inquiry.\nWhatever form it assumes, it results in strengthening the reign of\ndogma. Their contents may vary, but dogma persists. At the outset we\nnoted in discussion of the state the influence of methods which look\nfor causal forces. Long ago, physical science abandoned this method and\ntook up that of detection of correlation of events. Our language and\nour thinking is still saturated with the idea of laws which phenomena\n\u201cobey.\u201d But in his actual procedures, the scientific inquirer into\nphysical events treats a law simply as a stable correlation of changes\nin what happens, a statement of the way in which one phenomenon, or\nsome aspect or phase of it, varies when some other specified phenomenon\nvaries. \u201cCausation\u201d is an affair of historical sequence, of the order\nin which a series of changes takes place. To know cause and effect is\nto know, in the abstract, the formula of correlation in change, and, in\nthe concrete, a certain historical career of sequential events. The\nappeal to causal forces at large not only misleads inquiry into social\nfacts, but it affects equally seriously the formation of purposes and\npolicies. The person who holds the doctrine of \u201cindividualism\u201d or\n\u201ccollectivism\u201d has his program determined for him in advance. It is not\nwith him a matter of finding out the particular thing which needs to\nbe done and the best way, under the circumstances, of doing it. It is\nan affair of applying a hard and fast doctrine which follows logically\nfrom his preconception of the nature of ultimate causes. He is exempt\nfrom the responsibility of discovering the concrete correlation of\nchanges, from the need of tracing particular sequences or histories of\nevents through their complicated careers. He knows in advance the sort\nof thing which must be done, just as in ancient physical philosophy the\nthinker knew in advance what must happen, so that all he had to do was\nto supply a logical framework of definitions and classifications.\n\nWhen we say that thinking and beliefs should be experimental, not\nabsolutistic, we have then in mind a certain logic of method,\nnot, primarily, the carrying on of experimentation like that of\nlaboratories. Such a logic involves the following factors: First,\nthat those concepts, general principles, theories and dialectical\ndevelopments which are indispensable to any systematic knowledge be\nshaped and tested as tools of inquiry. Secondly, that policies and\nproposals for social action be treated as working hypotheses, not\nas programs to be rigidly adhered to and executed. They will be\nexperimental in the sense that they will be entertained subject to\nconstant and well-equipped observation of the consequences they entail\nwhen acted upon, and subject to ready and flexible revision in the\nlight of observed consequences. The social sciences, if these two\nstipulations are fulfilled, will then be an apparatus for conducting\ninvestigation, and for recording and interpreting (organizing) its\nresults. The apparatus will no longer be taken to be itself knowledge,\nbut will be seen to be intellectual means of making discoveries of\nphenomena having social import and understanding their meaning.\nDifferences of opinion in the sense of differences of judgment as to\nthe course which it is best to follow, the policy which it is best\nto try out, will still exist. But opinion in the sense of beliefs\nformed and held in the absence of evidence will be reduced in quantity\nand importance. No longer will views generated in view of special\nsituations be frozen into absolute standards and masquerade as eternal\ntruths.\n\nThis phase of the discussion may be concluded by consideration of\nthe relation of experts to a democratic public. A negative phase of\nthe earlier argument for political democracy has largely lost its\nforce. For it was based upon hostility to dynastic and oligarchic\naristocracies, and these have largely been bereft of power. The\noligarchy which now dominates is that of an economic class. It claims\nto rule, not in virtue of birth and hereditary status, but in virtue\nof ability in management and of the burden of social responsibilities\nwhich it carries, in virtue of the position which superior abilities\nhave conferred upon it. At all events, it is a shifting, unstable\noligarchy, rapidly changing its constituents, who are more or less\nat the mercy of accidents they cannot control and of technological\ninventions. Consequently, the shoe is now on the other foot. It is\nargued that the check upon the oppressive power of this particular\noligarchy lies in an intellectual aristocracy, not in appeal to an\nignorant, fickle mass whose interests are superficial and trivial, and\nwhose judgments are saved from incredible levity only when weighted\ndown by heavy prejudice.\n\nIt may be argued that the democratic movement was essentially\ntransitional. It marked the passage from feudal institutions to\nindustrialism, and was coincident with the transfer of power from\nlanded proprietors, allied to churchly authorities, to captains of\nindustry, under conditions which involved an emancipation of the masses\nfrom legal limitations which had previously hemmed them in. But, so it\nis contended in effect, it is absurd to convert this legal liberation\ninto a dogma which alleges that release from old oppressions confers\nupon those emancipated the intellectual and moral qualities which fit\nthem for sharing in regulation of affairs of state. The essential\nfallacy of the democratic creed, it is urged, is the notion that a\nhistoric movement which effected an important and desirable release\nfrom restrictions is either a source or a proof of capacity in those\nthus emancipated to rule, when in fact there is no factor common in the\ntwo things. The obvious alternative is rule by those intellectually\nqualified, by expert intellectuals.\n\nThis revival of the Platonic notion that philosophers should be kings\nis the more taking because the idea of experts is substituted for that\nof philosophers, since philosophy has become something of a joke, while\nthe image of the specialist, the expert in operation, is rendered\nfamiliar and congenial by the rise of the physical sciences and by\nthe conduct of industry. A cynic might indeed say that the notion\nis a pipe-dream, a revery entertained by the intellectual class in\ncompensation for an impotence consequent upon the divorce of theory\nand practice, upon the remoteness of specialized science from the\naffairs of life: the gulf being bridged not by the intellectuals but by\ninventors and engineers hired by captains of industry. One approaches\nthe truth more nearly when one says that the argument proves too much\nfor its own cause. If the masses are as intellectually irredeemable\nas its premise implies, they at all events have both too many desires\nand too much power to permit rule by experts to obtain. The very\nignorance, bias, frivolity, jealousy, instability, which are alleged\nto incapacitate them from share in political affairs, unfit them still\nmore for passive submission to rule by intellectuals. Rule by an\neconomic class may be disguised from the masses; rule by experts could\nnot be covered up. It could be made to work only if the intellectuals\nbecame the willing tools of big economic interests. Otherwise they\nwould have to ally themselves with the masses, and that implies, once\nmore, a share in government by the latter.\n\nA more serious objection is that expertness is most readily attained in\nspecialized technical matters, matters of administration and execution\nwhich postulate that general policies are already satisfactorily\nframed. It is assumed that the policies of the experts are in the main\nboth wise and benevolent, that is, framed to conserve the genuine\ninterests of society. The final obstacle in the way of any aristocratic\nrule is that in the absence of an articulate voice on the part of the\nmasses, the best do not and cannot remain the best, the wise cease to\nbe wise. It is impossible for high-brows to secure a monopoly of such\nknowledge as must be used for the regulation of common affairs. In the\ndegree in which they become a specialized class, they are shut off from\nknowledge of the needs which they are supposed to serve.\n\nThe strongest point to be made in behalf of even such rudimentary\npolitical forms as democracy has already attained, popular voting,\nmajority rule and so on, is that to some extent they involve a\nconsultation and discussion which uncover social needs and troubles.\nThis fact is the great asset on the side of the political ledger. De\nTocqueville wrote it down almost a century ago in his survey of the\nprospects of democracy in the United States. Accusing a democracy of\na tendency to prefer mediocrity in its elected rulers, and admitting\nits exposure to gusts of passion and its openness to folly, he pointed\nout in effect that popular government is educative as other modes of\npolitical regulation are not. It forces a recognition that there are\ncommon interests, even though the recognition of what they are is\nconfused; and the need it enforces of discussion and publicity brings\nabout some clarification of what they are. The man who wears the shoe\nknows best that it pinches and where it pinches, even if the expert\nshoemaker is the best judge of how the trouble is to be remedied.\nPopular government has at least created public spirit even if its\nsuccess in informing that spirit has not been great.\n\nA class of experts is inevitably so removed from common interests as to\nbecome a class with private interests and private knowledge, which in\nsocial matters is not knowledge at all. The ballot is, as often said, a\nsubstitute for bullets. But what is more significant is that counting\nof heads compels prior recourse to methods of discussion, consultation\nand persuasion, while the essence of appeal to force is to cut short\nresort to such methods. Majority rule, just as majority rule, is as\nfoolish as its critics charge it with being. But it never is _merely_\nmajority rule. As a practical politician, Samuel J. Tilden, said a long\ntime ago: \u201cThe means by which a majority comes to be a majority is\nthe more important thing\u201d: antecedent debates, modification of views\nto meet the opinions of minorities, the relative satisfaction given\nthe latter by the fact that it has had a chance and that next time it\nmay be successful in becoming a majority. Think of the meaning of the\n\u201cproblem of minorities\u201d in certain European states, and compare it with\nthe status of minorities in countries having popular government. It\nis true that all valuable as well as new ideas begin with minorities,\nperhaps a minority of one. The important consideration is that\nopportunity be given that idea to spread and to become the possession\nof the multitude. No government by experts in which the masses do\nnot have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be\nanything but an oligarchy managed in the interests of the few. And\nthe enlightenment must proceed in ways which force the administrative\nspecialists to take account of the needs. The world has suffered more\nfrom leaders and authorities than from the masses.\n\nThe essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods\nand conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is _the_\nproblem of the public. We have asserted that this improvement depends\nessentially upon freeing and perfecting the processes of inquiry and of\ndissemination of their conclusions. Inquiry, indeed, is a work which\ndevolves upon experts. But their expertness is not shown in framing and\nexecuting policies, but in discovering and making known the facts upon\nwhich the former depend. They are technical experts in the sense that\nscientific investigators and artists manifest _expertise_. It is not\nnecessary that the many should have the knowledge and skill to carry\non the needed investigations; what is required is that they have the\nability to judge of the bearing of the knowledge supplied by others\nupon common concerns.\n\nIt is easy to exaggerate the amount of intelligence and ability\ndemanded to render such judgments fitted for their purpose. In the\nfirst place, we are likely to form our estimate on the basis of\npresent conditions. But indubitably one great trouble at present is\nthat the data for good judgment are lacking; and no innate faculty of\nmind can make up for the absence of facts. Until secrecy, prejudice,\nbias, misrepresentation, and propaganda as well as sheer ignorance\nare replaced by inquiry and publicity, we have no way of telling how\napt for judgment of social policies the existing intelligence of the\nmasses may be. It would certainly go much further than at present.\nIn the second place, _effective_ intelligence is not an original,\ninnate endowment. No matter what are the differences in native\nintelligence (allowing for the moment that intelligence can be native),\nthe actuality of mind is dependent upon the education which social\nconditions effect. Just as the specialized mind and knowledge of the\npast is embodied in implements, utensils, devices and technologies\nwhich those of a grade of intelligence which could not produce them can\nnow intelligently use, so it will be when currents of public knowledge\nblow through social affairs.\n\nThe level of action fixed by _embodied_ intelligence is always the\nimportant thing. In savage culture a superior man will be superior\nto his fellows, but his knowledge and judgment will lag in many\nmatters far behind that of an inferiorly endowed person in an advanced\ncivilization. Capacities are limited by the objects and tools at hand.\nThey are still more dependent upon the prevailing habits of attention\nand interest which are set by tradition and institutional customs.\nMeanings run in the channels formed by instrumentalities of which, in\nthe end, language, the vehicle of thought as well as of communication,\nis the most important. A mechanic can discourse of ohms and amperes\nas Sir Isaac Newton could not in his day. Many a man who has tinkered\nwith radios can judge of things which Faraday did not dream of. It is\naside from the point to say that if Newton and Faraday were now here,\nthe amateur and mechanic would be infants beside them. The retort only\nbrings out the point: the difference made by different objects to think\nof and by different meanings in circulation. A more intelligent state\nof social affairs, one more informed with knowledge, more directed by\nintelligence, would not improve original endowments one whit, but it\nwould raise the level upon which the intelligence of all operates. The\nheight of this level is much more important for judgment of public\nconcerns than are differences in intelligence quotients. As Santayana\nhas said: \u201cCould a better system prevail in our lives a better order\nwould establish itself in our thinking. It has not been for want of\nkeen senses, or personal genius, or a constant order in the outer\nworld, that mankind has fallen back repeatedly into barbarism and\nsuperstition. It has been for want of good character, good example, and\ngood government.\u201d The notion that intelligence is a personal endowment\nor personal attainment is the great conceit of the intellectual class,\nas that of the commercial class is that wealth is something which they\npersonally have wrought and possess.\n\nA point which concerns us in conclusion passes beyond the field of\nintellectual method, and trenches upon the question of practical\nre-formation of social conditions. In its deepest and richest sense\na community must always remain a matter of face-to-face intercourse.\nThis is why the family and neighborhood, with all their deficiencies,\nhave always been the chief agencies of nurture, the means by which\ndispositions are stably formed and ideas acquired which laid hold on\nthe roots of character. The Great Community, in the sense of free and\nfull intercommunication, is conceivable. But it can never possess\nall the qualities which mark a local community. It will do its final\nwork in ordering the relations and enriching the experience of local\nassociations. The invasion and partial destruction of the life of the\nlatter by outside uncontrolled agencies is the immediate source of\nthe instability, disintegration and restlessness which characterize\nthe present epoch. Evils which are uncritically and indiscriminately\nlaid at the door of industrialism and democracy might, with greater\nintelligence, be referred to the dislocation and unsettlement of local\ncommunities. Vital and thorough attachments are bred only in the\nintimacy of an intercourse which is of necessity restricted in range.\n\nIs it possible for local communities to be stable without being static,\nprogressive without being merely mobile? Can the vast, innumerable\nand intricate currents of trans-local associations be so banked and\nconducted that they will pour the generous and abundant meanings of\nwhich they are potential bearers into the smaller intimate unions\nof human beings living in immediate contact with one another? Is it\npossible to restore the reality of the lesser communal organizations\nand to penetrate and saturate their members with a sense of local\ncommunity life? There is at present, at least in theory, a movement\naway from the principle of territorial organization to that of\n\u201cfunctional,\u201d that is to say, occupational, organization. It is true\nenough that older forms of territorial association do not satisfy\npresent needs. It is true that ties formed by sharing in common work,\nwhether in what is called industry or what are called professions,\nhave now a force which formerly they did not possess. But these ties\ncan be counted upon for an enduring and stable organization, which\nat the same time is flexible and moving, only as they grow out of\nimmediate intercourse and attachment. The theory, as far as it relies\nupon associations which are remote and indirect, would if carried into\neffect soon be confronted by all the troubles and evils of the present\nsituation in a transposed form. There is no substitute for the vitality\nand depth of close and direct intercourse and attachment.\n\nIt is said, and said truly, that for the world\u2019s peace it is necessary\nthat we understand the peoples of foreign lands. How well do we\nunderstand, I wonder, our next door neighbors? It has also been said\nthat if a man love not his fellow man whom he has seen, he cannot\nlove the God whom he has not seen. The chances of regard for distant\npeoples being effective as long as there is no close neighborhood\nexperience to bring with it insight and understanding of neighbors do\nnot seem better. A man who has not been seen in the daily relations of\nlife may inspire admiration, emulation, servile subjection, fanatical\npartisanship, hero worship; but not love and understanding, save as\nthey radiate from the attachments of a near-by union. Democracy must\nbegin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.\n\nIt is outside the scope of our discussion to look into the prospects\nof the reconstruction of face-to-face communities. But there is\nsomething deep within human nature itself which pulls toward settled\nrelationships. Inertia and the tendency toward stability belong to\nemotions and desires as well as to masses and molecules. That happiness\nwhich is full of content and peace is found only in enduring ties with\nothers, which reach to such depths that they go below the surface\nof conscious experience to form its undisturbed foundation. No one\nknows how much of the frothy excitement of life, of mania for motion,\nof fretful discontent, of need for artificial stimulation, is the\nexpression of frantic search for something to fill the void caused by\nthe loosening of the bonds which hold persons together in immediate\ncommunity of experience. If there is anything in human psychology to be\ncounted upon, it may be urged that when man is satiated with restless\nseeking for the remote which yields no enduring satisfaction, the human\nspirit will return to seek calm and order within itself. This, we\nrepeat, can be found only in the vital, steady, and deep relationships\nwhich are present only in an immediate community.\n\nThe psychological tendency can, however, manifest itself only when\nit is in harmonious conjunction with the objective course of events.\nAnalysis finds itself in troubled waters if it attempts to discover\nwhether the tide of events is turning away from dispersion of energies\nand acceleration of motion. Physically and externally, conditions have\nmade, of course, for concentration; the development of urban, at the\nexpense of rural, populations; the corporate organization of aggregated\nwealth, the growth of all sorts of organizations, are evidence enough.\nBut enormous organization is compatible with demolition of the ties\nthat form local communities and with substitution of impersonal bonds\nfor personal unions, with a flux which is hostile to stability. The\ncharacter of our cities, of organized business and the nature of the\ncomprehensive associations in which individuality is lost, testify also\nto this fact. Yet there are contrary signs. \u201cCommunity\u201d and community\nactivities are becoming words to conjure with. The local is the\nultimate universal, and as near an absolute as exists. It is easy to\npoint to many signs which indicate that unconscious agencies as well as\ndeliberate planning are making for such an enrichment of the experience\nof local communities as will conduce to render them genuine centers of\nthe attention, interest and devotion for their constituent members.\n\nThe unanswered question is how far these tendencies will re\u00ebstablish\nthe void left by the disintegration of the family, church and\nneighborhood. We cannot predict the outcome. But we can assert with\nconfidence that there is nothing intrinsic in the forces which have\neffected uniform standardization, mobility and remote invisible\nrelationships that is fatally obstructive to the return movement of\ntheir consequences into the local homes of mankind. Uniformity and\nstandardization may provide an underlying basis for differentiation and\nliberation of individual potentialities. They may sink to the plane\nof unconscious habituations, taken for granted in the mechanical\nphases of life, and deposit a soil from which personal susceptibilities\nand endowments may richly and stably flower. Mobility may in the end\nsupply the means by which the spoils of remote and indirect interaction\nand interdependence flow back into local life, keeping it flexible,\npreventing the stagnancy which has attended stability in the past,\nand furnishing it with the elements of a variegated and many-hued\nexperience. Organization may cease to be taken as an end in itself.\nThen it will no longer be mechanical and external, hampering the\nfree play of artistic gifts, fettering men and women with chains of\nconformity, conducing to abdication of all which does not fit into\nthe automatic movement of organization as a self-sufficing thing.\nOrganization as a means to an end would re\u00ebnforce individuality and\nenable it to be securely itself by enduing it with resources beyond its\nunaided reach.\n\nWhatever the future may have in store, one thing is certain. Unless\nlocal communal life can be restored, the public cannot adequately\nresolve its most urgent problem: to find and identify itself. But if\nit be re-established, it will manifest a fullness, variety and freedom\nof possession and enjoyment of meanings and goods unknown in the\ncontiguous associations of the past. For it will be alive and flexible\nas well as stable, responsive to the complex and world-wide scene in\nwhich it is enmeshed. While local, it will not be isolated. Its larger\nrelationships will provide an exhaustible and flowing fund of meanings\nupon which to draw, with assurance that its drafts will be honored.\nTerritorial states and political boundaries will persist; but they will\nnot be barriers which impoverish experience by cutting man off from\nhis fellows; they will not be hard and fast divisions whereby external\nseparation is converted into inner jealousy, fear, suspicion and\nhostility. Competition will continue, but it will be less rivalry for\nacquisition of material goods, and more an emulation of local groups\nto enrich direct experience with appreciatively enjoyed intellectual\nand artistic wealth. If the technological age can provide mankind with\na firm and general basis of material security, it will be absorbed in\na humane age. It will take its place as an instrumentality of shared\nand communicated experience. But without passage through a machine age,\nmankind\u2019s hold upon what is needful as the precondition of a free,\nflexible and many-colored life is so precarious and inequitable that\ncompetitive scramble for acquisition and frenzied use of the results of\nacquisition for purposes of excitation and display will be perpetuated.\n\nWe have said that consideration of this particular condition of the\ngeneration of democratic communities and an articulate democratic\npublic carries us beyond the question of intellectual method into that\nof practical procedure. But the two questions are not disconnected.\nThe problem of securing diffused and seminal intelligence can be\nsolved only in the degree in which local communal life becomes a\nreality. Signs and symbols, language, are the means of communication\nby which a fraternally shared experience is ushered in and sustained.\nBut the wing\u00e8d words of conversation in immediate intercourse have a\nvital import lacking in the fixed and frozen words of written speech.\nSystematic and continuous inquiry into all the conditions which affect\nassociation and their dissemination in print is a precondition of\nthe creation of a true public. But it and its results are but tools\nafter all. Their final actuality is accomplished in face-to-face\nrelationships by means of direct give and take. Logic in its\nfulfillment recurs to the primitive sense of the word: dialogue. Ideas\nwhich are not communicated, shared, and reborn in expression are but\nsoliloquy, and soliloquy is but broken and imperfect thought. It, like\nthe acquisition of material wealth, marks a diversion of the wealth\ncreated by associated endeavor and exchange to private ends. It is more\ngenteel, and it is called more noble. But there is no difference in\nkind.\n\nIn a word, that expansion and re\u00ebnforcement of personal understanding\nand judgment by the cumulative and transmitted intellectual wealth of\nthe community which may render nugatory the indictment of democracy\ndrawn on the basis of the ignorance, bias and levity of the masses, can\nbe fulfilled only in the relations of personal intercourse in the local\ncommunity. The connections of the ear with vital and out-going thought\nand emotion are immensely closer and more varied than those of the\neye. Vision is a spectator; hearing is a participator. Publication is\npartial and the public which results is partially informed and formed\nuntil the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth. There is no\nlimit to the liberal expansion and confirmation of limited personal\nintellectual endowment which may proceed from the flow of social\nintelligence when that circulates by word of mouth from one to another\nin the communications of the local community. That and that only\ngives reality to public opinion. We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap\nof an immense intelligence. But that intelligence is dormant and its\ncommunications are broken, inarticulate and faint until it possesses\nthe local community as its medium.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] W.\u00a0H. Hudson, \u201cA Traveller in Little Things,\u201d pp. 110\u2013112.\n\n[2] Judges make rules of law. On the \u201cwill\u201d theory this is an\nencroachment on the legislative function. Not so, if the judges further\ndefine conditions of action.\n\n[3] \u201cA Treatise on Human Nature,\u201d Part II, sec. vii.\n\n[4] Hocking, \u201cMan and the State,\u201d p. 51.\n\n[5] Ayers, \u201cScience: The False Messiah,\u201d Chapter IV, The Lure of\nMachinery.\n\n[6] The one obvious exception concerns the tools of waging war. With\nrespect to them, the state has often shown itself as greedy as it has\nbeen reluctant and behindhand with reference to other inventions.\n\n[7] This is a convenient place for making explicit a qualification\nwhich has to be understood throughout but which is slighted in the\ntext. The words \u201cgovernment\u201d and \u201cofficers\u201d are taken functionally, not\nin terms of some particular structure which is so familiar to us that\nit leaps to the eyes when these words are used. Both words in their\nfunctional meaning are much wider in application than what is meant\nwhen we speak, say, of the government and officers of Great Britain or\nthe United States. In households, for example, there have usually been\nrule and \u201cheads\u201d; the parents, for most purposes the father, have been\nofficers of the family interest. The \u201cpatriarchal family\u201d presents an\nemphatic intensification, on account of comparative isolation of the\nhousehold from other social forms, of what exists in lesser degree in\nalmost all families. The same sort of remark applies to the use of\nthe term \u201cstates,\u201d in connection with publics. The text is concerned\nwith modern conditions, but the hypothesis propounded is meant to hold\ngood generally. So to the patent objection that the state is a very\nmodern institution, it is replied that while modernity is a property of\nthose _structures_ which go by the name of states, yet all history, or\nalmost all, records the exercise of analogous _functions_. The argument\nconcerns these functions and the mode of their operation, no matter\nwhat word be used, though for the sake of brevity the word \u201cstate,\u201d\nlike the words \u201cgovernment\u201d and \u201cofficer,\u201d has been freely employed.\n\n[8] This last position promptly called forth a protest from the head of\nthe utilitarian school, Jeremy Bentham.\n\n[9] C.\u00a0H. Cooley, \u201cSocial Organization,\u201d Ch. iii, on \u201cPrimary Groups.\u201d\n\n[10] See Walter Lippmann\u2019s \u201cThe Phantom Public.\u201d To this as well as\nto his \u201cPublic Opinion,\u201d I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness, not\nonly as to this particular point, but for ideas involved in my entire\ndiscussion even when it reaches conclusions diverging from his.\n\n[11] The most adequate discussion of this ideal with which I am\nacquainted is T.\u00a0V. Smith\u2019s \u201cThe Democratic Way of Life.\u201d\n\n[12] The religious character of nationalism has been forcibly brought\nout by Carleton Hayes, in his \u201cEssays on Nationalism,\u201d especially Chap.\nIV.\n\n[13] J.\u00a0S. Mill, Logic, Book VI, ch. 7, sec. I. Italics mine.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  Absolutism, in method, 194\u2013202\n\n  Amusements, rivals to political interest, 139\n\n  Anarchism, 26\n\n  Aristotle, 4, 8, 138\n\n  Art, of communication, 182\u201384\n\n  Association, a universal fact, 22\u201323, 34, 151, 181;\n    distinctive traits of human, 24;\n    revolt against, 88, 98\u2013100;\n    economic, 105\u201307;\n    and democracy, 143;\n    rigid and flexible, 148;\n    distinguished from community, 151\u201353;\n    domination of isolated, 194;\n    territorial and functional, 212\u201313.\n    See _Community_, _Groups_, _Society_\n\n  Attachment, a political need, 140, 214\n\n  Ayers, C.\u00a0E., 59 n.\n\n\n  Bentham, J., 54 n.\n\n  Biological, and social, 11\u201312, 152, 195\n\n  Business, rival to political interest, 138;\n    political control by, 182.\n    See _Economic Forces_\n\n\n  Carlyle, T., 102, 110\n\n  Causal forces, and state, 9, 17\u201321, 25, 36, 37, 47, 53, 65, 66;\n    versus the causal order, 201\u201302\n\n  Child Labor Amendment, 121\n\n  Common Interest, nature of, 17, 34\u201335.\n    See _Consequences, Public_\n\n  Communication, a public function, 60, 208;\n    social necessity of, 152, 217\u201319;\n    necessary to knowledge, 176\u201379;\n    an art, 182\u201384.\n    See _Symbols_\n\n  Community, 38;\n    and society, 98, 157;\n    conditioning wants, 105\u201306;\n    and communication, 152\u201354;\n    importance of local, 211\u201319.\n    See _Great Society_\n\n  Comparative Method, 47\n\n  Conjoint Behavior, see _Association_\n\n  Conscience, private, origin of, 49\u201350\n\n  Consequences, importance of for politics, 12\u201313, 15, 17, 24\u201325, 27,\n        32, 39, 43, 47, 65, 126, 156, 197;\n    effect of expansion, 47\u201357;\n    and rules of law, 56;\n    effect of enduring, 57\u201362;\n    effect of irreparable, 62\u201364;\n    relation to state and government, 66\u201369;\n    to antithesis of individual and social, 193\n\n  Control, political, 12, 16;\n    of human nature, 197\u201399\n\n  Cooley, C.\u00a0H., 97 n.\n\n  Corporations, illustration of relation of individual and social, 190\n\n\n  Democracy, political, 77;\n    significance of, 83;\n    historic genesis, 83\u201387;\n    alleged unity, 83;\n    pure, 94;\n    and \u201cindividualism\u201d, 86\u201396;\n    inchoate, 109;\n    pessimism about, 110;\n    American, 111\u201315;\n    as a moral idea, 143\u201344;\n    machinery of\n    political, 143\u201346;\n    nature of ideal, 147\u201351;\n    and experts, 203\u201308;\n    and local community, 212\n\n  Descartes, R., 88\n\n  De Tocqueville, 20\n\n  Direct Action, 31\n\n  Dissemination, and social knowledge, 176\u201377;\n    physical means of, 179;\n    and art, 182\u201384.\n    See _Communication_\n\n  Dynastic States, 89\n\n\n  Economic Determinism, 118\u201389, 155\u201356\n\n  Economic Forces and Politics, 89\u201393, 98, 100, 103\u201307, 114, 118\u201320,\n        129\u201331, 141\u201342, 144, 155, 175, 182\n\n  Education, and social control, 197\u201399;\n    and absolutistic method, 200;\n    and political democracy, 206\u201308\n\n  Electoral College, 111\n\n  Emerson, R.\u00a0W., 217\n\n  Equality, nature of, 149\u201350\n\n  Experimental Method, in politics, 194\u2013202;\n    defined, 203\n\n  Experts, importance of, 123\u201325, 136\u201337;\n    and democracy, 203\u201304\n\n\n  Factions, 119\n\n  Facts, and meanings, 3;\n    physical and social, 6\u20137, 11\u201312;\n    and theories, 17\n\n  Farmers, condition of, 129\u201330\n\n\n  Gerontocracy, 78\n\n  Government, and the public, 27\u201328, 32, 33, 37, 65\u201369;\n    as representative, 76;\n    dynastic, 81\u201382;\n    fear of, 86, 90, 92;\n    economic control of, 107;\n    and opinion, 192\u201393\n\n  Great Society, The, 96, 98, 126, 128, 142, 147, 155, 157, 184\n\n  Groups, and the state, 4, 26, 71\u201373;\n    local, 41\u201342.\n    See _Community_\n\n\n  Habit, political effects, 61, 169;\n    and \u201cindividualism,\u201d 158\u201361\n\n  Hayes, C., 170 n.\n\n  Hegel, G.\u00a0W.\u00a0F., 28, 71\n\n  History, continuity of, 161;\n    contemporaneous, 179\n\n  Hocking, W.\u00a0E., quoted, 57\n\n  Hudson, W.\u00a0H., quoted, 40\u201341\n\n  Hume, D., 56\n\n\n  Individual, antithesis to social, 13\u201315, 23, 63, 88, 147, 151,\n        186\u2013191;\n    and acts, 18, 21;\n    and officials, 18, 75, 82;\n    and invention, 58;\n    economic, 91;\n    as fiction, 102, 157\u201358;\n    defined, 186\u201388\n\n  Individualism, origin of, 22, 87\u201394;\n    and private property, 61;\n    explanation of, 98\u2013102;\n    influence, 116;\n    economic, 134;\n    and collectivism, 186\u2013193;\n    and method, 195.\n    See _Psychology_\n\n  Instincts, and social theory, 9\u201312\n\n  Intelligence, necessary for social facts, 12, 24, 151\u201362, 188;\n    and democracy, 208\u201310;\n    embodied, 200\u201301.\n    See _Consequences_, _Knowledge_\n\n  Interdependence, 155\n\n\n  James, W., quoted, 159\u201360\n\n  Justice, and property, 92\n\n\n  Kings\u2019s Peace, 48\n\n  Knowledge, political, 162\u201367;\n    divided, 175;\n    and communication, 176\u201379, 218\u201319\n\n\n  Labor Legislation, 62\n\n  _Laissez-faire_, 91, 134\n\n  Law, not command, 53\u201354;\n    nature of, 54\u201357;\n    \u201cnatural,\u201d 90, 95, 102, 155;\n    social and physical, 196\u201397\n\n  Legal Institutions, 16, 47\n\n  Liberalism, 134\n\n  Liberty, made an end in itself, 86;\n    and \u201cindividualism,\u201d 98\u2013100, 192\u201394;\n    nature of, 150;\n    of thought, 168\u201370;\n    and uniformity, 215\u201316\n\n  Lippmann, W., 116 n, 158\n\n  Locke, J., on natural rights, 87\n\n\n  Macaulay, 102\n\n  Majorities and Minorities, 207\u201308\n\n  Materialism, 173\u201374\n\n  Method, problem of, 192\u2013203\n\n  Mill, J., theory of democratic government, 93\u201395\n\n  Mill, J.\u00a0S., 195\n\n  Mobility, social effect, 140\n\n\n  Nationalism, 170\n\n  News, 179\u201381\n\n\n  Officers, agents of public, 16, 17, 33, 35, 67\u201368, 75;\n    dual capacity, 77, 82;\n    selection of, 78\u201382\n\n  Opinion, 177, 179\n\n\n  Parties, 119\u201321\n\n  Paternalism, 62\n\n  Perception, see _Intelligence, Consequences_\n\n  Pioneer Conditions, effect on American democracy, 111\n\n  Pluralism, political, 73\u201374\n\n  _Populus_, defined, 16\n\n  Private, defined, 15.\n    See _Public_.\n\n  Prohibition, 132\u201333\n\n  Propaganda, 181\u201382\n\n  Property, and government, 91\u201393.\n    See _Economic Forces_.\n\n  Psychology, of habit, 61, 159\u201360;\n    of individualism, 88;\n    of private consciousness, 100, 158;\n    social effects of science of, 197\u201399\n\n  Public, and private, 12\u201317, 47\u201352;\n    and political agencies, 31, 35, 38, 67;\n    marks of, 39\u201364;\n    ownership, 61;\n    democratic, 77;\n    education, 112\u201313;\n    eclipse of, 115, 122, 131, 137, 185;\n    problem of, 125, 185, 208, 216;\n    complexity of, 126;\n    as intellectual problem, 152;\n    and publicity, 167\u2013171, 219;\n    and opinion, 177\n\n\n  Railways, and government, 133\u201334\n\n  Reason, and the state, 20;\n    and law, 55\u201357\n\n  Religion, and social institutions, 41, 49, 169\u201370\n\n  Rights, natural, 87, 95, 102\n\n  Rousseau, J.\u00a0J., 155\n\n  Rulers, see _Officers, Government_\n\n\n  Santayana, G., quoted, 211\n\n  Science, distinction from knowledge, 163\u201365, 172;\n    social and physical, 171, 179, 199;\n    and the press, 181\u201382;\n    applied, 172\u201376;\n    method, 201\n\n  Smith, Adam, 13, 89\n\n  Smith, T.\u00a0V., 147 n\n\n  \u201cSocialization,\u201d 70\n\n  Society, human, 24\u201325;\n    and states, 26\u201329, 69\u201374, 147\u201349.\n    See _Association_, _Community_, _Consequences_, _Great Society_,\n        _Groups_, _Individual_, _Public_.\n\n  Spencer, H., 63, 79\n\n  Symbols, social import of, 141\u201342, 152\u201354, 218\n\n\n  Tariff, 131\u201332\n\n  Theocracy, 41, 49, 80\n\n  Tilden, S.\u00a0J., 208\n\n  Theories, political, 4, 5, 8, 85.\n    See _Causal Forces_, _Economic Forces_, _Individualism_, _Mill,\n        J._, _Utilitarianism_\n\n  Toleration, 49\u201351\n\n  Tradition, revolt against, 86\n\n\n  Utilitarianism, 91\n\n\n  Wallas, G., 96\n\n  Wants, individualistic theory of, 102;\n    socially conditioned, 103\u201304\n\n  War, and selection of rulers, 79;\n    the World, 127\u201328\n\n  Whitman, Walt, 184\n\n  Will, as cause of state, 20, 38;\n    and the command theory of law, 53;\n    and government, 68;\n    general, 153\n\n  Wilson, Woodrow, quoted, 96\u201397\n\n  Workers, political neglect and emancipation, 99\u2013100.\n    See _Economic Forces_\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nNew original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the\npublic domain.\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they\nwere not changed.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation\nmarks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left\nunbalanced.\n\nThe index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page\nreferences.\n\nFootnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages on which they were\nreferenced, have been collected, renumbered, and placed just before the\nIndex.\n\nSome page numbers in the Table of Contents are out of sequence, as they\nwere in the original book.\n\nThe correct spelling of the name, \u201cAyers\u201d, likely is \u201cAyres\u201d.","title":"The public and its problems","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":55067}