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 civilisation, 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 practise 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.
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