... “quelle joie
De fondre dans ton corps [le ville] immense
oú l’on a chaud!”
Here is our old friend, the wild ox, in the mask of the most civilized (perhaps) portion of our most civilised (perhaps) nation. Again
“Nous sommes indistincts: chacun de nous est mort;
Et la vie unanime est notre sépulture.”
[68]. Other results of the increased reading of newspapers and magazines are that large questions are driving out trivial interests (I find this very marked in the country), and the enormous amount of publicity now given everything finds a channel to the public through the press. The reports of commissions, like the Industrial Relations Commission, the surveys, like the Pittsburgh Survey, the reports of foundations, like the Russell Sage, the reports of the rapidly increasing bureaus of research, like the New York Municipal Bureau, all find their way to us through the columns of our daily or weekly or monthly. Therefore we have more material on which to found individual thinking.
[69]. Also the development of the relation of individualistic theories to the rise and decline of the doctrines regarding the national state.
[70]. I do not wish, however, to minimize the truly democratic nature of our local institutions.
[71]. While it is true that there were undemocratic elements in the mental equipment and psychological bent of our forefathers, and it is these which I have emphasized because from them came our immediate development, it is equally true that there were also sound democratic elements to which we can trace our present ideas of democracy. Such tracing even in briefest form there is not space for here.