. There we find nothing
analogous to a constitution; but do we not find a government? We do in
fact find government in its purest, and simplest, and most intelligible
form. We see one portion of power acting directly on another portion
of power. We see a certain police kept up; the weak to a certain
degree protected; the strong to a certain degree restrained. We see the
principle of the balance in constant operation. We see the whole system
sometimes undisturbed by any attempt at encroachment for twenty or
thirty years at a time; and all this is produced without a legislative
assembly, or an executive magistracy--without tribunals--without any
code which deserves the name; solely by the mutual hopes and fears of
the various members of the federation. In the community of nations,
the first appeal is to physical force. In communities of men, forms
of government serve to put off that appeal, and often render it
unnecessary. But it is still open to the oppressed or the ambitious.

Of course, we do not mean to deny that a form of government will, after
it has existed for a long time, materially affect the real distribution
of power throughout the community. This is because those who administer
a government, with their dependants, form a compact and disciplined
body, which, acting methodically and in concert, is more powerful than
any other equally numerous body which is inferior in organisation.
The power of rulers is not, as superficial observers sometimes seem
to think, a thing sui generis. It is exactly similar in kind, though
generally superior in amount, to that of any set of conspirators who
plot to overthrow it. We have seen in our time the most extensive and
the best organised conspiracy that ever existed--a conspiracy which
possessed all the elements of real power in so great a degree that it
was able to cope with a strong government, and to triumph over it--the
Catholic Association. An Utilitarian would tell us, we suppose, that the
Irish Catholics had no portion of political power whatever on the first
day of the late Session of Parliament.

Let us really go beyond the surface of facts: let us, in the sound sense
of the words, penetrate to the springs within; and the deeper we go the
more reason shall we find to smile at those theorists who hold that the
sole hope of the human race is in a rule-of-three sum and a ballot-box.

We must now return to the Westminster Reviewer. The following paragraph
is an excellent