Nothing but that
acquaintance with external nature, empirically acquired, which
serves directly for the production of objects necessary to existence
or agreeable to the senses, would get its utility recognised if people
had the least encouragement to disbelieve it. Is it reasonable to
think that even much more cultivated minds than those of the numerical
majority can be expected to be will have so delicate a conscience, and
so just an appreciation of what is against their own apparent
interest, that they will reject these and the innumerable other
fallacies which will press in upon them from all quarters as soon as
they come into power, to induce them to follow their own selfish
inclinations and short-sighted notions of their own good, in
opposition to justice, at the expense of all other classes and of
posterity?
One of the greatest dangers, therefore, of democracy, as of all
other forms of government, lies in the sinister interest of the
holders of power: it is the danger of class legislation; of government
intended for (whether really effecting it or not) the immediate
benefit of the dominant class, to the lasting detriment of the
whole. And one of the most important questions demanding
consideration, in determining the best constitution of a
representative government, is how to provide efficacious securities
against this evil.
If we consider as a class, politically speaking, any number of
persons who have the same sinister interest- that is, whose direct
and apparent interest points towards the same description of bad
measures; the desirable object would be that no class, and no
combination of classes likely to combine, should be able to exercise a
preponderant influence in the government.
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