The energetic official inevitably
dislikes anything that he does not control. His official sanction
must be obtained before anything can be done. Whatever he finds in
existence he wishes to alter in some way, so as to have the
satisfaction of feeling his power and making it felt. If he is
conscientious, he will think out some perfectly uniform and rigid
scheme which he believes to be the best possible, and he will then
impose this scheme ruthlessly, whatever promising growths he may have
to lop down for the sake of symmetry. The result inevitably has
something of the deadly dullness of a new rectangular town, as
compared with the beauty and richness of an ancient city which has
lived and grown with the separate lives and individualities of many
generations. What has grown is always more living than what has been
decreed; but the energetic official will always prefer the tidiness of
what he has decreed to the apparent disorder of spontaneous growth.
The mere possession of power tends to produce a love of power, which
is a very dangerous motive, because the only sure proof of power
consists in preventing others from doing what they wish to do. The
essential theory of democracy is the diffusion of power among the
whole people, so that the evils produced by one man's possession of
great power shall be obviated.
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