Simonian form of Socialism;
maintaining a general superintendence over all the operations of
society, so as to keep before each the sense of a present force
sufficient to compel his obedience to the rule laid down, but which,
owing to the impossibility of descending to regulate all the minutae
of industry and life, necessarily leaves and induces individuals to do
much of themselves. This, which may be termed the government of
leading-strings, seems to be the one required to carry such a people
the most rapidly through the next necessary step in social progress.
Such appears to have been the idea of the government of the Incas of
Peru; and such was that of the Jesuits of Paraguay. I need scarcely
remark that leading-strings are only admissible as a means of
gradually training the people to walk alone.
It would be out of place to carry the illustration further. To
attempt to investigate what kind of government is suited to every
known state of society would be to compose a treatise, not on
representative government, but on political science at large. For
our more limited purpose we borrow from political philosophy only
its general principles. To determine the form of government most
suited to any particular people, we must be able, among the defects
and shortcomings which belong to that people, to distinguish those
that are the immediate impediment to progress; to discover what it
is which (as it were) stops the way.
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