eir way to the front. The people is far less
likely to make a blunder in a choice of this sort, than the prince,
and a man of true merit is nearly as rare in the ministry, as a fool
at the head of the government of a republic."[249] There remains
aristocracy. Of this there are three sorts: natural, elective, and
hereditary. The first can only thrive among primitive folk, while the
third is the worst of all governments. The second is the best, for it
is aristocracy properly so called. If men only acquire rule in virtue
of election, then purity, enlightenment, experience, and all the other
grounds of public esteem and preference, become so many new guarantees
that the administration shall be wise and just. It is the best and
most natural order that the wisest should govern the multitude,
provided you are sure that they will govern the multitude for its
advantage, and not for their own. If aristocracy of this kind requires
one or two virtues less than a popular executive, it also demands
others which are peculiar to itself, such as moderation in the rich
and content in the poor. For this form comports with a certain
inequality of fortune, for the reason that it is well that the
administration of public affairs should be confided to those who are
best able to give their whole time to it. At the same time it is of
importance that an opposite choice should occasionally teach the
people that in the merit of men there are more momentous reasons of
preference than wealth.[250] Rousseau, as we have seen, had pronounced
English liberty to be no liberty at all, save during the few days once
in seven years when the elections to parliament take place. Yet this
scheme of an elective aristocracy was in truth a very near approach
to the English form as it is theoretically presented in our own day,
with a suffrage gradually becoming universal. If the suffrage were
universal, and if its exercise took place once a year, our system, in
spite of the now obsolescent elements of hereditary aristocracy and
nominal monarchy, would be as close a realisation of the scheme of the
Social Contract as any representative system permits. If Rousseau had
further developed his notions of confederation, the United States
would most have resembled his type.

6. What is to be the attitude of the state in respect of religion?
Certainly not that prescribed by the policy of the middle ages. The
separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, indicated by