It would be quite as absurd to entertain a
similar expectation in regard to a class of men; the Demos, or any
other. Let them be ever so modest and amenable to reason while there
is a power over them stronger than they, we ought to expect a total
change in this respect when they themselves become the strongest
power.
Governments must be made for human beings as they are, or as they
are capable of speedily becoming: and in any state of cultivation
which mankind, or any class among them, have yet attained, or are
likely soon to attain, the interests by which they will be led, when
they are thinking only of self-interest, will be almost exclusively
those which are obvious at first sight, and which operate on their
present condition. It is only a disinterested regard for others, and
especially for what comes after them, for the idea of posterity, of
their country, or of mankind, whether grounded on sympathy or on a
conscientious feeling, which ever directs the minds and purposes of
classes or bodies of men towards distant or unobvious interests. And
it cannot be maintained that any form of government would be
rational which required as a condition that these exalted principles
of action should be the guiding and master motives in the conduct of
average human beings. A certain amount of conscience, and, of
disinterested public spirit, may fairly be calculated on in the
citizens of any community ripe for representative government.
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