Each of these matters
has principles and rules of its own, which are a subject of separate
study. General jurisprudence, civil and penal legislation, financial
and commercial policy, are sciences in themselves, or rather, separate
members of the comprehensive science or art of government: and the
most enlightened doctrines on all these subjects, though not equally
likely to be understood, or acted on under all forms of government,
yet, if understood and acted on, would in general be equally
beneficial under them all. It is true that these doctrines could not
be applied without some modifications to all states of society and
of the human mind: nevertheless, by far the greater number of them
would require modifications solely of details, to adapt them to any
state of society sufficiently advanced to possess rulers capable of
understanding them. A government to which they would be wholly
unsuitable must be one so bad in itself, or so opposed to public
feeling, as to be unable to maintain itself in existence by honest
means.
It is otherwise with that portion of the interests of the
community which relate to the better or worse training of the people
themselves. Considered as instrumental to this, institutions need to
be radically different, according to the stage of advancement
already reached. The recognition of this truth, though for the most
part empirically rather than philosophically, may be regarded as the
main point of superiority in the political theories of the present
above those of the last age; in which it customary to claim
representative democracy for England or France by arguments which
would equally have proved it the only fit form of government for
Bedouins or Malays.
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