The "warfare of science" was part of this long struggle. The
Reformation, the revival of learning, the growth of democracy, are all
phases of this great conflict.
The function of democracy is not good government. If that were all, it
would not deserve the efforts spent on it. Better government than any
king or congress or democracy has yet given could be had in simpler and
cheaper ways. The automatic scheme of competitive examinations would
give us better rulers at half the present cost. Even an ordinary
intelligence office, or "statesman's employment bureau," would serve us
better than conventions and elections. But a people which could be
ruled in that way, content to be governed well by forces outside
itself, would not be worth the saving. But this is not the point at
issue. Government too good, as well as too bad, may have a baneful
influence on men. Its character is a secondary matter. The purpose of
self-government is to intensify individual responsibility; to promote
abortive attempts at wisdom, through which true wisdom may come at
last. Democracy is nature-study on a grand scale. The republic is a
huge laboratory of civics, a laboratory in which strange experiments
are performed; but by which, as in other laboratories, wisdom may arise
from experience, and having arisen, may work itself out into virtue.
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