I. WHAT IT IS NOT:

• Anti-monarchy is not democracy.
• Freedom is not democracy.
• Liberty is not democracy.
• Independence is not democracy.
• Revolt from tyranny is not democracy.
• Racial independence and separateness is a doubtful apprenticeship to democracy.
• What is familiarly called personal liberty…is not democracy.
• So also, laissez faire is not democracy.
• The abrogation of the restraints of law, the giving over of public affairs to the clamor of the populace, is not democracy.
• It follows that lack of government is not democracy.
• Simplicity or plainness of living is not democracy
• What is called a "free press" is not a gage of democracy.
• Public education, although indispensable, does not assure democracy.
• Socialism as we know it is not democracy.
• Communism is not democracy.
• Public ownership is not democracy.
• Nationalization of land and industry is not democracy.
• Anti-capitalism is not democracy.
• The complete working agreement of employers and employees would not constitute democracy.
• Industrialism is not democracy.
• The voice of the afflicted classes is not the voice of democracy, even though the afflictions are real.
• Business administration of affairs is not democracy, even when the administration is good.
• Organization of groups of the people for civic or political or economic ends is not democracy.
• The consent of the governed is not democracy.
• Equal rights, equality before the law, freedom of speech, a ministry responsible to the people, and the other familiar catch-words do not imply or guarantee democracy, although they may safeguard it.
• The referendum is not democracy.
• The rule of "the average man" is not democracy.
• We have learned that the setting up of popular legislatures is not democracy.
• Republicanism is not democracy.
• The distribution or pro-rating of wealth and other benefits among the people is not democracy
• The leveling of society, then, is not democracy, nor is uniformity in public action democracy.
• Decentralization is not democracy.
• Popular politics, whereby all the people have knowledge of the political situation and read the papers, is not democracy.
• Universal suffrage is not democracy.
• Political equilibrium is not democracy.
• Yet, complacency is not democracy, nor is submission or surrender, nor is docility.
• Peace is not democracy.
• Democracy cannot be granted by a government…nor won by force of arms…nor bestowed.
• Democracy is not a form of government, any more than religion is a form of worship.

II. WHAT IT IS:

Write your own idea of democracy here, making clear how, if at all, this concept fits with the ideas of nature and the biosphere that the literature of America celebrates. Can you locate a scene or situation in your own experience which would begin to satisfy us as a working definition of democracy?

Bailey was a biologist at Cornell and published this book in a series called "The Background Books: The Philosophy of the Holy Earth." Here are the remaining chapter headings as a clue to his direction: