who is not firmly convinced that the reason of the matter is
unqualifiedly on the side of the masters, and that the men's view of
it is simply absurd. Those who have studied the question know well how
far this is from being the case; and in how different, and how
infinitely less superficial a manner the point would have to be
argued, if the classes who strike were able to make themselves heard
in Parliament.

  It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention,
however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it
safe or salutary to tie up their own hands. Still more obviously
true is it, that by their own hands only can any positive and
durable improvement of their circumstances in life be worked out.
Through the joint influence of these two principles, all free
communities have both been more exempt from social injustice and
crime, and have attained more brilliant prosperity, than any others,
or than they themselves after they lost their freedom. Contrast the
free states of the world, while their freedom lasted, with the
cotemporary subjects of monarchical or oligarchical despotism: the
Greek cities with the Persian satrapies; the Italian republics and the
free towns of Flanders and Germany, with the feudal monarchies of
Europe; Switzerland, Holland, and England, with Austria or
anterevolutionary France. Their superior prosperity was too obvious
ever to have been gainsaid: while their superiority in good government
and social relations is proved by the prosperity, and is manifest
besides in every page of history. If we compare, not one age with
another, but the different governments which co-existed in the same
age, no amount of disorder which exaggeration itself can pretend to
have existed amidst the publicity of the free states can be compared
for a moment with the contemptuous trampling upon the mass of the
people which pervaded the whole life of the monarchical countries,
or the disgusting individual tyranny which was of more than daily
occurrence under the systems of plunder which they called fiscal
arrangements, and in the secrecy of their frightful courts of justice.

  It must be acknowledged that the benefits of freedom, so far as they
have hitherto been enjoyed, were obtained by the extension of its
privileges to a part only of the community; and that a government in
which they are extended impartially to all is a desideratum still
unrealised. But though every approach to this has an independent
value, and in many cases more than an approach could not, in the
existing state of general improvement, be made, the participation of
all in these benefits is the ideally perfect conception of free
government. In proportion as any, no matter who, are excluded from it,
the interests of the excluded are left without the guarantee
accorded to the rest, and they themselves have less scope and
encouragement than they might otherwise have to that exertion of their
energies for the good of themselves and of the community, to which the
general prosperity is always proportioned.

  Thus stands the case as regards present well-being; the good
management of the affairs of the existing generation. If we now pass
to the influence of the form of government upon character, we shall
find the superiority of popular government over every other to be,
if possible, still more decided and indisputable.

  This question really depends upon a still more fundamental one,
viz., which of two common types of character, for the general good
of humanity, it is most desirable should predominate- the active, or
the passive type; that which struggles against evils, or that which
endures them; that which bends to circumstances, or that which
endeavours to make circumstances bend to itself.

  The commonplaces of moralists, and the general sympathies of
mankind, are in favour of the passive type. Energetic characters may
be admired, but the acquiescent and submissive are those which most
men personally prefer. The passiveness of our neighbours increases our
sense of security, and plays into the hands of our wilfulness. Passive
characters, if we do not happen to need their activity, seem an
obstruction the less in our own path. A contented character is not a
dangerous rival. Yet nothing is more certain than that improvement
in human affairs is wholly the work of the uncontented characters;
and, moreover, that it is much easier for an active mind to acquire
the virtues of patience than for a passive one to assume those of
energy.

  Of the three varieties of mental excellence, intellectual,
practical, and moral, there never could be any doubt in regard to
the first two which side had the advantage. All intellectual
superiority is the fruit of active effort. Enterprise, the desire to
keep moving, to be trying and accomplishing new things for our own
benefit or that of others, is the parent even of speculative, and much
more of practical, talent. The intellectual culture compatible with
the other type is of that feeble and vague description which belongs
to a mind that stops at amusement, or at simple contemplation. The
test of real and vigourous thinking, the thinking which ascertains
truths instead of dreaming dreams, is successful application to
practice. Where that purpose does not exist, to give definiteness,
precision, and an intelligible meaning to thought, it generates
nothing better than the mystical metaphysics of the Pythagoreans or
the Vedas. With respect to practical improvement, the case is still
more evident. The character which improves human life is that which
struggles with natural powers and tendencies, not that which gives way
to them. The self-benefiting qualities are all on the side of the
active and energetic character: and the habits and conduct which
promote the advantage of each individual member of the community
must be at least a part of those which conduce most in the end to
the advancement of the community as a whole.

  But on the point of moral preferability, there seems at first