The difficulty of reconciling democratic equalisation with natural inequalities constitutes one of the most difficult problems of the present hour. We know what are the desires of democracy. Let us see what Nature replies to these demands. The democratic ideas which have so often shaken the world from the heroic ages of Greece to modern times are always clashing with natural inequalities. Some observers have held, with Helvetius, that the inequality between men is created by education. As a matter of fact, Nature does not know such a thing as equality. She distributes unevenly genius, beauty, health, vigour, intelligence, and all the qualities which confer on their possessors a superiority over their fellows. No theory can alter these discrepancies, so that democratic doctrines will remain confined to words until the laws of heredity consent to unify the capacities of men. Can we suppose that societies will ever succeed in establishing artificially the equality refused by Nature? A few theorists have believed for a long time that education might effect a general levelling. Many years of experience have shown the depth of this illusion. It would not, however, be impossible for a triumphant Socialism to establish equality for a time by rigorously eliminating all superior individuals. One can easily foresee what would become of a people that had suppressed its best individuals while surrounded by other nations progressing by means of their best individuals. Not only does Nature not know equality, but since the beginning of the ages she has always realised progress by means of successive differentiations--that is to say, by increasing inequalities. These alone could raise the obscure cell of the early geological periods to the superior beings whose inventions were to change the face of the earth. The same phenomenon is to be observed in societies. The forms of democracy which select the better elements of the popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the level of the inferior elements. On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories of equality, are the conditions of modern progress. Science and industry demand more and more considerable intellectual efforts, so that mental inequalities and the differences of social condition which spring from them cannot but become accentuated. We therefore observe this striking phenomenon: as laws and institutions seek to level individuals the progress of civilisation tends still further to differentiate them. From the peasant to the feudal baron the intellectual difference was not great, but from the working-man to the engineer it is immense and is increasing daily.