But there is a still more fundamental discovery underlying our democratic tendencies. This is the easily demonstrated scientific truth that nearly all men and women, whatever their social and economic status, may have much greater possibilities of activity and thought and emotion than they exhibit in the particular conditions in which they happen to be placed; that in all ranks may be found evidence of unrealized capacity; that we are living on a far lower scale of intelligent conduct and rational enjoyment than is necessary. Our present notions of nationality are of very recent origin, going back scarcely a hundred years. Formerly nations were made up of the subjects of this or that gracious majesty and were regarded by their God-given rulers as beasts of burden or slaves or, in more amiable moods, as children. The same forces that have given rise to modern democracy have made it possible for vast groups of people, such as make up France or the United States, to be held together more intimately than ever before by the news which reaches them daily of the enterprises of their government and the deeds of their conspicuous fellow-countrymen. In this way the inhabitants of an extensive territory embracing hundreds of thousands of square miles are brought as close together as the people of Athens in former days. Man Is surely a gregarious animal who dislikes solitude. He is, moreover, given to the most exaggerated estimate of his tribe; and on these ancient foundations modern nationality has been built up by means of the printing press, the telegraph, and cheap postage. _So it has fallen out that just when the world was becoming effectively cosmopolitan in its economic interdependence, its scientific research, and its exchange of books and art, the ancient tribal insolence has been developed on a stupendous scale._ The manner in which man has revolutionized his environment, habits of conduct, and purposes of life by inventions is perhaps the most astonishing thing in human history. It is an obscure and hitherto rather neglected subject. But it is clear enough, from the little that has been said here, that since the Middle Ages, and especially in the past hundred years, science has so hastened the process of change that it becomes increasingly difficult for man's common run of thinking to keep pace with the radical alterations in his actual practices and conditions of living. * * * * * VII Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine, When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; Peace in her vineyard--yes!--but a company forges the wine. --TENNYSON.