In confining ourselves now to the consideration of this latter point we shall readily perceive that the democratic ideas to be found in books and journals are purely the theories of literary people, of which the people know nothing, and by the application of which they would have nothing to gain. Although the working- man possesses the theoretical right of passing the barriers which separate him from the upper classes by a whole series of competitions and examinations, his chance of reaching them is in reality extremely slight. The democracy of the lettered classes has no other object than to set up a selection which shall recruit the directing classes exclusively from themselves. I should have nothing to say against this if the selection were real. It would then constitute the application of the maxim of Napoleon: ``The true method of government is to employ the aristocracy, but under the forms of democracy.'' Unhappily the democracy of the ``intellectuals'' would simply lead to the substitution of the Divine right of kings by the Divine right of a petty oligarchy, which is too often narrow and tyrannical. Liberty cannot be created by replacing a tyranny. Popular democracy by no means aims at manufacturing rulers. Dominated entirely by the spirit of equality and the desire to ameliorate the lot of the workers, it rejects the idea of fraternity, and exhibits no anxiety in respect of liberty. No government is conceivable to popular democracy except in the form of an autocracy. We see this, not only in history, which shows us that since the Revolution all despotic Governments have been vigorously acclaimed, but also in the autocratic fashion in which the workers' trades unions are conducted. This profound distinction between the democracy of the lettered classes and popular democracy is far more obvious to the workers than to the intellectuals. In their mentalities there is nothing in common; the two classes do not speak the same language. The syndicalists emphatically assert to-day that no alliance could possibly exist between them and the politicians of the bourgeoisie. This assertion is strictly true. It was always so, and this, no doubt, is why popular democracy, from Plato's to our own times, has never been defended by the great thinkers. This fact has greatly struck Emile Faguet. ``Almost all the thinkers of the nineteenth century,'' he says, ``were not democrats. When I was writing my Politiques et moralistes du XIXe siecle this was my despair. I could not find one who had been a democrat; yet I was extremely anxious to find one so that I could give the democratic doctrine as formulated by him.'' The eminent writer might certainly have found plenty of professional politicians, but these latter rarely belong to the category of thinkers. 2. Natural Inequalities and Democratic Equalisation.