Page:The League of Nations and the democratic idea.djvu/19

 the lowest class of all. They alone are entirely innocent; and they alone can oppress nobody!

The truth of course is that, as soon as the power was put in the hands of the 'proletarians', they would have changed their social character. They would have become a ruling class, different from other ruling classes only in their large numbers and, perhaps we may add, in their extraordinary lack of talent. They would be exposed to all the temptations that beset every governing class, and would be particularly ill-suited to resist them. Their rule would be no safeguard against war or anything else.

The fundamental error of the Bolshevik or sans-culotte theorist lies, I believe, in his conscious or unconscious acceptance of class selfishness as the natural and unavoidable basis of human government. If every ruling class is, as a matter of course, to rule in its own interests, then by all means let the largest class rule; but the hypothesis itself is one that destroys all hope for the future of mankind. To accept it is a sin against the whole spirit of Democracy. The essential doctrine of Democracy is that each man, as a free human soul, lives of his free will in the service of the whole people. This ideal is no doubt hard to attain, but it is not hard to aim at. It is the only ideal permanently possible for any society that has emerged from the rule of mere custom or the divine right of kings. In certain ancient Greek cities a man, before casting a vote,