Then at least we shall be ruled by men.
But the thing which is really required for the proper working of democracy
is not merely the democratic system, or even the democratic philosophy,
but the democratic emotion. The democratic emotion, like most elementary
and indispensable things, is a thing difficult to describe at any time.
But it is peculiarly difficult to describe it in our enlightened age,
for the simple reason that it is peculiarly difficult to find it.
It is a certain instinctive attitude which feels the things
in which all men agree to be unspeakably important,
and all the things in which they differ (such as mere brains)
to be almost unspeakably unimportant. The nearest approach to it
in our ordinary life would be the promptitude with which we should
consider mere humanity in any circumstance of shock or death.
We should say, after a somewhat disturbing discovery, "There is a dead
man under the sofa." We should not be likely to say, "There is
a dead man of considerable personal refinement under the sofa."
We should say, "A woman has fallen into the water." We should not say,
"A highly educated woman has fallen into the water." Nobody would say,
"There are the remains of a clear thinker in your back garden.
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