democracy mainly on the ground that 'it promotes a better and higher
form of national character than any other polity,' since government by
authority stunts the intellect, narrows the sympathies, and destroys the
power of initiative. 'The perfect commonwealth,' says Mr. Zimmern,' is a
society of free men and women, each at once ruling and being ruled,' It
is also fair to argue that monarchies do not escape the worst evils of
democracies. An autocracy is often obliged to oppress the educated
classes and to propitiate the mob. Domitian massacred senators with
impunity, and only fell '_postquam cerdonibus esse timendus coeperat_.'
If an autocracy does not rest on the army, which leads to the chaos of
praetorianism, it must rely on '_panem et circenses_.' Hence it has some
of the worst faults of democracy, without its advantages. As Mr. Graham
Wallas says: 'When a Tsar or a bureaucracy finds itself forced to govern
in opposition to a vague national feeling which may at any moment create
an overwhelming national purpose, the autocrat becomes the most
unscrupulous of demagogues, and stirs up racial or religious or social
hatred, or the lust for foreign war, with less scruple than a newspaper
proprietor under a democracy,' The autocrat, in fact, is often a slave,
as the demagogue is often a tyrant. Lastly, the democrat may urge that
one of the commonest accusations against democracy--that the populace
chooses its rulers badly--is not true in times of great national danger.
On the contrary, it often shows a sound instinct in finding the
strongest man to carry it through a crisis. At such times the parrots
and monkeys are discarded, and a Napoleon or a Kitchener is given a
free hand, though he may have despised all the demagogic arts. In other
words, a democracy sometimes knows when to abdicate. The excesses of
revolutionists are not an argument against democracy, since revolutions
are anything rather than democratic.

Nevertheless, the indictment against democracy is a very heavy one, and