to dominate their neighbours.  A change far deeper than a change in the form of Government is needed.  The claim put forward both by word and deed to impose the German will on others by organised force of any kind must be abandoned utterly, if the world is to be really at peace with Germany and with those whom Germany has been able to compel or to beguile into alliance with her.  The conflict is not simply between autocracy or oligarchy and democracy, but between different ideals and diametrically opposed notions of duty.  The conception of their State as an organisation carefully arranged to impose its will on others regardless of their feelings and their rights must be eradicated.  Democracy and Liberty do not necessarily go together.  There may be democracy without liberty, and it is possible though not probable that there may be real liberty without the form of democracy.  An enlightened monarch, governing as well as reigning, may express the real will of a nation more truly than the vote of a majority of representatives; and individual liberty may be more secure under such a monarch than when it is dependent on the result of divisions taken when party passion is running high.  But such a rule must lack the element of stability.  The Antonines pass away and Commodus and Heliogabalus rule in their place.  Permanent strength and settled liberty are best secured when the acts of Government are the expression of the conscious will of the nation as a whole, where the people think out for themselves the general lines of action and the Government is their minister.  It is not enough that there should be a just rule in which they acquiesce, but it is they themselves who should act—­through agents, no doubt—­and learn the habit of forming right judgments and acting justly.  To deny him a share in political life—­that is, in deciding the action of the State to which he belongs—­is to deprive a man of one of those “activities of the soul which constitute happiness,” to take from him one of the things that makes a full life for those who really live among their fellows.  There may always be a few who live apart, contemplative souls

                                  insphered
    In regions mild, of calm and serene air,
    Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
    Which men call earth.

Some may build themselves a Palace of Art where they may live alone; some may sink themselves in luxury or repose in sluggish indifference, careless of the life of others round them, with neither the heart to feel nor head to understand anything beyond their own immediate wants.  But the highest aim and fullest life for man generally—­as “an animal more social than the bee”—­is

    To go and join head and heart and hand,
    Active and firm to fight the bloodless fight
    Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.

Political action may be one of the means of carrying on that fight.  Is it not one of the “rights of man” to be allowed to join in it?