The Cult of Incompetence Part 12

How? Well for many years I have been saying it and I hope I may live for many years longer to say it again. A healthy nation is one in which the aristocracy is "_demophil_," that is a lover of the people, and where the people is aristocratic in its leanings. Every people where the aristocracy is aristocratic and where the democracy is democratic is a people destined to perish promptly, because it does not understand what a people is, it has not got beyond the stage of knowing what is a cla.s.s and perhaps not even as far as that.

Montesquieu praises highly the Athenians and the Romans for the following reason. "At Rome, although the people had the right of elevating plebeians to office, it could never bring itself to elect them; and although at Athens, it could by the law of Aristides, choose magistrates from all cla.s.ses, it never happened according to Xenophon, that the lower people demanded the election of rulers who could injure its safety and its glory. The two instances are identical; only, as far as Athens is concerned, it signifies nothing, for at Athens everything was decided by plebiscite and in consequence the real rulers of Athens were the orators, in whom the people trusted, who enforced their decisions and really governed the city. At Rome the fact is of great importance for it was the elected magistrates who governed."

Republican Rome was indeed a country aristocratically governed which had, however, a democratic element in its const.i.tution, and this democratic element, up to the time of the civil wars, was itself profoundly aristocratic, just as the aristocracy which was always open to an accession of members from the plebs was profoundly "demophil."

The inst.i.tution of patron and client, even in the state of degeneracy which overtook it, is a phenomenon which I believe is well-nigh unique.

It shows to what extent two cla.s.ses felt the social necessity, the patriotic necessity of mutual support and of a recognition of an ident.i.ty of interest.

A nation whose people is aristocratic and whose aristocracy is "demophil" is a healthy nation. Rome succeeded in the world because for five hundred years she enjoyed this social health.

An aristocratic people and a people-loving aristocracy. I had long believed the formula was of my own invention. I have just discovered, and I am in no way surprised, that Aristotle was before me. He quotes the oath which oligarchs take in certain cities. "I swear to be always the enemy of the people and never to counsel any thing that I do not know to be injurious to them." "This," he continues, "is the very opposite of what they ought to do or to pretend to do ... It is a political fault which is often committed in oligarchies as well as in democracies, and where the mult.i.tude has control of the laws, the demagogues make this mistake. In their combat against the rich, they always divide the State into two opposing parties. _In a democracy, on the contrary, the Government should profess to speak for the rich, and in oligarchies it should profess to speak in favour of the people._"

It is a Machiavelian counsel. Aristotle seems convinced that democrats can only _profess_ to speak for the rich and that all we can expect from oligarchs is an appearance of speaking in favour of the people.

Nevertheless he recognises clearly that for the peace and well-being of the commonwealth such should be their att.i.tude.

There is something more profound than this. Aristocrats ought not only to appear but to be verily favourable to the demos, if they understand the interests of aristocracy itself, for aristocracy requires a base.

Democrats also ought not only to appear but to be aristocratic if they understand the interests of democracy which requires a guide.

This reciprocity of good offices, this reciprocity of devotion, and this combination of effort are as necessary in modern as they were in ancient republics. It is, and we must coin a word to express it, a social "synergy" that is wanted. A union of all the vitalizing elements is as necessary in society as in the family. Every family that is divided must perish, every kingdom that is divided must perish.

I have said little of royalty which only indirectly concerns my subject.

If we have seen instances of the inst.i.tution of royalty firmly established, it is where the sentiment of royalty, appealing at once both to the aristocracy and to the people, has realised that "synergy"

of the whole community of which we speak; it is where both, being united in devotion to one object, are led to be devoted to each other by reason of this convergence of their wills. _Eadem velle, eadem nolle amicitia est._

There is no need of royalty for this. Royalty is our country itself personified in one man. In the identification of country and kingdom, we can and must arrive at this same union of the separate vitalities of the nation, at this same community and convergence of will. The humble must love their country in loving the great and the great must love their country in loving the humble; and so all cla.s.ses must be at one in their hopes and in their fears. _Amicitia sit!_