For its good it should believe that equality is so contrary to nature that we have no right to torture nature in order to establish real equality among men, and that the people which has established such a state of things, which is quite possible, must succumb to the fate of those who try to live exactly in opposition to the laws of nature. Instead, it is taught, and it is true enough, that equality is not possible, if it is not complete, if it is not thorough, that it ought to be applied to differences of fortune, social position, intelligence, perhaps even to our stature and personal appearance, and that no effort should be spared to bring all things to one absolute level.
For its good, since it is natural enough that it should dislike heavy taxation, sentiments of patriotism should be reinforced; it is taught on the contrary that military service is a painful legacy left by a hateful and barbarous past, and that it ought to disappear very soon before the warming rays of a peaceful civilisation.
In a word, to use again the language of Aristotle, the pure wine of democracy is poured out to the people as it was by the demagogues to the Athenians; and from the quarter whence a remedy might have been expected there come only incitements to deeper intoxication.
Aristotle has made yet another wise and profound observation on the question of equality: "_We must establish equality_," he said, "_in the passions rather than in the fortunes of men._" And he adds: "And this equality can only be the fruit of education derived from the influence of good laws." That is indeed the point. Education should have but one object; to reduce the passions to equality, or rather to _equanimity_, and to a certain equilibrium of mind. The education given to modern democracy does not lead to this, but leads in the opposite direction.
What remedies can we apply to this modern disease, the worship of intellectual and moral incompetence? What is, as M. Fouillée puts it, the best way of avoiding the hidden rocks which threaten democracies? It is hard to say, for we have to do with an evil which can only be cured by itself, with an evil which is more than content with itself.
M. Fouillée (in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of November, 1909) proposes an aristocratic Upper Chamber, that is to say, one that would represent all the competence of the country, inasmuch as it would be appointed by everything which is based on some particular form of excellence, the magistracy, the army, the university, the chambers of commerce, and so on.