The doctrine of the equality of mankind by virtue of their birth as men, with its consequent right to equality of opportunity for self-development as a part of social justice, establishes a common basis of conviction, in respect to man, and a definite end as one main object of the State; and these elements are primary in the democratic scheme.  Liberty is the next step, and is the means by which that end is secured.  It is so cardinal in democracy as to seem hardly secondary to equality in importance.  Every State, every social organization whatever, implies a principle of authority commanding obedience; it may be of the absolute type of military and ecclesiastical use, or limited, as in constitutional monarchies; but some obedience and some authority are necessary in order that the will of the State may be realized.  The problem of democracy is to find that principle of authority which is most consistent with the liberty it would establish, and which acts with the greatest furtherance and the least interference in the accomplishment of the chief end in view.  It composes authority, therefore, of personal liberty itself, and derives it from the consent of the governed, and not merely from their consent but from their active decree.  The social will is impersonal, generic, the will of man, not of men; particular wills enter into it, and make it, so constituted, themselves in a larger and external form.  The citizen has parted with no portion of his freedom of will; the will of the State is still his own will, projected in unison with other wills, all jointly making up one sum,—­the authority of the nation.  This is social self-government,—­not the anarchy of individuals each having his own way for himself, but government through a delegated self, if one may use the phrase, organically combined with others in the single power of control belonging to a State.  This fusion is accomplished in the secondary stage, for the continuous action of the State, by representation, technically; but, in its primary stage and original validity, by universal suffrage; for the characteristic trait of democracy is that in constituting this authority, which is social as opposed to personal freedom,—­personal freedom existing in its social form,—­it includes every unit of will, and gives to each equivalence.  Democracy thus establishes the will of society in its most universal form, lying between the opposite extremes of particularism in despotism and anarchy; it owns the most catholic organ of authority, and enters into it with the entire original force of the community.

This universal will of democracy is distinguished from the more limited forms of states partially embodying democratic principles by the fact that nothing enters into it except man as such.  The rival powers which seek to encroach upon this scheme, and are foreign elements in a pure democracy, are education, property, and ancestry, which last has its claim as the custodian of education and property and the advantages flowing