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 towards improvement; we ought not to forget that
there is an incessant and ever-flowing current of human affairs
towards 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
realised 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 towards
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 anything 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 ensure 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 cannot 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 anything, 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