It is therefore manifest that the question whether political democracy must end in social, is one that cannot be answered out of hand by deduction from the idea. The development will differ in different countries, for it depends on historical conditions, of which the most important is that I have now touched on, whether the national character and circumstances are calculated to guide that development into the form of democratic liberty, or into the form of democratic tyranny. A second condition is scarcely less important, viz., whether the laws and economic situation of the country have conduced to a dispersion or to a concentration of property. For even in the freest democracy individual property can only be permanently sustained by diffusion, and, if existing conditions have isolated it into the hands of the few, the many will lie under a constant, and, in emergencies, an irresistible temptation to take freedom in their hand and force the distribution of property by law, or nationalize it entirely by a socialistic reconstruction. It used to be a maxim in former days that power must be distributed in some proportion to property, but with the advent of democracy the maxim must be converted, and the rule of health will now be found in having property distributed in some proportion to power. That is the natural price of stability under a democratic _régime_. A penniless omnipotence is an insupportable presence. When supreme power is vested in a majority of the people, property cannot sit securely till it becomes so general a possession that a majority of the people has a stake in its defence, and this point will not be reached until at least a large minority of them are actually owners, and the rest enjoy a reasonable prospect of becoming so by the exercise of care and diligence in their ordinary avocations.