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mind of every contemporary man will be formed, just as previous mindswere formed on the opposite impression. For that basic impression becomesan interior voice which ceaselessly utters certain words in the depths of eachindividual, and tenaciously suggests to him a definition of life which is, atthe same time, a moral imperative. And if the traditional sentiment whispered:"To live is to feel oneself limited, and therefore to have to countwith that which limits us," the newest voice shouts: "To live is to meetwith no limitation whatever and, consequently, nothing is impossible, nothingis dangerous, and, in principle, nobody is superior to anybody." Thisbasic experience completely modifies the traditional, persistent structure ofthe mass-man. For the latter always felt himself, by his nature, confrontedwith material limitations and higher social powers. Such, in his eyes, waslife. If he succeeded in improving his situation, if he climbed the social ladder,he attributed this to a piece of fortune which was favorable to him inparticular. And if not to this, then to an enormous effort, of which heknew well what it had cost him. In both cases it was a question of anexception to the general character of life and the world; an exception which,as such, was due to some very special cause. 2Ortega then goes on to point out that the traditional mass-man ofthe past would not have accepted authority external to himself hadnot his surroundings violently forced him to do so. His surroundingsdo not violently force him to do so now and so he considers himselfthe lord of his own existence. This mass-man in Germany, as elsewhere—butof all continental countries, most in Germany—sawwhat modern life could do for him. He saw poverty banished fromamong many of his neighbors who were once condemned to it as anormal state of life. Means of transport had enabled his neighborsto move away more easily. He heard of a world of abundance thathad appeared beyond his narrow frontiers. The school taught himto read. The newspaper brought him the opinions of many men andthe story of the world's progress. He began to feel that his age-oldpoverty need not be his inevitable lot. He began to demand morefrom life and occasionally to taste its sweetness. He got to lookingupon the government as an instrument to provide these things and,in Germany, this was a government of most limited powers. Therewas an impatience with disorder, hunger, depression. Men turnedto the government as an agent of the people to correct these ancienta The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset, W. W. Norton, New York, 1932.84