Principles of western civilisation

x THE MODERN WORLD-CONFLICT 359

of society, one of the greatest and most significant political transformations recorded in history.

Now amongst a certain section of modern peoples one of the commonest of political assumptions is’ that of the right of every man to voting power irrespective of position, or of creed, or of opinion; and farther, and more important, of the right of every man to egual voting power irrespective of the nature or the amount of his interest in the State.

If we look closely at this conception, it may be perceived that it is only our familiarity with it which leads us to overlook the fact that not only is it altogether exceptional in the world, but that there is no real explanation of it to be found in any existing theory of the purely political State. It is a conception which has been held by only a comparatively small number of people during an insignificant space in recent history. Even by no inconsiderable proportion of persons amongst the advanced peoples of the present day, the right of every man to equal voting power, irrespective either of his intelligence, or of his capacity, or of the amount of his property in the State, is but little understood. Nay, it is often covertly resented, and is outwardly accepted in principle only because the prestige of the results obtained by the advanced peoples amongst whom it has prevailed has created a tendency in affairs against which it is felt to be useless to struggle. But down into the recent past, in the almost universal opinion of the world, the conception would undoubtedly have presented itself, as it has actually done in our time to Nietzche, and as it still does to the overwhelming proportion of our fellow-creatures