As in the abstract it is perfectly clear that out of a state of civil society, majority and minority are relations which can have no existence; and that in civil society its own specific conventions in each corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so as to make their act the signification of the general will; to come to particulars, it is equally clear that neither in France nor in England has the original or any subsequent compact of the state constituted a majority of men, told by the head, to be the acting people of their several communities.

To enable men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the ends for which they are incorporated into that capacity, we must suppose them (by means immediate or consequential) to be in that state of habitual social discipline, in which the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten and protect, the weaker, the less knowing, and the less provided with the goods of fortune. When the multitude are not under this discipline, they can scarcely be said to be in civil society. Give once a certain constitution of things, which produces a variety of conditions and circumstances in a state, and there is in nature and reason a principle which for their own benefit postpones, not the interest, but the judgment of those who are numero plures to those who are virtute et honore majores. Numbers in a state (supposing, which is not the case in France, that a state does exist) are always of consideration,but they are not the whole consideration.

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A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large body rightly constituted.

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The state of civil society, which necessarily generates this aristocracy, is a state of nature, and much more truly so than a savage and incoherent mode of life.

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Men qualified in the manner I have just described, form in nature, as she operates in the common modification of society, the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the soul to the body, without which the man does not exist. To give, therefore, no more importance in the social order to such descriptions of men than that of so many units, is a horrible usurpation.

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When great multitudes act together under that discipline of nature, I recognise the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty and decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony; when you break up this beautiful order, this array of truth and nature, as well as of habit and prejudice; when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains, so as to form them into an adverse army, I no longer know that venerable object called the people in such a disbanded race of deserters and vagabonds."

In a true representative government, then, we seek the resultant of the national forces, having regard not only to their comparative strength, but also to their comparative worth.

Among the many difficulties of government, there is none greater than to determine how far that which is strong can and must be made to yield to that which is worthy. It is every day's experience that a country is not prepared for what is good in itself; that the success of a given measure would presuppose the existence of an amount of virtue or intelligence or knowledge or energy among the people which the statesman sees not to be there. To stand aloft and make the computation beforehand, and to act accordingly, is the profession if not the practice of absolutism. A representative government, if perfect, would do naturally and unconsciously what a perfectly wise and good despot would do by observation and calculation. That is to say, it would represent, not the highest conceivable views of life and duty, but the highest indigenous views,-the highest views which would be supported by an adequate sympathy from the more potent elements in the community.

The object of the reformer must be to find out what is that highest and most perfect form of organisation to which the facts of the particular State seem to point, and then to work towards its realisation. He will find that he cannot give himself up to the contemplation of the body politic as an organic whole affected by a long history, and taking its character from the comparative prominence or excellence of particular parts, and the relations of one part to another, without losing the idea of the right divine of numbers, and attaining to the idea of a national life amenable to certain laws, and clothed with certain responsibilities. The sense that this national life must express itself in a national government, and that such a government must recognise the "degrees and orders of men amongst us" will so occupy the mind, that questions of the right of the state to govern its members will seem (as in truth they are) irrelevant. Those questions are as puzzling in the case of a pure democracy as in that of a despotism. We have to admit the notion of subordination as involved in that of organisation itself. The strength of democracy is in its fallacious show of recognising the autonomy of the individual. When it is once perceived that the admission of the idea of a nation, and a national government, excludes this autonomy from the conditions of political problems, a great step has been made. But the next step is not less important; and the manner in which it follows from the last is often not perceived. Equality, whether as a fact or a right, disappears as soon as limitations upon the absolute free-will of the individual are admitted. Every thing that is worthy about the notion of equality vanishes when the equality of absolute individual freedom is given up, and the mere rebellious disinclination to admit of any thing greater and better than ourselves, the envy which ostracises good citizens, or

seeks in the indiscriminate depression of all a consolation for being obliged to bow to the will of one, show themselves as the really efficient supporters of levelling doctrines.

It may be thought that such views must have a negative result only. A recurrence to the principles of Burke is treated by many as a mere adoption of mouthing commonplaces to mask the design of promoting the interests of privileged classes. That this is by no means the case we hope presently to show; but meanwhile we assert unhesitatingly, that the negative results are of extreme importance, and much need enforcing at the present day. This is not a day of principles; but a careless or supercilious practicality rides roughshod over every thing. Principles have their revenge; for the upshot of despising complete theories is, that men run away with incomplete ones. So it happens just now. Theories of the state being in abeyance by common consent, newspapers, books, and speeches appear all to assume the shallowest of the exploded dogmas of the French Revolution, and to drift towards democracy, as though there were no ground of principle to be found any where else. Whigs, Tories, and Radicals, talk of extension of the suffrage, and greater numerical equality in constituencies, as if they were indisputably good things in themselves, and as if the gradual adoption of the Points of the Charter were the be-all and the end-all of political philosophy. Men who have never thought take up the ideas of uniformity and equality as furnishing the key to politics, just as they take up utilitarianism in morals, or the Dieu-bonhomme principle in theology. That an assemblage of delegates elected by the universal suffrage of the whole people, as American Presidents are, would not do at present, most would admit; but it is material to be prepared to deny emphatically that it would constitute a national representation; for the opinion held on this point will affect the course taken on all subsidiary questions. The simple fact is, that such a constitution does its best to ignore every thing that makes a nation an organic body, or government possible at all. Instead of giving their due and balanced effect to the greatest number of forces, it does its best to exclude all but one from being felt.

But constitutional doctrine is associated with negative results alone, merely because it is not put forward by the opponents of democracy with a sufficient amount of boldness and conviction to compel the advocates of popular rights to find out that it is a two-edged weapon. Lord Grey, for instance, adopts an exclusively critical tone, and confines himself to pointing out specific practical conveniences or inconveniences arising from this cause and from that. We should not have a syllable to say against such a method, if we had many thoughtful political writers,

some of whom approached the subject from one side, and some from another; but believing as we do, that we are about to venture upon considerable organic changes at the bidding of a democratic party possessed with wrong ideas, which are allowed to prevail only because there is nothing better to set against them than apathy or mere timid Conservatism, it is a source of disappointment to find such a man as Lord Grey coming forward with a weighty essay, in which there appears no trace of any generous conviction that there is such a thing as political right and wrong. A redistribution of the franchise is a question of political right and wrong, or it is at the present time a matter not worth entertaining. The work before us, indeed, gives some colour to the common idea that Burke was a mere coiner of excuses for Conservative reaction. Lord Grey starts with a quotation from him, but forgets that Burke cannot be quoted aright if he is made to seem insensible to the music of that " grand chorus of national harmony," in which his own voice is heard like the bass of the organ. A writer is properly excluded from a commanding influence with the people if there is nothing in the popular heart with which his own beats in sympathy. The true answer to the democrat is, that meaning above all things to be national and representative, he is neither the one nor the other, that his majority is not the nation of fact and history, and that his assembly is an unnatural tyranny, not a natural representation. And if that answer is not given, if, after all, he is left in possession of the field of political justice, the arguments directed against him have an immoral Machiavellian look, which deprives them of the force which they would have if they were pressed in another spirit.

Let, then, the opponents of democracy show themselves as the advocates of true representation, and throw to the winds the epigram in the Essay on Man, which would distinguish governments by their administrative qualities alone, and which is mere foolishness in the mouth of any one who does not look to Nesselrode and Metternich as his types of statesmanship. It will be perceived that anti-democratic doctrines have a positive side, and that their principle is not "cold obstruction," when their advocates give hearty recognition to the unrepresented classes as part of the nation, and show a disposition to allow them the weight to which they are entitled, and to inquire impartially what that weight is. We miss in Lord Grey any evidence of a willingness to deal with their claims as they should be dealt with.

Representation of classes-that is the political idea which is coming daily into greater prominence. The fear is lest it should be put forward in a wrong and merely negative spirit. Let it be

once frankly admitted that it is as good a cry for the artisan as for the capitalist and the proprietor, and we shall get into a more fruitful course of discussion than any which has of late prevailed. The real question of parliamentary reform is, whether that complex being, the British nation, is fairly represented in parliament. Has any one (and if any one, who?) a fair right to complain of the existing distribution of power? "Numbers in a state," says Burke, "although not the whole consideration, are always of consideration." It has been a forgetfulness of one half of the doctrine which has brought the other into disrepute. Lord Grey, if he does not forget the popular half, produces the impression that he remembers it only to evade it. Can we be surprised that the author of such a passage as the following should be looked on as "little better than one of the"-Tories?

"The only sound principle on which constitutional changes can be attempted, is that of directing them to practical improvements of the government, and to the removal of evils that have been felt; not to the gratification of men's passions, or their love of change. But, if this principle is recognised, it follows that a new Reform Bill ought not, like the former one, to aim at the transfer of a large amount of political power from one class of society to another, since this is no longer necessary, in order to protect the general interests of the community from being sacrificed to those of a minority of its members. It is not, however, to be inferred, that no reform of our representation is required, because there is no occasion for altering the existing distribution of political power among different classes of society. A reform is wanted, though not for the same reasons as formerly. In the present state of things, the objects that ought to be aimed at by such a measure are, to interest a larger proportion of the people in the constitution, by investing them with political rights, without disturbing the existing balance of power; to discourage bribery at elections, without giving more influence to the arts of demagogues; to strengthen the legitimate authority of the executive government, and at the same time to guard against its being abused; and to render the distribution of the parliamentary franchise less unequal and less anomalous, but yet carefully to preserve that character which has hitherto belonged to the House of Commons, from its including among its members men representing all the different classes of society, and all the different interests and opinions to be found in the nation."

This looks very much like advising us to make as much show of concession to the democratic spirit as possible, without really parting with any power. We find every fault with it which can be found with a political speculation on the subject. It shows an insensibility to the facts of the case by ignoring the undoubted fact, that an extension of the suffrage sufficiently large to give any real satisfaction would have nothing to do with "the existing balance of power." That means, if it means any thing, a balance