The form of government for any given country being (within certain
definite conditions) amenable to choice, it is now to be considered by
what test the choice should be directed; what are the distinctive
characteristics of the form of government best fitted to promote the
interests of any given society.
Before entering into this inquiry, it may seem necessary to decide
what are the proper functions of government; for, government
altogether being only a means, the eligibility of the means must
depend on their adaptation to the end. But this mode of stating the
problem gives less aid to its investigation than might be supposed,
and does not even bring the whole of the question into view. For, in
the first place, the proper functions of a government are not a fixed
thing, but different in different states of society; much more
extensive in a backward than in an advanced state. And, secondly, the
character of a government or set of political institutions can not be
sufficiently estimated while we confine our attention to the
legitimate sphere of governmental functions; for, though the goodness
of a government is necessarily circumscribed within that sphere, its
badness unhappily is not. Every kind and degree of evil of which
mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government,
and none of the good which social existence is capable of can be any
further realized than as the constitution of the government is
compatible with, and allows scope for, its attainment. Not to speak of
indirect effects, the direct meddling of the public authorities has no
necessary limits but those of human life, and the influence of
government on the well-being of society can be considered or estimated
in reference to nothing less than the whole of the interests of
humanity.
Being thus obliged to place before ourselves, as the test of good and
bad government, so complex an object as the aggregate interests of
society, we would willingly attempt some kind of classification of
those interests, which, bringing them before the mind in definite
groups, might give indication of the qualities by which a form of
government is fitted to promote those various interests respectively.
It would be a great facility if we could say the good of society
consists of such and such elements; one of these elements requires
such conditions, another such others; the government, then, which
unites in the greatest degree all these conditions, must be the best.
The theory of government would thus be built up from the separate
theorems of the elements which compose a good state of society.
Unfortunately, to enumerate and classify the constituents of social
well-being, so as to admit of the formation of such theorems is no
easy task. Most of those who, in the last or present generation, have
applied themselves to the philosophy of politics in any comprehensive
spirit, have felt the importance of such a classification, but the
attempts which have been made toward it are as yet limited, so far as
I am aware, to a single step. The classification begins and ends with
a partition of the exigencies of society between the two heads of
Order and Progress (in the phraseology of French thinkers); Permanence
and Progression, in the words of Coleridge. This division is plausible
and seductive, from the apparently clean-cut opposition between its
two members, and the remarkable difference between the sentiments to
which they appeal. But I apprehend that (however admissible for
purposes of popular discourse) the distinction between Order, or
Permanence and Progress, employed to define the qualities necessary in
a government, is unscientific and incorrect.
For, first, what are Order and Progress? Concerning Progress there is
no difficulty, or none which is apparent at first sight. When Progress
is spoken of as one of the wants of human society, it may be supposed
to mean Improvement. That is a tolerably distinct idea. But what is
Order? Sometimes it means more, sometimes less, but hardly ever the
whole of what human society needs except improvement.
In its narrowest acceptation, Order means Obedience. A government is
said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed. But
there are different degrees of obedience, and it is not every degree
that is commendable. Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the
individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons
in authority. We must at least limit the definition to such mandates
as are general, and issued in the deliberate form of laws. Order, thus
understood, expresses, doubtless, an indispensable attribute of
government. Those who are unable to make their ordinances obeyed, can
not be said to govern. But, though a necessary condition, this is not
the object of government. That it should make itself obeyed is
requisite, in order that it may accomplish some other purpose. We are
still to seek what is this other purpose, which government ought to
fulfill abstractedly from the idea of improvement, and which has to be
fulfilled in every society, whether stationary or progressive.
In a sense somewhat more enlarged, Order means the preservation of
peace by the cessation of private violence. Order is said to exist
where the people of the country have, as a general rule, ceased to
prosecute their quarrels by private force, and acquired the habit of
referring the decision of their disputes and the redress of their
injuries to the public authorities. But in this larger use of the
term, as well as in the former narrow one, Order expresses rather one
of the conditions of government, than either its purpose or the
criterion of its excellence; for the habit may be well established of
submitting to the government, and referring all disputed matters to
its authority, and yet the manner in which the government deals with
those disputed matters, and with the other things about which it
concerns itself, may differ by the whole interval which divides the
best from the worst possible.
If we intend to comprise in the idea of Order all that society
requires from its government which is not included in the idea of
Progress, we must define Order as the preservation of all kinds and
amounts of good which already exist, and Progress as consisting in the
increase of them. This distinction does comprehend in one or the other
section every thing which a government can be required to promote.
But, thus understood, it affords no basis for a philosophy of
government. We can not say that, in constituting a polity, certain
provisions ought to be made for Order and certain others for Progress,
since the conditions of Order, in the sense now indicated, and those
of Progress, are not opposite, but the same. The agencies which tend
to preserve the social good which already exists are the very same
which promote the increase of it, and _vice versâ_, the sole
difference being, that a greater degree of those agencies is required
for the latter purpose than for the former.
What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually
which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct, of good
management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society?
Every body will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity,
justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most
conducive to improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in
the community in itself the greatest of improvements? If so, whatever
qualities in the government are promotive of industry, integrity,
justice, and prudence, conduce alike to permanence and to progression,
only there is needed more of those qualities to make the society
decidedly progressive than merely to keep it permanent.
What, again, are the particular attributes in human beings which seem
to have a more especial reference to Progress, and do not so directly
suggest the ideas of Order and Preservation? They are chiefly the
qualities of mental activity, enterprise, and courage. But are not all
these qualities fully as much required for preserving the good we have
as for adding to it? If there is any thing certain in human affairs,
it is that valuable acquisitions are only to be retained by the
continuation of the same energies which gained them. Things left to
take care of themselves inevitably decay. Those whom success induces
to relax their habits of care and thoughtfulness, and their
willingness to encounter disagreeables, seldom long retain their good
fortune at its height. The mental attribute which seems exclusively
dedicated to Progress, and is the culmination of the tendencies to it,
is Originality, or Invention. Yet this is no less necessary for
Permanence, since, in the inevitable changes of human affairs, new
inconveniences and dangers continually grow up, which must be
encountered by new resources and contrivances, in order to keep things
going on even only as well as they did before. Whatever qualities,
therefore, in a government, tend to encourage activity, energy,
courage, originality, are requisites of Permanence as well as of
Progress, only a somewhat less degree of them will, on the average,
suffice for the former purpose than for the latter.
To pass now from the mental to the outward and objective requisites of
society: it is impossible to point out any contrivance in politics, or
arrangement of social affairs, which conduces to Order only, or to
Progress only; whatever tends to either promotes both. Take, for
instance, the common institution of a police. Order is the object
which seems most immediately interested in the efficiency of this part
of the social organization. Yet, if it is effectual to promote Order,
that is, if it represses crime, and enables every one to feel his
person and property secure, can any state of things be more conducive
to Progress? The greater security of property is one of the main
conditions and causes of greater production, which is Progress in its
most familiar and vulgarest aspect. The better repression of crime
represses the dispositions which tend to crime, and this is Progress
in a somewhat higher sense. The release of the individual from the
cares and anxieties of a state of imperfect protection sets his
faculties free to be employed in any new effort for improving his own
state and that of others, while the same cause, by attaching him to
social existence, and making him no longer see present or prospective
enemies in his fellow creatures, fosters all those feelings of
kindness and fellowship towards others, and interest in the general
well-being of the community, which are such important parts of social
improvement.
Take, again, such a familiar case as that of a good system of taxation
and finance. This would generally be classed as belonging to the
province of Order. Yet what can be more conducive to Progress? A
financial system which promotes the one, conduces, by the very same
excellences, to the other. Economy, for example, equally preserves the
existing stock of national wealth, and favors the creation of more. A
just distribution of burdens, by holding up to every citizen an
example of morality and good conscience applied to difficult
adjustments, and an evidence of the value which the highest
authorities attach to them, tends in an eminent degree to educate the
moral sentiments of the community, both in respect of strength and of
discrimination. Such a mode of levying the taxes as does not impede
the industry, or unnecessarily interfere with the liberty of the
citizen, promotes, not the preservation only, but the increase of the
national wealth, and encourages a more active use of the individual
faculties. And _vice versâ_, all errors in finance and taxation which
obstruct the improvement of the people in wealth and morals, tend
also, if of sufficiently serious amount, positively to impoverish and
demoralize them. It holds, in short, universally, that when Order and
Permanence are taken in their widest sense for the stability of
existing advantages, the requisites of Progress are but the requisites
of Order in a greater degree; those of Permanence merely those of
Progress in a somewhat smaller measure.
In support of the position that Order is intrinsically different from
Progress, and that preservation of existing and acquisition of
additional good are sufficiently distinct to afford the basis of a
fundamental classification, we shall perhaps be reminded that Progress
may be at the expense of Order; that while we are acquiring, or
striving to acquire, good of one kind, we may be losing ground in
respect to others; thus there may be progress in wealth, while there
is deterioration in virtue. Granting this, what it proves is, not that
Progress is generically a different thing from Permanence, but that
wealth is a different thing from virtue. Progress is permanence and
something more; and it is no answer to this to say that Progress in
one thing does not imply Permanence in every thing. No more does
Progress in one thing imply Progress in every thing. Progress of any
kind includes Permanence in that same kind: whenever Permanence is
sacrificed to some particular kind of Progress, other Progress is
still more sacrificed to it; and if it be not worth the sacrifice, not
the interest of Permanence alone has been disregarded, but the general
interest of Progress has been mistaken.
If these improperly contrasted ideas are to be used at all in the
attempt to give a first commencement of scientific precision to the
notion of good government, it would be more philosophically correct to
leave out of the definition the word Order, and to say that the best
government is that which is most conducive to Progress. For Progress
includes Order, but Order does not include Progress. Progress is a
greater degree of that of which Order is a less. Order, in any other
sense, stands only for a part of the prerequisites of good government,
not for its idea and essence. Order would find a more suitable place
among the conditions of Progress, since, if we would increase our sum
of good, nothing is more indispensable than to take due care of what
we already have. If we are endeavouring after more riches, our very
first rule should be, not to squander uselessly our existing means.
Order, thus considered, is not an additional end to be reconciled with
Progress, but a part and means of Progress itself. If a gain in one
respect is purchased by a more than equivalent loss in the same or in
any other, there is not Progress. Conduciveness to Progress, thus
understood, includes the whole excellence of a government.
But, though metaphysically defensible, this definition of the
criterion of good government is not appropriate, because, though it
contains the whole of the truth, it recalls only a part. What is
suggested by the term Progress is the idea of moving onward, whereas
the meaning of it here is quite as much the prevention of falling
back. The very same social causes--the same beliefs, feelings,
institutions, and practices--are as much required to prevent society
from retrograding as to produce a further advance. Were there no
improvement to be hoped for, life would not be the less an unceasing
struggle against causes of deterioration, as it even now is. Politics,
as conceived by the ancients, consisted wholly in this. The natural
tendency of men and their works was to degenerate, which tendency,
however, by good institutions virtuously administered, it might be
possible for an indefinite length of time to counteract. Though we no
longer hold this opinion; though most men in the present age profess
the contrary creed, believing that the tendency of things, on the
whole, is toward improvement, we ought not to forget that there is an
incessant and ever-flowing current of human affairs toward the worse,
consisting of all the follies, all the vices, all the negligences,
indolences, and supinenesses of mankind, which is only controlled, and
kept from sweeping all before it, by the exertions which some persons
constantly, and others by fits, put forth in the direction of good and
worthy objects. It gives a very insufficient idea of the importance of
the strivings which take place to improve and elevate human nature and
life to suppose that their chief value consists in the amount of
actual improvement realized by their means, and that the consequence
of their cessation would merely be that we should remain as we are. A
very small diminution of those exertions would not only put a stop to
improvement, but would turn the general tendency of things toward
deterioration, which, once begun, would proceed with increasingly
rapidity, and become more and more difficult to check, until it
reached a state often seen in history, and in which many large
portions of mankind even now grovel; when hardly any thing short of
superhuman power seems sufficient to turn the tide, and give a fresh
commencement to the upward movement.
These reasons make the word Progress as unapt as the terms Order and
Permanence to become the basis for a classification of the requisites
of a form of government. The fundamental antithesis which these words
express does not lie in the things themselves, so much as in the types
of human character which answer to them. There are, we know, some
minds in which caution, and others in which boldness, predominates; in
some, the desire to avoid imperilling what is already possessed is a
stronger sentiment than that which prompts to improve the old and
acquire new advantages; while there are others who lean the contrary
way, and are more eager for future than careful of present good. The
road to the ends of both is the same; but they are liable to wander
from it in opposite directions. This consideration is of importance in
composing the _personnel_ of any political body: persons of both types
ought to be included in it, that the tendencies of each may be
tempered, in so far as they are excessive, by a due proportion of the
other. There needs no express provision to insure this object,
provided care is taken to admit nothing inconsistent with it. The
natural and spontaneous admixture of the old and the young, of those
whose position and reputation are made and those who have them still
to make, will in general sufficiently answer the purpose, if only this
natural balance is not disturbed by artificial regulation.
Since the distinction most commonly adopted for the classification of
social exigencies does not possess the properties needful for that
use, we have to seek for some other leading distinction better adapted
to the purpose. Such a distinction would seem to be indicated by the
considerations to which I now proceed.
If we ask ourselves on what causes and conditions good government in
all its senses, from the humblest to the most exalted, depends, we
find that the principal of them, the one which transcends all others,
is the qualities of the human beings composing the society over which
the government is exercised.
We may take, as a first instance, the administration of justice; with
the more propriety, since there is no part of public business in which
the mere machinery, the rules and contrivances for conducting the
details of the operation, are of such vital consequence. Yet even
these yield in importance to the qualities of the human agents
employed. Of what efficacy are rules of procedure in securing the ends
of justice if the moral condition of the people is such that the
witnesses generally lie, and the judges and their subordinates take
bribes? Again, how can institutions provide a good municipal
administration if there exists such indifference to the subject that
those who would administer honestly and capably can not be induced to
serve, and the duties are left to those who undertake them because
they have some private interest to be promoted? Of what avail is the
most broadly popular representative system if the electors do not care
to choose the best member of Parliament, but choose him who will spend
most money to be elected? How can a representative assembly work for
good if its members can be bought, or if their excitability of
temperament, uncorrected by public discipline or private self-control,
makes them incapable of calm deliberation, and they resort to manual
violence on the floor of the House, or shoot at one another with
rifles? How, again, can government, or any joint concern, be carried
on in a tolerable manner by people so envious that, if one among them
seems likely to succeed in any thing, those who ought to cooperate
with him form a tacit combination to make him fail? Whenever the
general disposition of the people is such that each individual regards
those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on,
or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a
state of things good government is impossible. The influence of
defects of intelligence in obstructing all the elements of good
government requires no illustration. Government consists of acts done
by human beings; and if the agents, or those who choose the agents, or
those to whom the agents are responsible, or the lookers-on whose
opinion ought to influence and check all these, are mere masses of
ignorance, stupidity, and baleful prejudice, every operation of
government will go wrong; while, in proportion as the men rise above
this standard, so will the government improve in quality up to the
point of excellence, attainable but nowhere attained, where the
officers of government, themselves persons of superior virtue and
intellect, are surrounded by the atmosphere of a virtuous and
enlightened public opinion.
The first element of good government, therefore, being the virtue and
intelligence of the human beings composing the community, the most
important point of excellence which any form of government can possess
is to promote the virtue and intelligence of the people themselves.
The first question in respect to any political institutions is how far
they tend to foster in the members of the community the various
desirable qualities, moral and intellectual, or rather (following
Bentham's more complete classification) moral, intellectual, and
active. The government which does this the best has every likelihood
of being the best in all other respects, since it is on these
qualities, so far as they exist in the people, that all possibility of
goodness in the practical operations of the government depends.
We may consider, then, as one criterion of the goodness of a
government, the degree in which it tends to increase the sum of good
qualities in the governed, collectively and individually, since,
besides that their well-being is the sole object of government, their
good qualities supply the moving force which works the machinery. This
leaves, as the other constituent element of the merit of a government,
the quality of the machinery itself; that is, the degree in which it
is adapted to take advantage of the amount of good qualities which may
at any time exist, and make them instrumental to the right purposes.
Let us again take the subject of judicature as an example and
illustration. The judicial system being given, the goodness of the
administration of justice is in the compound ratio of the worth of the
men composing the tribunals, and the worth of the public opinion which
influences or controls them. But all the difference between a good and
a bad system of judicature lies in the contrivances adopted for
bringing whatever moral and intellectual worth exists in the community
to bear upon the administration of justice, and making it duly
operative on the result. The arrangements for rendering the choice of
the judges such as to obtain the highest average of virtue and
intelligence; the salutary forms of procedure; the publicity which
allows observation and criticism of whatever is amiss; the liberty of
discussion and cinsure through the press; the mode of taking evidence,
according as it is well or ill adapted to elicit truth; the
facilities, whatever be their amount, for obtaining access to the
tribunals; the arrangements for detecting crimes and apprehending
offenders-all these things are not the power, but the machinery for
bringing the power into contact with the obstacle; and the machinery
has no action of itself, but without it the power, let it be ever so
ample, would be wasted and of no effect. A similar distinction exists
in regard to the constitution of the executive departments of
administration. Their machinery is good, when the proper tests are
prescribed for the qualifications of officers, the proper rules for
their promotion; when the business is conveniently distributed among
those who are to transact it, a convenient and methodical order
established for its transaction, a correct and intelligible record
kept of it after being transacted; when each individual knows for what
he is responsible, and is known to others as responsible for it; when
the best-contrived checks are provided against negligence, favoritism,
or jobbery in any of the acts of the department. But political checks
will no more act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse
without a rider. If the checking functionaries are as corrupt or as
negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the
mainspring of the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too
passive, or too careless and inattentive to do their part, little
benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a
good apparatus is always preferable to a bad. It enables such
insufficient moving or checking power as exists to act at the greatest
advantage; and without it, no amount of moving or checking power would
be sufficient. Publicity, for instance, is no impediment to evil, nor
stimulus to good, if the public will not look at what is done; but
without publicity, how could they either check or encourage what they
were not permitted to see? The ideally perfect constitution of a
public office is that in which the interest of the functionary is
entirely coincident with his duty. No mere system will make it so, but
still less can it be made so without a system, aptly devised for the
purpose.
What we have said of the arrangements for the detailed administration
of the government is still more evidently true of its general
constitution. All government which aims at being good is an
organization of some part of the good qualities existing in the
individual members of the community for the conduct of its collective
affairs. A representative constitution is a means of bringing the
general standard of intelligence and honesty existing in the
community, and the individual intellect and virtue of its wisest
members, more directly to bear upon the government, and investing them
with greater influence in it than they would have under any other mode
of organization; though, under any, such influence as they do have is
the source of all good that there is in the government, and the
hindrance of every evil that there is not. The greater the amount of
these good qualities which the institutions of a country succeed in
organizing, and the better the mode of organization, the better will
be the government.
We have now, therefore, obtained a foundation for a twofold division
of the merit which any set of political institutions can possess. It
consists partly of the degree in which they promote the general mental
advancement of the community, including under that phrase advancement
in intellect, in virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency, and
partly of the degree of perfection with which they organize the moral,
intellectual, and active worth already existing, so as to operate with
the greatest effect on public affairs. A government is to be judged by
its action upon men and by its action upon things; by what it makes of
the citizens, and what it does with them; its tendency to improve or
deteriorate the people themselves, and the goodness or badness of the
work it performs for them, and by means of them. Government is at once
a great influence acting on the human mind, and a set of organized
arrangements for public business: in the first capacity its beneficial
action is chiefly indirect, but not therefore less vital, while its
mischievous action may be direct.
The difference between these two functions of a government is not,
like that between Order and Progress, a difference merely in degree,
but in kind. We must not, however, suppose that they have no intimate
connection with one another. The institutions which insure the best
management of public affairs practicable in the existing state of
cultivation tend by this alone to the further improvement of that
state. A people which had the most just laws, the purest and most
efficient judicature, the most enlightened administration, the most
equitable and least onerous system of finance, compatible with the
stage it had attained in moral and intellectual advancement, would be
in a fair way to pass rapidly into a higher stage. Nor is there any
mode in which political institutions can contribute more effectually
to the improvement of the people than by doing their more direct work
well. And reversely, if their machinery is so badly constructed that
they do their own particular business ill, the effect is felt in a
thousand ways in lowering the morality and deadening the intelligence
and activity of the people. But the distinction is nevertheless real,
because this is only one of the means by which political institutions
improve or deteriorate the human mind, and the causes and modes of
that beneficial or injurious influence remain a distinct and much
wider subject of study.
Of the two modes of operation by which a form of government or set of
political institutions affects the welfare of the community--its
operation as an agency of national education, and its arrangements for
conducting the collective affairs of the community in the state of
education in which they already are, the last evidently varies much
less, from difference of country and state of civilization, than the
first. It has also much less to do with the fundamental constitution
of the government. The mode of conducting the practical business of
government, which is best under a free constitution, would generally
be best also in an absolute monarchy, only an absolute monarchy is not
so likely to practice it. The laws of property, for example; the
principles of evidence and judicial procedure; the system of taxation
and of financial administration, need not necessarily be different in
different forms of government. Each of these matters has principles
and rules of its own, which are a subject of separate study. General
jurisprudence, civil and penal legislation, financial and commercial
policy, are sciences in themselves, or, rather, separate members of
the comprehensive science or art of government; and the most
enlightened doctrines on all these subjects, though not equally likely
to be understood and acted on under all forms of government, yet, if
understood and acted on, would in general be equally beneficial under
them all. It is true that these doctrines could not be applied without
some modifications to all states of society and of the human mind;
nevertheless, by far the greater number of them would require
modifications solely of detail to adapt them to any state of society
sufficiently advanced to possess rulers capable of understanding them.
A government to which they would be wholly unsuitable must be one so
bad in itself, or so opposed to public feeling, as to be unable to
maintain itself in existence by honest means.
It is otherwise with that portion of the interests of the community
which relate to the better or worse training of the people themselves.
Considered as instrumental to this, institutions need to be radically
different, according to the stage of advancement already reached. The
recognition of this truth, though for the most part empirically rather
than philosophically, may be regarded as the main point of superiority
in the political theories of the present above those of the last age,
in which it was customary to claim representative democracy for
England or France by arguments which would equally have proved it the
only fit form of government for Bedouins or Malays. The state of
different communities, in point of culture and development, ranges
downwards to a condition very little above the highest of the beasts.
The upward range, too, is considerable, and the future possible
extension vastly greater. A community can only be developed out of one
of these states into a higher by a concourse of influences, among the
principal of which is the government to which they are subject. In all
states of human improvement ever yet attained, the nature and degree
of authority exercised over individuals, the distribution of power,
and the conditions of command and obedience, are the most powerful of
the influences, except their religious belief, which make them what
they are, and enable them to become what they can be. They may be
stopped short at any point in their progress by defective adaptation
of their government to that particular stage of advancement. And the
one indispensable merit of a government, in favor of which it may be
forgiven almost any amount of other demerit compatible with progress,
is that its operation on the people is favorable, or not unfavorable,
to the next step which it is necessary for them to take in order to
raise themselves to a higher level.
Thus (to repeat a former example), a people in a state of savage
independence, in which every one lives for himself, exempt, unless by
fits, from any external control, is practically incapable of making
any progress in civilization until it has learned to obey. The
indispensable virtue, therefore, in a government which establishes
itself over a people of this sort is that it make itself obeyed. To
enable it to do this, the constitution of the government must be
nearly, or quite despotic. A constitution in any degree popular,
dependent on the voluntary surrender by the different members of the
community of their individual freedom of action, would fail to enforce
the first lesson which the pupils, in this stage of their progress,
require. Accordingly, the civilization of such tribes, when not the
result of juxtaposition with others already civilized, is almost
always the work of an absolute ruler, deriving his power either from
religion or military prowess--very often from foreign arms.
Again, uncivilized races, and the bravest and most energetic still
more than the rest, are averse to continuous labor of an unexciting
kind. Yet all real civilization is at this price; without such labor,
neither can the mind be disciplined into the habits required by
civilized society, nor the material world prepared to receive it.
There needs a rare concurrence of circumstances, and for that reason
often a vast length of time, to reconcile such a people to industry,
unless they are for a while compelled to it. Hence even personal
slavery, by giving a commencement to industrial life, and enforcing it
as the exclusive occupation of the most numerous portion of the
community, may accelerate the transition to a better freedom than that
of fighting and rapine. It is almost needless to say that this excuse
for slavery is only available in a very early state of society. A
civilized people have far other means of imparting civilization to
those under their influence; and slavery is, in all its details, so
repugnant to that government of law, which is the foundation of all
modern life, and so corrupting to the master-class when they have once
come under civilized influences, that its adoption under any
circumstances whatever in modern society is a relapse into worse than
barbarism.
At some period, however, of their history, almost every people, now
civilized, have consisted, in majority, of slaves. A people in that
condition require to raise them out of it a very different polity from
a nation of savages. If they are energetic by nature, and especially
if there be associated with them in the same community an industrious
class who are neither slaves nor slave-owners (as was the case in
Greece), they need, probably, no more to insure their improvement than
to make them free: when freed, they may often be fit, like Roman
freedmen, to be admitted at once to the full rights of citizenship.
This, however, is not the normal condition of slavery, and is
generally a sign that it is becoming obsolete. A slave, properly so
called, is a being who has not learned to help himself. He is, no
doubt, one step in advance of a savage. He has not the first lesson of
political society still to acquire. He has learned to obey. But what
he obeys is only a direct command. It is the characteristic of _born_
slaves to be incapable of conforming their conduct to a rule or law.
They can only do what they are ordered, and only when they are ordered
to do it. If a man whom they fear is standing over them and
threatening them with punishment, they obey; but when his back is
turned, the work remains undone. The motive determining them must
appeal, not to their interests, but to their instincts; immediate hope
or immediate terror. A despotism, which may tame the savage, will, in
so far as it is a despotism, only confirm the slaves in their
incapacities. Yet a government under their own control would be
entirely unmanageable by them. Their improvement can not come from
themselves, but must be superinduced from without. The step which they
have to take, and their only path to improvement, is to be raised from
a government of will to one of law. They have to be taught
self-government, and this, in its initial stage, means the capacity to
act on general instructions. What they require is not a government of
force, but one of guidance. Being, however, in too low a state to
yield to the guidance of any but those to whom they look up as the
possessors of force, the sort of government fittest for them is one
which possesses force, but seldom uses it; a parental despotism or
aristocracy, resembling the St. Simonian form of Socialism;
maintaining a general superintendence over all the operations of
society, so as to keep before each the sense of a present force
sufficient to compel his obedience to the rule laid down, but which,
owing to the impossibility of descending to regulate all the minutiæ
of industry and life, necessarily leaves and induces individuals to do
much of themselves. This, which may be termed the government of
leading-strings, seems to be the one required to carry such a people
the most rapidly through the next necessary step in social progress.
Such appears to have been the idea of the government of the Incas of
Peru, and such was that of the Jesuits of Paraguay. I need scarcely
remark that leading-strings are only admissible as a means of
gradually training the people to walk alone.
It would be out of place to carry the illustration further. To attempt
to investigate what kind of government is suited to every known state
of society would be to compose a treatise, not on representative
government, but on political science at large. For our more limited
purpose we borrow from political philosophy only its general
principles. To determine the form of government most suited to any
particular people, we must be able, among the defects and shortcomings
which belong to that people, to distinguish those that are the
immediate impediment to progress--to discover what it is which (as it
were) stops the way. The best government for them is the one which
tends most to give them that for want of which they can not advance,
or advance only in a lame and lopsided manner. We must not, however,
forget the reservation necessary in all things which have for their
object improvement or Progress, namely, that in seeking the good which
is needed, no damage, or as little as possible, be done to that
already possessed. A people of savages should be taught obedience, but
not in such a manner as to convert them into a people of slaves. And
(to give the observation a higher generality) the form of government
which is most effectual for carrying a people through the next stage
of progress will still be very improper for them if it does this in
such a manner as to obstruct, or positively unfit them for, the step
next beyond. Such cases are frequent, and are among the most
melancholy facts in history. The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal
despotism of China, were very fit instruments for carrying those
nations up to the point of civilization which they attained. But
having reached that point, they were brought to a permanent halt for
want of mental liberty and individuality--requisites of improvement
which the institutions that had carried them thus far entirely
incapacitated them from acquiring--and as the institutions did not
break down and give place to others, further improvement stopped. In
contrast with these nations, let us consider the example of an
opposite character afforded by another and a comparatively
insignificant Oriental people--the Jews. They, too, had an absolute
monarchy and a hierarchy, and their organized institutions were as
obviously of sacerdotal origin as those of the Hindoos. These
did for them what was done for other Oriental races by their
institutions--subdued them to industry and order, and gave them a
national life. But neither their kings nor their priests ever
obtained, as in those other countries, the exclusive moulding of their
character. Their religion, which enabled persons of genius and a high
religious tone to be regarded and to regard themselves as inspired
from heaven, gave existence to an inestimably precious unorganized
institution--the Order (if it may be so termed) of Prophets. Under the
protection, generally though not always effectual, of their sacred
character, the Prophets were a power in the nation, often more than a
match for kings and priests, and kept up, in that little corner of the
earth, the antagonism of influences which is the only real security
for continued progress. Religion, consequently, was not there what it
has been in so many other places--a consecration of all that was once
established, and a barrier against further improvement. The remark of
a distinguished Hebrew, M. Salvador, that the Prophets were, in Church
and State, the equivalent of the modern liberty of the press, gives a
just but not an adequate conception of the part fulfilled in national
and universal history by this great element of Jewish life; by means
of which, the canon of inspiration never being complete, the persons
most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not only denounce and
reprobate, with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever
appeared to them deserving of such treatment, but could give forth
better and higher interpretations of the national religion, which
thenceforth became part of the religion. Accordingly, whoever can
divest himself of the habit of reading the Bible as if it was one
book, which until lately was equally inveterate in Christians and in
unbelievers, sees with admiration the vast interval between the
morality and religion of the Pentateuch, or even of the historical
books (the unmistakable work of Hebrew Conservatives of the sacerdotal
order), and the morality and religion of the prophecies--a distance as
wide as between these last and the Gospels. Conditions more favorable
to Progress could not easily exist; accordingly, the Jews, instead of
being stationary like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the
most progressive people of antiquity, and, jointly with them, have
been the starting-point and main propelling agency of modern
cultivation.
It is, then, impossible to understand the question of the adaptation
of forms of government to states of society, without taking into
account not only the next step, but all the steps which society has
yet to make; both those which can be foreseen, and the far wider
indefinite range which is at present out of sight. It follows, that to
judge of the merits of forms of government, an ideal must be
constructed of the form of government most eligible in itself, that
is, which, if the necessary conditions existed for giving effect to
its beneficial tendencies, would, more than all others, favor and
promote, not some one improvement, but all forms and degrees of it.
This having been done, we must consider what are the mental conditions
of all sorts necessary to enable this government to realize its
tendencies, and what, therefore, are the various defects by which a
people is made incapable of reaping its benefits. It would then be
possible to construct a theorem of the circumstances in which that
form of government may wisely be introduced; and also to judge, in
cases in which it had better not be introduced, what inferior forms of
polity will best carry those communities through the intermediate
stages which they must traverse before they can become fit for the
best form of government.
Of these inquiries, the last does not concern us here, but the first
is an essential part of our subject; for we may, without rashness, at
once enunciate a proposition, the proofs and illustrations of which
will present themselves in the ensuing pages, that this ideally best
form of government will be found in some one or other variety of the
Representative System.