vantage of the amount of good qualities which may at any time
exist, and make them instrumental to right purposes." [Footnote: Mills
Representative Government.]

"Representative Government the Ideally Best Polity."--Every student who
has access to Mills' Representative Government should read the chapter
with the heading at the beginning of this paragraph. He combats the
proposition, "if a good despot could be insured, despotic monarchy would
be the best form of government." Granting that much good might be done, he
shows that the very passivity of the people must result in deterioration,
"that is, if the nation had ever attained anything to decline from." On
the other hand, he shows that participation in public affairs gives a
mental and moral training otherwise unattainable. After showing the nature
of the mental development acquired, he says: "Still more salutary is the
moral part of the instruction afforded by the participation of the private
citizen, if even rarely, in public functions. He is called upon, while so
engaged, to weigh interests not his own; to be guided, in case of
conflicting claims by another rule than his private partialities; to
apply, at every turn, principles and maxims which have for their reason of
existence the general good; and he usually finds associated with him in
the same work minds more familiarized than his own with these ideas and
operations, whose study it will be to supply reasons to his understanding,
and stimulation to his feeling for the general good. He is made to feel
himself one of the public, and whatever is their interest to be his
interest. Where this school of public spirit does not exist ... a
neighbor, not being an ally or an associate, since he is never engaged in
any common undertaking for the joint benefit, is therefore only a rival."

Dangers in Each Form of Government.--While each of the typical forms has
merits of its own,--the monarchy having stability, the aristocracy
securing the benefit of inherited good qualities, and democracy the
advantages referred to in the preceding paragraph--there is danger in each
form. Monarchy continually tends toward that inconsiderate exercise of
power which we call tyranny. Aristocracy tends toward oligarchy;
government by the _best_ is prone to decline into government by the _few_
without regard to qualification. And democracy is in danger of
degenerating into mob rule.

Every Government Aims to be Aristocratic.--That is, each go