Men are at present far more human than women. Alone upon their
self-seized thrones they have carried as best they might the burdens of
the state; and the history of law and government shows them as changing
slowly but irresistably in the direction of social improvement.
The ancient kings were the joyous apotheosis of masculinity. Power
and Pride were theirs; Limitless Display; Boundless Self-indulgence;
Irresistable Authority. Slaves and courtiers bowed before them, subjects
obeyed them, captive women filled their harems. But the day of the
masculine monarchy is passing, and the day of the human democracy is
coming in. In a Democracy Law and Government both change. Laws are no
longer imposed on the people by one above them, but are evolved from the
people themselves. How absurd that the people should not be educated
in the laws they make; that the trailing remnants of blind submission
should still becloud their minds and make them bow down patiently under
the absurd pressure of outgrown tradition!
Democratic government is no longer an exercise of arbitrary authority
from one above, but is an organization for public service of the people
themselves--or will be when it is really attained.
In this change government ceases to be compulsion, and becomes
agreement; law ceases to be authority and becomes co-ordination. When we
learn the rules of whist or chess we do not obey them because we fear to
be punished if we don't, but because we want to play the game. The rules
of human conduct are for our own happiness and service--any child can
see that. Every child will see it when laws are simplified, based on
sociology, and taught in schools. A child of ten should be considered
grossly uneducated who could not rewrite the main features of the laws
of his country, state, and city; and those laws should be so simple in
their principles that a child of ten could understand them.