The third and fourth indications of the growth of democracy, or the increase of individualism (I speak of these always as synonymous)—the tendency towards more and more direct government and the introduction of social programs into party platforms—will be considered in the next chapter together with a third tendency in American politics which is bound up with these two: I refer to the increase of administrative responsibility. * * * * * The theory of government based on individual rights no longer has a place in modern political theory; it no longer guides us entirely in legislation but has yielded largely to a truer practice; yet it still occupies a large place in current thought, in the speeches of our practical politicians, in our institutions of government, and in America in our law court decisions. This being so it is important for us to look for the reasons. First, there are of course always many people who trail along behind. Secondly, partly through the influence of Green and Bosanquet, the idea of contract has been slowly fading away, and many people have been frightened at its disappearance because Hegelianism, even in the modified form in which it appears in English theory, _seems_ to enthrone the state and override the individual.[73] Third, the large influence which Tarde, Le Bon, and their followers have had upon us with their suggestion and imitation theories of society—theories based on a pure particularism. The development of social and political organization has been greatly retarded by this school of sociology. Fourth, our economic development is still associated in the minds of many with the theories of individual rights. A more penetrating analysis of society during recent years, however, has uncovered the true conception of individualism hidden from the first within the “individualistic” movement. All through history we see the feeling out for the individual; there are all the false trails followed and there are the real steps taken. The false trails led to the individual rights of politics, the _laissez-faire_ of economics and our whole false particularism. The real steps have culminated in our ideas of to-day. To substitute for the fictitious democracy of equal rights and “consent of the governed,” the living democracy of a united, responsible people is the task of the twentieth century. We seek now the method. ----- Footnote 69: Also the development of the relation of individualistic theories to the rise and decline of the doctrines regarding the national state. Footnote 70: I do not wish, however, to minimize the truly democratic nature of our local institutions. Footnote 71: