I am unable to conceive any mode by which
the presence of such minds can be so positively insured as by that
proposed by Mr. Hare.
This portion of the Assembly would also be the appropriate organ
of a great social function, for which there is no provision in any
existing democracy, but which in no government can remain
permanently unfulfilled without condemning that government to
infallible degeneracy and decay. This may be called the function of
Antagonism. In every government there is some power stronger than
all the rest; and the power which is strongest tends perpetually to
become the sole power. Partly by intention, and partly
unconsciously, it is ever striving to make all other things bend to
itself; and is not content while there is anything which makes
permanent head against it, any influence not in agreement with its
spirit. Yet if it succeeds in suppressing all rival influences, and
moulding everything after its own model, improvement, in that country,
is at an end, and decline commences. Human improvement is a product of
many factors, and no power ever yet constituted among mankind includes
them all: even the most beneficent power only contains in itself
some of the requisites of good, and the remainder, if progress is to
continue, must be derived from some other source. No community has
ever long continued progressive, but while a conflict was going on
between the strongest power in the community and some rival power;
between the spiritual and temporal authorities; the military or
territorial and the industrious classes; the king and the people;
the orthodox and religious reformers.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174