Whether the work is done by them because they have
been trained to it, or they are trained to it because it is to be done
by them, makes a great difference in many respects, but none at all as
to the essential character of the rule. Aristocracies, on the other
hand, like that of England, in which the class who possessed the power
derived it merely from their social position, without being
specially trained or devoting themselves exclusively to it (and in
which, therefore, the power was not exercised directly, but through
representative institutions oligarchically constituted) have been,
in respect to intellectual endowments, much on a par with democracies;
that is, they have manifested such qualities in any considerable
degree only during the temporary ascendancy which great and popular
talents, united with a distinguished position, have given to some
one man. Themistocles and Pericles, Washington and Jefferson, were not
more completely exceptions in their several democracies, and were
assuredly much more splendid exceptions, than the Chathams and Peels
of the representative aristocracy of Great Britain, or even the Sullys
and Colberts of the aristocratic monarchy of France. A great minister,
in the aristocratic governments of modern Europe, is almost as rare
a phenomenon as a great king.
The comparison, therefore, as to the intellectual attributes of a
government, has to be made between a representative democracy and a
bureaucracy; all other governments may be left out of the account.
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