But along with the mechanistic habit of thought, there is a survival of the Hegelian idealism which has been chiefly responsible for the modern apothesis of the national state. It is not the Prussian only who has affirmed the sovereignty and omnicompetency of the state and its right to undivided obedience; but being more mechanically and remorselessly logical than his neighbours, he has carried the doctrine to a more definite point. But it seems to be generally assumed in all popular political thinking that our loyalty to the state should be not only first but absolute over all the other loyalties of life. In our day this view has received, particularly in democratic communities, a subtle and plausible reinforcement from the growing emphasis upon the fact of social solidarity with its implication that the consensus of the community fixes the norm of conduct. A man’s conscience should reflect the collective conscience of the society. Moreover, the egalitarian populates of republican democracy are construed to require a uniformity of conduct no less complete than that demanded by the political theory of autocracy; and the unpardonable sin is to break the ranks. “The true democratic principle,” says Lord Acton, “that every man’s free will shall be as unfettered as possible, is taken to mean that the free will of the collective people shall be fettered in nothing.”[30] Democracy which has sloughed the archaism of aristocracy has yet to outgrow the Austinian doctrine of sovereignty if it is not to be in danger of ceasing to be the sanctuary and becoming the grave of liberty, and with liberty of much else beside. When it no longer tolerates the nonconformist and the moral pioneer, “its doom is writ;” for once more let it be repeated that historically dissent of this type has always proved to be the growing point of society. Footnote 30: Lord Acton, _The History of Liberty_.