Welsh Journals

The Stepping=Stone. EDITED BY William Griffiths, Ph.D., B.D., and W. Roderick Haylings. All Rights Reserved. No. 9. DECEMBER, 1896 Vol. I. Walt Whitman. in. Democracy. mOR cease at the theme of One's Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word En-Masse." When Thoreau said of Whitman "He is Democracy," he expressed in a word his distinctive note. To interpret Democracy in its deepest, fullest, and truest meanings, and to present it in con¬ crete form in his life and work, was, rightly understood, the whole of the poet's mission and accomplishment. " For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals, Thatj O my brethren, that is the mission of poets." The fundamental note of Democracy is the essential equality of all men. This note, as we have seen, was struck, among the Ancients, by the Stoics. According to them men are essentially equal in this, that in all the Eternal and Universal Reason (Logos or God) is im¬ planted. Men are not actually equal; they differ according to the degree in which they develop this Reason. Hence arose an aristocracy of intellect, but the democratic basis was laid. Jesus struck the same note of essential equality when he taught that all are sons of One Father; but, for him, the differentiating factor between men is love not intellect, and the only aristocracy that can arise out of his teaching is an aristocracy of love, to discover which is surely the goal and ideal of democracy.