262 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
ment, who charged the Pilgrims that "you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God." It was a new sociological species that had been planted on the historic capes of New England.
A still greater advance was made in a colony that hived off from New England. Like Massachusetts, Rhode Island realized the philosophical ideal by being founded on the social compact of equal freemen. It came nearer than any other state to Hum- boldt's and Spencer's " administrative nihilism." It repeated the Swiss, and anticipated the Australian, referendum. It initiated the payment of members. It enjoyed the memorable distinction of setting the first example the world has seen of universal toler- ance combined with an intense and deep-seated religious faith. Its animating principle was benevolence and its bond a mutual affection. There has been but one Rhode Island, even in a country that has " a city of brotherly love."
No less visibly are the British colonies at the Antipodes the seat of a new social system. Though there was much enthusiasm and no little idealism at the inception of certain of these colonies, especially of the southern New Zealand settlements, no design was consciously entertained by their founders of making them other than continuations of English society. Circumstances have proved too strong for them. With an obviously English exterior, which differentiates them from the United States and from Can- ada, some of their distinctive principles either are un-English or are anticipative of future English developments. While the motherland remains largely aristocratic in its Parliament and administration, its state church and the spirit of its social life, the Australian colonies are irrevocably pledged to a straight-out democracy. Title-grabbers and title-worshipers still fleck their surface, as they do that of the United States, but these either lie outside of its active potencies or are soon expelled from them. Equality of station is the rule. Equality of opportunity is the claim. New Zealand and South Australia were among the first states, and Australia was the first commonwealth, to admit women to the suffrage, now universal ; and they are following the United States in admitting them to the professions. All careers are open
