In conclusion, we must bear in mind that democracy or social self-government is the most difficult of all human problems, and must be approached, not with inflated hopes and rosy imaginations, but with sobriety and caution and a sound mind, and at critical moments not without prayer and fasting. Before entering on any scheme for rebuilding our social edifice on a democratic model, we should consider seriously what a democracy really implies, and what we may reasonably promise ourselves from its possible success. Of the two rallying cries which have made it a favourite with persons given to change, equality and liberty, the one is no more true than that all the mountains in the Highlands are as high as Ben Nevis, and can only mean at the best that all men have an equal right to be called men and to be treated as men, while the other is only true so far as concerns the removal of all artificial barriers to the free exercise of each man's function, according to his capacity and opportunities. But this is a mere starting-point in the social life of a great people. When the bird is out of the cage, which it must be in order to be a perfect bird, the more serious question emerges, what use it shall make of its newly-acquired liberty. Here certainly to men, as to birds, there are great dangers to be faced; and with nations the progress of society, as already remarked, is measured to a much larger extent by the increase of limitations than by the extension of liberties. Then, again, the fundamental postulate of extreme democracy that the majority have everywhere a right to govern is manifestly false. No man as a member of society has a natural right to govern: he has a right to be governed, and well governed; and that can only be when the government is conducted by the wisest and best men who compose the society. If the numerical majority is composed of sober-minded, sensible, and intelligent persons who will either govern wisely themselves or choose persons who will do so, then democracy is justified by its deeds; but if it is otherwise, and if, when an appeal is made to the multitude, they will choose the most daring, the most ambitious, and the most unscrupulous, rather than the most sensible, the most moderate, and the most conscientious, then democracy is a bad thing, at least nothing better than the other _ocracies_ which it supplants. It is manifest, therefore, that of all forms of government democracy is that which imperatively requires the greatest amount of intelligence and moderation among the great mass of the people, especially amongst the lower classes, who have always been the most numerous; and, as history can point to no quarter of the world where such a happy condition of the numerical intelligence has been realised, it cannot look with any favour on schemes of universal suffrage, even when qualified with a stout array of effective checks. The system, indeed, of representing every man individually, and giving