We can satisfy our wants only by a genuine union and communion of all, only in the friendly outpouring of heart to heart. We have come to the time when we see that the machinery of government can be useful to us only so far as it is a living thing: the souls of men are the stones of Heaven, the life of every man must contribute fundamentally to the growth of the state. So the world spirit seeks freedom and finds it in a more and more perfect union of true individuals. _The relation of neighbors one to another must be integrated into the substance of the state._ Politics must take democracy from its external expression of representation to the expression of that inner meaning hidden in the intermingling of all men. This is our part to-day—thus shall we take our place in the great task of our race. Our political life began in the small group, but it has taken us long to evolve our relation to a national life, and meanwhile much of the significance and richness of the local life has been lost. Back now to the local unit we must go with all that we have accumulated, to find in and through that our complete realization. Back we must go to this small primary unit if we would understand the meaning of democracy, if we would get the fruits of democracy. As Voltaire said, “The spirit of France is the candle of Europe,” so must the spirit of the neighborhood be the candle of the nation. ----- Footnote 90: This point will be taken up in ch. XXXIII. Footnote 91: Or perhaps the Senate might represent the occupational group (see ch. XXXIII). Or perhaps the experts mentioned above might be representatives from occupational groups. Footnote 92: In North Carolina the recently organized State Bureau of Community Service—made up of the administrators of the Department of Agriculture, the Board of Health, the Normal and Industrial College and the Farmers’ Union, with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction as its central executive—is making its immediate work the development of local community organization which shall be directly articulated with a unified state organization. Footnote 93: The Community Council, however, is not to duplicate other organizations but first to coördinate all existing agencies before planning new activities. Footnote 94: And spontaneously many towns and villages turned to the schoolhouse as the natural centre of its war services. Footnote 95: For the moment I ignore the occupational group to be considered later. Footnote 96: