Hence the last degradation of a once magnificent office.
Meanwhile the Democracy was growing, and numbers were beginning to claim their power, until the people, having seen how badly Kings and priests could rule, thought that they could not, after all, do very much worse themselves, if they seized authority by the power of numbers, and took the helm of the States, of the Nations, into their own rough and untrained grip.

And so has risen in the modern life of Europe the power, as it is called, of the Democracy.

Practically, at the present time, Democracy may be said to be on its trial.

It cannot claim so far to be a very splendid success, but its trial is not yet over, and many a year may yet lie before it, in order that the world may have an object-lesson to show that the only true authority is the authority of Wisdom, and not the authority of numbers; and that it is not possible for humanity to take its next step onwards until it has managed to draw out of the lessons of the past and of the present some way of blending, some way of uniting, the different experiences through which it has passed.

For all who study the world's unfolding and believe that this world is not alone, but is a part linked with other worlds, and that other beings above humanity take their share in humanity's evolution--all who thus look at history and see the powers that lie behind the veil and that pull the strings of those whom we call kings, and statesmen, and generals, and the mighty ones of earth, they know that no great human experiment can be void of its value, and no great human experiment but has some fruit of wisdom to be gathered from it.