The problem of government is to protect the individuals in a community against each other, and to protect them all against the rest of the world. The power to interfere and the power to represent must be lodged somewhere, and the question is how to arrange it so that this power shall not be turned against the people. Democracy solves it by election. Let the people choose their rulers. Instantly every man is turned into a custodian, a part of him is dedicated to the public. He is prevented by fundamental theory of law from being absolutely selfish. Corrupt him how you will, deflect him, play upon him, degrade, deceive him, you cannot shut him off from this influence. The framework of government makes continuous appeal to the highest within him. It draws him as the moon draws the sea. This appeal is one to which the organic nature of man responds, as we have seen. For man is an unselfish animal. The law of his nature is expressed in the framework of government. The arrangement shows a wisdom so profound that all historical philosophy grows cheap before it. If you jump from the study of psychology straight into the theory of democracy, you see why it was that the allegiance to the ideas of the United States Constitution endured through slavery, through the carpetbag era, through the Tweed ring. It was not the letter, but the spirit which was inextinguishable. It has taken a century of pamphlets to break down the distinctions between men based upon orders of nobility, property, creed, etc. Fifteen minutes of psychology would have levelled men and set them upon the same footing as that upon which they walk into a hospital. The creature man is by this system dealt with so simply as he had not been dealt with since the birth of Christ. It must be conceded that the thing could not even have been tried, except with a people familiar with the distinctions between legislative, executive, and judicial power, criminal and civil law, etc. Altruistic impulse would not have sufficed to execute itself. But the divisions and forms of thought expressive of that altruism already existed, and were in operation, as we have seen. It is thought that the peculiar merit of Democracy lies in this: that it gives to every man a chance to pursue his own ends. The reverse is true. The merit lies in the assumption imposed upon every man that he shall serve his fellow men. This is by the law of his being his only chance for happiness. You cannot find a man who does not know this. If you examine the consciousness of any typical minion of success, you will find that his source of inward content lies in a belief that his success has benefited somebody--his kindred, his townsfolk--mankind.