Q. So if the egalitarian impulse is strong within us, can we assume that institutions like slavery were unnatural blips in human history?

Not, he hastens to add, that the egalitarian impulse is wholly pernicious; American democracy was founded on a dialectic between elitism and egalitarianism.

Gundersen regretted his egalitarian impulse the moment he stepped down.

His critique of President Clinton's ill-fated plan for universal health insurance, which embodied, he writes, an "egalitarian impulse," is skillful: "Congress was told all or nothing, and nothing was the response."

When do a leader's egalitarian impulses devolve into spinelessness and a need to pander to the herd?

In an egalitarian impulse that seems intrinsic to Hindu heterogeneity, the idea that the gods should be accessible without priestly mediation had been gaining strength for some time.

But the situation is bursting with the contradictions and tensions that come with trying to reconcile modern egalitarian impulses with fidelity to ancient religious texts.

Voltaire, Diderot and Montesquieu all wrote about the missions, praising the egalitarian impulse behind them.

The permit-but-discourage formula on abortion offers the chance to test our national soul by appealing to its basic egalitarian impulse.

Though the new country was to be a daring trial in self-government, it was expected to be guided less by egalitarian impulses than by the aristocratic beliefs of well-bred gentlemen.