I hasten to say that I consider it entirely inadmissible, unless
as a temporary makeshift, that the superiority of influence should
be conferred in consideration of property. I do not deny that property
is a kind of test; education in most countries, though anything but
proportional to riches, is on the average better in the richer half of
society than in the poorer. But the criterion is so imperfect;
accident has so much more to do than merit with enabling men to rise
in the world; and it is so impossible for any one, by acquiring any
amount of instruction, to make sure of the corresponding rise in
station, that this foundation of electoral privilege is always, and
will continue to be, supremely odious. To connect plurality of votes
with any pecuniary qualification would be not only objectionable in
itself, but a sure mode of discrediting the principle, and making
its permanent maintenance impracticable. The Democracy, at least of
this country, are not at present jealous of personal superiority,
but they are naturally and must justly so of that which is grounded on
mere pecuniary circumstances. The only thing which can justify
reckoning one person's opinion as equivalent to more than one is
individual mental superiority; and what is wanted is some
approximate means of ascertaining that. If there existed such a
thing as a really national education or a trustworthy system of
general examination, education might be tested directly.
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