t.' If, however,
we mean by the rule of the few the rule of a class neither better nor
worse than other classes, not devoid of a feeling of right, but guided
mostly by a sense of their own interests, and by the rule of the many
the rule of all classes, similarly under the influence of mixed motives,
no one would hesitate to answer--'The rule of all rather than one,
because all classes are more likely to take care of all than one of
another; and the government has greater power and stability when resting
on a wider basis.' Both in ancient and modern times the best balanced
form of government has been held to be the best; and yet it should not
be so nicely balanced as to make action and movement impossible.

The statesman who builds his hope upon the aristocracy, upon the
middle classes, upon the people, will probably, if he have sufficient
experience of them, conclude that all classes are much alike, and that
one is as good as another, and that the liberties of no class are
safe in the hands of the rest. The higher ranks have the advantage in
education and manners, the middle and lower in industry and self-denial;
in every class, to a certain extent, a natural sense of right prevails,
sometimes communicated from the lower to the higher, sometimes from the
higher to the lower, which is too strong for class interests. There have
been crises in the history of nations, as at the time of the Crusades or
the Reformation, or the French Revolution, when the same inspiration has
taken hold of whole peoples, and permanently raised the sense of freedom
and justice among mankind.

But even supposing the different classes of a nation, when viewed
impartially, to be on a level with each other in moral virtue, there
remain two considerations of opposite kinds which enter into the problem
of government. Admitting of course that the upper and lower classes are
equal in the eye of God and of the law, yet the one may be by nature
fitted to govern and the other to be governed. A ruling caste does not
soon altogether lose the governing qualities, nor a subject class easily
acquire them. Hence the phenomenon so often observed in the old Greek
revolutions, and not without parallel in modern times, that the leaders
of the democracy have been themselves of aristocratic origin. The people
are expecting to be governed by representatives of their own, but the
true man of the people either never appears, or is quickly altered by
circumstances. Thei