[1] We need not waste any time upon those who talk about such and such a form of government being good because “it works.” The use of such language connotes that the user of it is fatigued by the effort of thought. For what is “working,” _i.e._ successful action, in any sphere? The attainment of certain ends in that sphere. What are those ends in a State? If material well-being, then there is an end to talk of patriotism, the nation, public opinion and the rest of it which, as we all very well know, men always have regarded and always will regard as the supreme matters of public interest. If the end is not material well-being, but a sense of political freedom and of the power of the citizen to react upon the State, then to say that an institution “works” though apparently not democratic, is simply to say that under such and such conditions that institution achieves the ends of democracy most nearly. In other words, to contrast the good “working” of an institution superficially undemocratic with democratic theory is meaningless. The institution “works” in proportion as it satisfies that political sense which perfect democracy would, were it attainable, completely satisfy. II ROUSSEAU In order to appreciate what Rousseau meant to the revolutionary movement, it is necessary to consider the effect of style upon men. Men are influenced by the word. Spoken or written, the _word_ is the organ of persuasion and, therefore, of moral government. Now, degraded as that term has become in our time, there is no proper term to express the exact use of words save the term “style.” What words we use, and in what order we put them, is the whole matter of style; and a man desiring to influence his fellow men has therefore not one, but two co-related instruments at his disposal. He cannot use one without the other. The weakness of the one will ruin the other. These two instruments are his idea and his style. However powerful, native, sympathetic to his hearers’ mood or cogently provable by reference to new things may be a man’s idea, he cannot persuade his fellow men to it if he have not words that express it. And he will persuade them more and more in proportion as his words are well chosen and in the right order, such order being determined by the genius of the language whence they are drawn.