or slaves, war a small specialized affair of infantry and horsemen in search of slaves and loot, and empire the exaction of tribute.  The modern state must conduct its enormous businesses through a system of ministries; its vital interests go all round the earth; nothing that any ancient Greek would have recognized as democracy is conceivable in a great modern state.  It is absolutely necessary, if we are to get things clear in our minds about what democracy really means in relation to modern politics, first to make a quite fresh classification in order to find what items there really are to consider, and then to inquire which seem to correspond more or less closely in spirit with our ideas about ancient democracy.

Now there are two primary classes of idea about government in the modern world depending upon our conception of the political capacity of the common man.  We may suppose he is a microcosm, with complete ideas and wishes about the state and the world, or we may suppose that he isn’t.  We may believe that the common man can govern, or we may believe that he can’t.  We may think further along the first line that he is so wise and good and right that we only have to get out of his way for him to act rightly and for the good of all mankind, or we may doubt it.  And if we doubt that we may still believe that, though perhaps “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time,” the common man, expressing himself by a majority vote, still remains the secure source of human wisdom.  But next, while we may deny this universal distribution of political wisdom, we may, if we are sufficiently under the sway of modern ideas about collective psychology, believe that it is necessary to poke up the political indifference and inability of the common man as much as possible, to thrust political ideas and facts upon him, to incite him to a watchful and critical attitude towards them, and above all to secure his assent to the proceedings of the able people who are managing public affairs.  Or finally, we may treat him as a thing to be ruled and not consulted.  Let me at this stage make out a classificatory diagram of these elementary ideas of government in a modern country.

CLASS I. It is supposed that the common man can govern: 

(1) without further organization (Anarchy);

(2) through a majority vote by delegates.

CLASS II.  It is supposed that the common man cannot govern, and that government therefore must be through the agency of Able Persons who may be classified under one of the following sub-heads, either as

(1) persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be persons able to govern—­just as he chooses his doctors as persons able to secure health, and his electrical engineers as persons able to attend to his tramways, lighting, etc., etc.;

(2) persons of a special class, as, for example, persons born and educated to rule (e.g. Aristocracy), or rich business adventurers (Plutocracy) who rule without consulting the common man at all.