ABSTRACT
Here too we should take as our starting-point the idea of democracy as ‘a form of life’ in the sense defined above, and, on the basis of this presentation of the question, seek for analogies, above all for the anthropological and ethical presuppositions to it. In fact the correspondence we are seeking for here can be attained to methodologically on historical and systematic grounds. The initial impulse which led to the development of certain elements in democracy was provided by the Christian stock of ideas, however mistaken the attitude of individual Christians may have been in history to these ‘runaway children’ of Christianity itself. In effect the very fact that the Christian Churches represent a union of members who have come together of their own free decision is in itself sufficient to constitute an intrinsic approximation to democracy.
