As the general character of organization becomes freer and more human, both the mechanical and the choosing elements of the institution rise to a higher plane. The former ceases to be an arbitrary and intolerant law, upheld by fear, by supernatural sanctions and the suppression of free speech; and tends to become simply a settled habit of thought, settled not because discussion is stifled but because it is superfluous, because the habit of thought has so proved its fitness to existing conditions that there is no prospect of shaking it. Thus in a free modern state, the political system, fundamental property rights and the like are settled, so far as they are settled, not because they are sacred or authoritative, but because the public mind is convinced of their soundness. Though we may not reason about them they are, so to speak, potentially rational, inasmuch as they are believed to rest upon reason and may at any time be tested by it. The advantages and disadvantages of this sort of institutions are well understood. They do not afford quite the sharp and definite discipline of a more arbitrary system, but they are more flexible, more closely expressive of the public mind, and so, if they can be made to work at all, more stable. The free element in institutions also tends to become better informed, better trained, better organized, more truly rational. We have so many occasions to note this that it is unnecessary to dwell upon it here. FOOTNOTES: [134] Wordsworth, Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, etc. [135] In a paper on The Personal and the Factional in the Life of Society. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1905, p. 337. [136] By Mantegna. [137] Page 30. See also the last chapter. [138] I mean by mechanism anything in the way of habit, authority or formula that tends to dispense with choice. [139] Baring-Gould, Germany, i, 350 _ff._ [140] Garibaldi’s Autobiography, i, 105. CHAPTER XXIX INSTITUTIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL—CONTINUED. INNOVATION AS A PERSONAL TENDENCY—INNOVATION AND CONSERVATISM AS PUBLIC HABIT—SOLIDARITY—FRENCH AND ANGLO-SAXON SOLIDARITY—TRADITION AND CONVENTION—NOT SO OPPOSITE AS THEY APPEAR—REAL DIFFERENCE, IN THIS REGARD, BETWEEN MODERN AND MEDIÆVAL SOCIETY—TRADITIONALISM AND CONVENTIONALISM IN MODERN LIFE.