« Democracy is on trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal. Abounding about us are pessimistic pro (…) Nothing future is quite secure; states enough have inwardly rotted; and democracy as a whole may undergo self-poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. faiths and utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one wiark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the crackers picture. The best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty »
– William James, 1912