ABSTRACT
The very creation of new republics and democracies proves that the war stimulated rather than weakened the striving for social and economic justice. In the present stage of its evolution, democracy is seeking to get rid of misery and of the most glaring disparities of wealth. Democracy is the political form of modern social organization, of the modern outlook, of the modern man. To proclaim and to practice the equality of all citizens, to recognize that all are free, to uphold inwardly and outwardly the humane principle of fraternity is as much a moral as a political innovation. Criticism is at once a postulate and a method of democratic policy, just as it is a postulate and method of science and of the scientific spirit. Genuine democracy demands of every citizen a living interest in public affairs and in the State, just as the Church demands living faith from believers.
