THE MODERN MIND 365
The growth of the democratic spirit is a notable result of the modern conditions. The profound changes we have dis cussed inevitably bring about the breakdown of the caste spirit. Class barriers, if they do not fall away, are so much weakened that men pass with ease from one social grade to another, and a significant change comes about in the attitude both of the lower and of the upper ranks of society. The lowly of the earth lift their heads and aspire. Those masses which, under the conditions of early society were so passive and inert, so destitute of the sense of individual personal worth, feel under modern conditions the kindling of a strange flame in their hearts. Once they toiled and slaved, beast-like, rebelling only when goaded beyond possible en durance ; but even then beast-like, hardly thinking of them selves in human terms. Now they feel themselves to be men and claim with increasingly emphatic insistence all the privileges of humanity. Their minds under the powerful social stimulus of modern life wake up and cry out for knowledge, and, with the attainment of knowledge, they reach out for political and industrial power. Personal am bitions stir within them. Each feels himself to be " as good as anybody else." They look with growing discontent upon the unequal and inequitable division of the world s goods, economic and cultural. If the bitterness which they feel sometimes bursts forth in deeds of violence, we need not be surprised.
That sombre genius, Amiel, 1 has bitterly declared that these modern conditions were the breeding ground of spleen and envy. And it must be admitted that the intensification of the competitive struggle may and sometimes does result from the kindling of all men s spirits with the ambition which says " I am as good as anybody." It often expresses itself in the determination " to have as much as others at all costs." But, while it often finds expression in crude, un ethical struggle to surpass others, even by pulling others down, the democratic spirit is at heart not anti-social. Its
1 Fragments d un Journal Intime, Tome I, p. 31.
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