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Why?

Because of the peculiar effect of the human brain on human action—the relation between concept and conduct. In adaptation to our physical environment, whether the original face of nature, or the latest inventions in mechanics, we have material relations to deal with, and have learned how.

Social relations are psychic. That a steel spade is better than a wooden one is easily proven to the hand and eye. That a democracy is better than a despotism is not so simple a proposition. The laws of the hydraulic press are established by visible experiment; but the laws of the distribution of wealth work in another medium, and are more difficult to establish.

Society is a psychic condition; all social relations exist and grow in the human mind. That one despot can rule over a million other men rests absolutely on their state of mind. They believe that he does; let them change their minds, and he does not. As a human animal the despot is of such size, weight, colour—he is a physical fact. As a Despot—he is but a psychical fact—he exists as a Despot only in the minds of men. (This is not Christian Science, but sociological science.) He is a concept, a common concept, acting under which all men do thus and thus; outgrowing which, they discard their Despot and adopt some other political belief.