SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL FERMENT

Heresy, Ascendancy with Subjection, Aristocracy with the Masses, Capitalism with Labour, Individualism with Sodalism : the reason for this is not to be f otind, as the superficial observer might imagine, in the arrogance of the strong, the dis» content of the weak, the selfishness of the possessor, the revenge of the dispossessed, the mère brute struggle of the Hâves to retain and of the Hâvenots to obtain ; it is an inward ferment which flings itself up into thèse varions surface-oppositions. Thèse outward antagonisms are, like those of lovers, the signs of a subtie iuM^ard co-operation ; they prépare the way for a higher unity. The whole secret of the ferment is the graduai arrivai from within of a profounder community-consciousness. The community as a whole is coming to itself through the strife of its members. It is a potential Freedom issuing into actuality through stress.

For this the heroes and lovers of ail âges hâve laid down thdr lives ; and nations like tigers hâve fought, knowing well that this life was a meie empty blob without Freedom.

Where this makes itself known in a people or even in the soûl of a ^ngle man or woman, there Democracy begins to exist.^

And, without further élaboration, the same thing is true of the individual, whose heart is almost always the arena of a struggle ; he may not imderstand the agony, may think himself

* r. D., p. lo.