The emphasis, therefore, has always been on the mechanism for
expressing the will. The democratic El Dorado has always been some
perfect environment, and some perfect system of voting and
representation, where the innate good will and instinctive
statesmanship of every man could be translated into action. In limited
areas and for brief periods the environment has been so favorable,
that is to say so isolated, and so rich in opportunity, that the
theory worked well enough to confirm men in thinking that it was sound
for all time and everywhere. Then when the isolation ended, and
society became complex, and men had to adjust themselves closely to
one another, the democrat spent his time trying to devise more perfect
units of voting, in the hope that somehow he would, as Mr. Cole says,
"get the mechanism right, and adjust it as far as possible to men's
social wills." But while the democratic theorist was busy at this, he
was far away from the actual interests of human nature. He was
absorbed by one interest: self-government. Mankind was interested in
all kinds of other things, in order, in its rights, in prosperity, in
sights and sounds and in not being bored. In so far as spontaneous
democracy does not satisfy their other interests, it seems to most men
most of the time to be an empty thing. Because the art of successful
self-government is not instinctive, men do not long desire
self-government for its own sake.
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