ideal forms. But to be politically "in form" means necessarily, amongst other things, an unconditional command of the most modern means. There is no choice about it. The means and methods are premisses pertaining to the time and belong to the inner form of the time — and one who grasps at the inapposite, who permits his taste or his feelings to overpower the pulse in him, loses at once his grip of realities. The danger of an aristocracy is that of being conservative in its means, the danger of a democracy is the confusion of formula and form. The means of the present are, and will be for many years, parliamentary — elections and the press. He may think what he pleases about them, he may respect them or despise them, but he must command them. Bach and Mozart commanded the musical means of their times. This is the hall-mark of mastery in any and every field, and statecraft is no exception. Now, the publicly visible outer form thereof is not the essential but merely the disguise, and consequently it may be altered, rationalized, and brought down to constitutional texts — without its actualities being necessarily affected in the slightest — and hence the ambitions of all revolutionaries expend themselves in playing the game of rights, principles, and franchises on the surface of history. But the statesman knows that the extension of a franchise is quite unimportant in comparison with the technique — Athenian or Roman, Jacobin or American or present-day German — of operating the votes. How the English constitution reads is a matter of small import compared with the fact that it is managed by a small stratum of high families, so that an Edward VII is simply a minister of his Ministry. And as for the modern Press, the sentimentalist may beam with contentment when it is constitutionally "free" — but the realist merely asks at whose disposal it is.
Politics, lastly, is the form in which is accomplished the history of a nation within a plurality of nations. The great art is to maintain one's own nation inwardly "in form" for events outside; this is the natural relation of home and foreign politics, holding not only for Peoples and States and Estates, but for living units of every kind, down to the simplest animal swarms and down into the individual bodies. And, as between the two, the first exists exclusively for the second and not vice versa. The true democrat is accustomed to treat home politics as an end in itself; the rank and file of diplomats think solely of foreign affairs; but just because of this the individual successes of either "cut no ice." No doubt, the political master exhibits his powers most obviously in the tactics of home reform; in his economic and social activities; in his cleverness in maintaining the public form of the whole, the "rights and liberties," both in tune with the tastes of the period and at the same time effective; and in the education of the feelings without which it is impossible for a people to be "in condition" — namely, trust, respect for the leading, consciousness of power, contentment, and (when necessary) enthusiasm. But the value of all this depends upon its relation to this basic fact of higher history — that a people is not alone
