ENDS AND MEANS
true. Not all those who can't be bothered with democracy
are debarred from political life by want and poverty.
Plenty of well-paid workmen and, for that matter, plenty
of the wealthiest beneficiaries of the capitalistic system, find
that they can't be bothered with politics. The reason is not
economic, but psychological; has its source, not in environ-
ment, but in heredity. People belong to different psycho-
physiological types and are endowed with different degrees
of general intelligence. The will and ability to take an
effective interest in large-size politics do not belong to all,
or even a majority of, men and women. Preoccupation with
general ideas, with things and people distant in space, with
contingent events remote in future time, is something which
it is given to only a few to feel. 'What's Hecuba to him or
he to Hecuba?* The answer in most cases is: Nothing
whatsoever. An improvement in the standard of living
might perceptibly increase the number of those for whom
Hecuba meant something. But even if all were rich, there
would still be many congenitally incapable of being bothered
with anything so far removed from the warm, tangible facts
of everyday experience. As things are at present, millions
of men and women come into the world disfranchised by
nature. They have the privilege of voting on long-range,
large-scale political" issues; but they are congenitally in-
capable of taking an intelligent interest in any but short-
range, small-scale problems. Too often the framers of
democratic constitutions have acted as though man were
made for democracy, not democracy for man. The vote
has been a kind of bed of Procustes upon which, however
long their views, however short their ability, all human
beings were expected to stretch themselves. Not unnatur-
ally, the results of this kind of democracy have proved
disappointing. Nevertheless, it remains true that demo-
cratic freedom is good for those who enjoy it, and that
practice in self-government is an almost indispensable ele-