It is difficult to decide which of these doctrines would be the most
absurd, if we could suppose either of them held as an exclusive
theory. But the principles which men profess, on any controverted
subject, are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they
really hold. No one believes that every people is capable of working
every sort of institutions. Carry the analogy of mechanical
contrivances as far as we will, a man does not choose even an
instrument of timber and iron on the sole ground that it is in
itself the best. He considers whether he possesses the other
requisites which must be combined with it to render its employment
advantageous, and in particular whether those by whom it will have
to be worked possess the knowledge and skill necessary for its
management. On the other hand, neither are those who speak of
institutions as if they were a kind of living organisms really the
political fatalists they give themselves out to be. They do not
pretend that mankind have absolutely no range of choice as to the
government they will live under, or that a consideration of the
consequences which flow from different forms of polity is no element
at all in deciding which of them should be preferred. But though
each side greatly exaggerates its own theory, out of opposition to the
other, and no one holds without modification to either, the two
doctrines correspond to a deep-seated difference between two modes
of thought; and though it is evident that neither of these is entirely
in the right, yet it being equally evident that neither is wholly in
the wrong, we must endeavour to get down to what is at the root of
each, and avail ourselves of the amount of truth which exists in
either.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25