This idea that all men alike shall be the beneficiaries of government, when taken together {160} with the ancient ideas that government shall be directly responsible to its beneficiaries, and shall make as liberal an allowance as possible for their individual claims and opinions, constitutes the general principle upon which the progressive modern state is founded. Let me briefly recapitulate certain characteristics of the modern state[12] which indicate its recognition of this principle, and hence its advance on the whole over earlier types. 1. In the first place, the modern state is essentially a territorial rather than a racial or proprietary unit. In other words, it is clearly defined as a necessity and utility arising out of the circumstance of propinquity. If men are to cast in their lot together they must submit to organization, and obey laws promulgated in the interest of the community as a whole. To-day men understand that if they had no government it would be necessary to invent one; that the existing government, whatever divinity doth hedge it, is thus virtually the instrument of their needs. 2. Secondly, this moral function of government is emphasized through being largely freed from personal or dynastic connections and expressed as a constitutional office. 3. Thirdly, the requirements of justice and good-will are reconciled with order through the principle of representation. Without this {161} principle it would be impossible for societies large enough to afford men protection, to admit all men to a share in their positive benefits and to a voice in their councils. Representative government is a method of political procedure through which authority is made answerable in the long run to all interests within its jurisdiction. The more recent tendencies in democratic communities to modify the representative system indicate the direction in which the pressure of interests is still urging society forward. It is no longer a question merely of the extension of the suffrage, but of directness and publicity. The procedure of government being recognized as of vital importance to all citizens, it must be straightforward and businesslike, with its books constantly open to inspection. The present distrust in elected representatives is not a sign of reaction, but of the evolution of the democratic intelligence. Where the machinery of representation becomes wasteful and clumsy, it ceases to serve the community. But this may mean either direct legislation, that is, a direct participation in public affairs by the people at large, or the intrusting of these affairs to a few conspicuously responsible agents selected for their businesslike competence and owing their tenure of office to the consent of their constituency. These methods are entirely consistent with one another; and they owe their {162} adoption entirely to their better execution of the intent of democracy. Both presuppose that political authority is empowered by all the