As long as there was no way of establishing common versions
of unseen events, common measures for separate actions, the only image
of democracy that would work, even in theory, was one based on an
isolated community of people whose political faculties were limited,
according to Aristotle's famous maxim, by the range of their vision.
But now there is a way out, a long one to be sure, but a way. It is
fundamentally the same way as that which has enabled a citizen of
Chicago, with no better eyes or ears than an Athenian, to see and hear
over great distances. It is possible to-day, it will become more
possible when more labor has gone into it, to reduce the discrepancies
between the conceived environment and the effective environment. As
that is done, federalism will work more and more by consent, less and
less by coercion. For while federalism is the only possible method of
union among self-governing groups, [Footnote: _Cf._ H. J. Laski,
_The Foundations of Sovereignty_, and other Essays, particularly
the Essay of this name, as well as the Problems of Administrative
Areas, The Theory of Popular Sovereignty, and The Pluralistic State.]
federalism swings either towards imperial centralization or towards
parochial anarchy wherever the union is not based on correct and
commonly accepted ideas of federal matters. These ideas do not arise
spontaneously. They have to be pieced together by generalization based
on analysis, and the instruments for that analysis have to be invented
and tested by research.
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