Page:Jay William Hudson - America's International Ideals (1915).djvu/12

 in terms of reason what man is and what is his relation to his universe. The great scientists have bent all their energies to a discovery of the laws of reason that govern all phenomena and have attempted to reduce man's world to logical order. The great moralists have always appealed to reason as the final guide of human conduct, and have taught us to see the illuminating truth that to be right is to be reasonable, and that to be thoroughly reasonable is to be thoroughly right. Thus civilization, turning its thought more and more upon itself, has more and more endeavored to justify itself by its rationality. Thus it is that every institution has had to defend itself finally by convincing the world of the logic of its claims to recognition. Thus it is that the goal of education has been to teach the average man to reason for himself that he might indeed "prove all things" and "hold fast that which is good."

If there is any country which more than any other has recognized and approximated this desire for the reign of reason in human affairs, it is the United States. Indeed, this is the fundamental significance of American democracy. Why free speech? For the purpose of giving every man a free chance of expressing his reasoned convictions on all great issues of social welfare, and for the purpose of giving him the opportunity of freely hearing the freely uttered reasons of his fellows. Free speech makes possible social reason: that is its only excuse. And why the ideal of the universal ballot? So that reasoned convictions may be made final, operative and efficient in deciding the great social and political problems, the solution of which means human progress. This democracy is above all a school of reason; a school more effective than any ordinary school, since its mem-