Note 99 — Chapter VIII · THE NATIONAL CHARACTER SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMED: THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY, OR THE ORGANIZATION OF MANKIND

I add that this conception will react on the internal life of democracy. Democracy is at present regarded as a relation between equals. In fact, we have in America the negro population, the illiterate and backward immigrants. A truer conception of democracy depends on our realizing that within each people as well as between people and people there is the distinction of the more advanced and the less advanced groups. Democracy rightly conceived will be found to consist in the effort spent by the more advanced in each vocational group to uplift the less advanced, the more advanced themselves coming into possession of their spiritual worth in the degree that they realize this their task of leadership and its great responsibilities.