There are no means of combining these benefits
except by separating the functions which guarantee the one from
those which essentially require the other; by disjoining the office of
control and criticism from the actual conduct of affairs, and
devolving the former on the representatives of the Many, while
securing for the latter, under strict responsibility to the nation,
the acquired knowledge and practised intelligence of a specially
trained and experienced Few.
The preceding discussion of the functions which ought to devolve
on the sovereign representative assembly of the nation would require
to be followed by an inquiry into those properly vested in the minor
representative bodies, which ought to exist for purposes that regard
only localities. And such an inquiry forms an essential part of the
present treatise; but many reasons require its postponement, until
we have considered the most proper composition of the great
representative body, destined to control as sovereign the enactment of
laws and the administration of the general affairs of the nation.
Chapter 6
Of the Infirmities and Dangers to which Representative Government is
Liable.
THE DEFECTS of any form of government may be either negative or
positive. It is negatively defective if it does not concentrate in the
hands of the authorities power sufficient to fulfil the necessary
offices of a government; or if it does not sufficiently develop by
exercise the active capacities and social feelings of the individual
citizens.
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