name itself. We know nothing about a monarchy, until
we have been told whether it is absolute or constitutional; if
absolute, whether it is administered in the interests of the realm,
like that of Prussia under Frederick the Great, or in the interests of
the ruler, like that of an Indian principality under a native prince;
if constitutional, whether the real power is aristocratic, as in Great
Britain a hundred years ago, or plutocratic, as in Great Britain
to-day, or popular, as it may be here fifty years hence. And so with
reference to each of the other two forms; neither name gives us any
instruction, except of a merely negative kind, until it has been made
precise by one or more explanatory epithets. What is the common
quality of the old Roman republic, the republics of the Swiss
confederation, the republic of Venice, the American republic, the
republic of Mexico? Plainly the word republic has no further effect
beyond that of excluding the idea of a recognised dynasty.

Rousseau is perhaps less open to this kind of criticism than other
writers on political theory, for the reason that he distinguishes the
constitution of the state from the constitution of the government. The
first he settles definitely. The whole body of the people is to be
sovereign, and to be endowed alone with what he conceived as the only
genuinely legislative power. The only question which he considers open
is as to the form in which the _delegated executive authority_ shall
be organised. Democracy, the immediate government of all by all, he
rejects as too perfect for men; it requires a state so small that each
citizen knows all the others, manners so simple that the business may
be small and the mode of discussion easy, equality of rank and fortune
so general as not to allow of the overriding of political equality by
material superiority, and so forth.[248] Monarchy labours under a
number of disadvantages which are tolerably obvious. "One essential
and inevitable defect, which must always place monarchic below
republican government, is that in the latter the public voice hardly
ever promotes to the first places any but capable and enlightened men
who fill them with honour; whereas those who get on in monarchies, are
for the most part small busybodies, small knaves, small intriguers, in
whom the puny talents which are the secret of reaching substantial
posts in courts, only serve to show their stupidity to the public as
soon as they have made th