r real wishes hardly make themselves felt, although
their lower interests and prejudices may sometimes be flattered and
yielded to for the sake of ulterior objects by those who have political
power. They will often learn by experience that the democracy has become
a plutocracy. The influence of wealth, though not the enjoyment of
it, has become diffused among the poor as well as among the rich; and
society, instead of being safer, is more at the mercy of the tyrant,
who, when things are at the worst, obtains a guard--that is, an
army--and announces himself as the saviour.

The other consideration is of an opposite kind. Admitting that a few
wise men are likely to be better governors than the unwise many, yet
it is not in their power to fashion an entire people according to their
behest. When with the best intentions the benevolent despot begins his
regime, he finds the world hard to move. A succession of good kings has
at the end of a century left the people an inert and unchanged mass. The
Roman world was not permanently improved by the hundred years of Hadrian
and the Antonines. The kings of Spain during the last century were at
least equal to any contemporary sovereigns in virtue and ability. In
certain states of the world the means are wanting to render a benevolent
power effectual. These means are not a mere external organisation of
posts or telegraphs, hardly the introduction of new laws or modes of
industry. A change must be made in the spirit of a people as well as
in their externals. The ancient legislator did not really take a blank
tablet and inscribe upon it the rules which reflection and experience
had taught him to be for a nation's interest; no one would have obeyed
him if he had. But he took the customs which he found already existing
in a half-civilised state of society: these he reduced to form and
inscribed on pillars; he defined what had before been undefined, and
gave certainty to what was uncertain. No legislation ever sprang, like
Athene, in full power out of the head either of God or man.

Plato and Aristotle are sensible of the difficulty of combining the
wisdom of the few with the power of the many. According to Plato, he is
a physician who has the knowledge of a physician, and he is a king who
has the knowledge of a king. But how the king, one or more, is to obtain
the required power, is hardly at all considered by him. He presents
the idea of a perfect government, but except the regulation fo