In democratic countries, the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made. When citizens are isolated from one another, powerless to accomplish collective aims individually, they must learn voluntarily to combine their efforts. If men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased. A government can no more suffice on its own to maintain and renew the circulation of sentiments and ideas among a great people than to conduct a gigantic industrial undertaking without private initiative.