Conditions must approximate those of
the isolated rural township if the supply of information is to be left
to casual experience. The environment must be confined within the
range of every man's direct and certain knowledge.
The democrat has understood what an analysis of public opinion seems
to demonstrate: that in dealing with an unseen environment decisions
"are manifestly settled at haphazard, which clearly they ought not to
be." [Footnote: Aristotle, _Politics_, Bk. VII, Ch. IV.] So he
has always tried in one way or another to minimize the importance of
that unseen environment. He feared foreign trade because trade
involves foreign connections; he distrusted manufactures because they
produced big cities and collected crowds; if he had nevertheless to
have manufactures, he wanted protection in the interest of
self-sufficiency. When he could not find these conditions in the real
world, he went passionately into the wilderness, and founded Utopian
communities far from foreign contacts. His slogans reveal his
prejudice. He is for Self-Government, Self-Determination,
Independence. Not one of these ideas carries with it any notion of
consent or community beyond the frontiers of the self-governing
groups. The field of democratic action is a circumscribed area. Within
protected boundaries the aim has been to achieve self-sufficiency and
avoid entanglement. This rule is not confined to foreign policy, but
it is plainly evident there, because life outside the national
boundaries is more distinctly alien than any life within.
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