Then what does democracy want for itself?
Not respect, but adoration, passion, devotion. We all like to see our own sentiments as to ourselves repeated in the minds of others. The crowd never respects, it loves, it yields to passion, enthusiasm, fanaticism. It never respects even that which it loves.
It is quite natural that the masses should not care for old men. The masses are young. How aptly does Horace's description of the young man apply to the people!
_Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto Gaudet equis, canibusque et aprici gramine campi; Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper, Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus æris, Sublimis, cupidusque et amata relinquere pernix._
"Once free from the control of his tutors, the young man thinks of nothing but horses, dogs and the Campus Martius, impressionable as wax to every temptation, impatient of correction, unthrifty, extravagant, presumptuous and light of love."
At all events respect has no meaning for the crowd, and when it rules, we cannot from its example learn the lessons of respect. Democracy has no love for the old; and it is interesting to note that the word gerontocracy to which the ancients attached the most honourable meaning is now only a term of ridicule, and is applied only to a government which, because it is in the hands of old men, is therefore grotesque.
This disappearance of respect, noted as we have seen by Plato, Aristotle and Montesquieu as a morbid system, is, regard it how we will, a fact of the gravest import. Kant has asked the question, what must we obey? What criterion is there to tell us what to obey? What is there within us which commands respect, which does not ask for love or fear, but for respect alone? He has given us the answer. The feeling of respect is the only thing that we can trust, and that will never fail us.
In society the only feelings we obey are those which win our respect, and the men to whom we listen, and whom we honour, are those who inspire respect. This is the only criterion which enables us to gauge correctly the men and things to whom we owe, if not absolute obedience, at least attention and deference. Old men are the nation's conscience, and it is a conscience at times severe, morose, tiresome, obstinate, over-scrupulous, dictatorial, and it repeats for ever the same old saws; in other words a conscience; but conscience it is.