pinions of this
ancient sage as they are of imitating his conduct: first, because it
might appear that they are not as great inventors as they would be
thought; and next, because, unfortunately for his fame, he was not
successful. It is a remark liable to as few exceptions as any generality
can be, that they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumphant
guilt have never been known to succor or even to pity human weakness or
offence, when they become subject to human vicissitude, and meet with
punishment instead of obtaining power. Abating for their want of
sensibility to the sufferings of their associates, they are not so much
in the wrong; for madness and wickedness are things foul and deformed in
themselves, and stand in need of all the coverings and trappings of
fortune to recommend them to the multitude. Nothing can be more
loathsome in their naked nature.

Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern, unsuccessful or
prosperous, are things of passage. They furnish no argument for
supposing _a multitude told by the head to be the people_. Such a
multitude can have no sort of title to alter the seat of power in the
society, in which it ever ought to be the obedient, and not the ruling
or presiding part. What power may belong to the whole mass, in which
mass the natural _aristocracy_, or what by convention is appointed to
represent and strengthen it, acts in its proper place, with its proper
weight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question.
But in that case, and with that concurrence, I should have much doubt
whether any rash or desperate changes in the state, such as we have seen
in France, could ever be effected.

I have said that in all political questions the consequences of any
assumed rights are of great moment in deciding upon their validity. In
this point of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right in
the mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding and
altering their government _at pleasure_.

The sum total of every people is composed of its units. Every individual
must have a right to originate what afterwards is to become the act of
the majority. Whatever he may lawfully originate he may lawfully
endeavor to accomplish. He has a right, therefore, in his own
particular, to break the ties and engagements which bind him to the
country in which he lives; and he has a right to make as many converts
to his opinions, and to obtain as many associates