It is these general laws or tendencies of organization that Michels sets out to discover, in particular those tendencies that bear upon the possibility of achieving democracy. In this task, Michels does not, of course, proceed by abstract demonstration from “first principles”; he makes no appeal to metaphysics or theology or the “eternal nature of things” or to what “must be.” Nor does he accept at face value what men say or think or believe they are doing or want to do. He follows, in short, not Dante’s method, but Machiavelli’s.
