are the touchstones to recognition and acceptance.  The latter are the antithesis of Christianity and common sense, the former is consonant with both and, paradoxical as it may seem, it is also the fulfilling of the ideals of a real democracy, since its honours and distinctions imply service, its relations with those in other estates are reciprocal, it is not a closed caste but the prize of meritorious achievement, and it is therefore equality of opportunity, utilization of ability and the abolition of privilege without responsibility.

Men are forever and gloriously struggling onward towards better things, but there is always the gravitational pull of original sin which scientists denominate “reversion to type.”  The saving grace in the individual is the divine gift of faith, hope and charity implanted in every soul.  These every man must guard and cherish for they are the way of advancement in character.  But society is man in association with men, in a sense a new and complex personality, and the same qualities are as necessary here as in the individual.  Society, like man, may be said to possess body, soul and spirit, and it must function vitally along all these lines if it is to maintain a normal and wholesome existence.  Somewhere there must be something that achieves high ideals of honour, chivalry, courtesy; that maintains right standards of comparative value, and that guards the social organism as a whole from the danger of surrender to false and debased standards, to plausible demagogues, and to mob-psychology.

The greater the prevalence of democratic methods, the greater is the danger of this surrender to propaganda of a thousand sorts and to the dominance of the demagogue, and the existence of an estate fortified by the inheritance of high tradition, measurably free from the necessity of engaging too strenuously in the “struggle for life,” guaranteed security of status so long as it does not betray the ideals of its order, but open to accessions from other estates on the basis of conspicuous merit alone, such a force operating in society has proved, and will prove, the best guardian of civilization as a whole and of the interests and liberties of those who may rank in what are known as lower social scales.

But, it may be objected, such an institution as this has never existed.  Every political or social aristocracy in history has been mixed and adulterated with bad characters and recreant representatives.  There never has been and never will be a perfect aristocracy.  Quite true; neither has there ever been a perfect democracy, or a perfect monarchy for that matter.  As men we work with imperfections, but we live by faith, and our sole duty is to establish the highest ideals, and to compass them, in so far as we may, with unfailing courage, patience and steadfastness.  The ideal of democracy is a great ideal, but the working of democracy has been a failure because, amongst other things, it has tried to carry on without the aid of true aristocracy.  If the two can be united, first in ideal and in theory, then in operation, our present failure may be changed into victory.