for
the very highest degree of organisation which government is capable of
receiving. They supply the greatest variety of intellectual resource;
the perpetual incentive to progress, which is afforded not merely by
competition, but by the spectacle of a more advanced people; the most
abundant elements of self-government, combined with the impossibility
for the State to rule all by its own will; and the fullest security for
the preservation of local customs and ancient rights. In such a country
as this, liberty would achieve its most glorious results, while
centralisation and absolutism would be destruction.

The problem presented to the government of Austria is higher than that
which is solved in England, because of the necessity of admitting the
national claims. The parliamentary system fails to provide for them, as
it presupposes the unity of the people. Hence in those countries in
which different races dwell together, it has not satisfied their
desires, and is regarded as an imperfect form of freedom. It brings out
more clearly than before the differences it does not recognise, and thus
continues the work of the old absolutism, and appears as a new phase of
centralisation. In those countries, therefore, the power of the imperial
parliament must be limited as jealously as the power of the crown, and
many of its functions must be discharged by provincial diets, and a
descending series of local authorities.

The great importance of nationality in the State consists in the fact
that it is the basis of political capacity. The character of a nation
determines in great measure the form and vitality of the State. Certain
political habits and ideas belong to particular nations, and they vary
with the course of the national history. A people just emerging from
barbarism, a people effete from the excesses of a luxurious
civilisation, cannot possess the means of governing itself; a people
devoted to equality, or to absolute monarchy, is incapable of producing
an aristocracy; a people averse to the institution of private property
is without the first element of freedom. Each of these can be converted
into efficient members of a free community only by the contact of a
superior race, in whose power will lie the future prospects of the
State. A system which ignores these things, and does not rely for its
support on the character and aptitude of the people, does not intend
that they should administer their own affairs, but that they