onsist, he would have perceived, not only that there
are mixed governments in the world, but that all the governments in the
world, and all the governments which can even be conceived as existing
in the world, are virtually mixed.

If a king possessed the lamp of Aladdin,--if he governed by the help
of a genius who carried away the daughters and wives of his subjects
through the air to the royal Parc-aux-cerfs, and turned into stone every
man who wagged a finger against his majesty's government, there would
indeed be an unmixed despotism. But, fortunately, a ruler can be
gratified only by means of his subjects. His power depends on their
obedience; and, as any three or four of them are more than a match for
him by himself, he can only enforce the unwilling obedience of some by
means of the willing obedience of others.

Take any of those who are popularly called absolute princes--Napoleon
for example. Could Napoleon have walked through Paris, cutting off the
head of one person in every house which he passed? Certainly not without
the assistance of an army. If not, why not? Because the people had
sufficient physical power to resist him, and would have put forth that
power in defence of their lives and of the lives of their children.
In other words, there was a portion of power in the democracy under
Napoleon. Napoleon might probably have indulged himself in such an
atrocious freak of power if his army would have seconded him. But, if
his army had taken part with the people, he would have found himself
utterly helpless; and, even if they had obeyed his orders against the
people, they would not have suffered him to decimate their own body. In
other words, there was a portion of power in the hands of a minority of
the people, that is to say, in the hands of an aristocracy, under the
reign of Napoleon.

To come nearer home,--Mr Mill tells us that it is a mistake to imagine
that the English government is mixed. He holds, we suppose, with all the
politicians of the Utilitarian school, that it is purely aristocratical.
There certainly is an aristocracy in England; and we are afraid that
their power is greater than it ought to be. They have power enough to
keep up the game-laws and corn-laws; but they have not power enough to
subject the bodies of men of the lowest class to wanton outrage at their
pleasure. Suppose that they were to make a law that any gentleman of
two thousand a-year might have a day-labourer or a pauper flogg