e apex tumbled in and perished. In the
early ages of an agricultural colony, whether you have political
democracy or not, social democracy you must have, for nature makes it,
and not you. But in time, wealth grows and inequality begins. A and his
children are industrious, and prosper; B and his children are idle, and
fail. If manufactures on a considerable scale are established--and most
young communities strive even by protection to establish them--the
tendency to inequality is intensified. The capitalist becomes a unit
with much, and his labourers a crowd with little. After generations of
education, too, there arise varieties of culture--there will be an
upper thousand, or ten thousand, of highly cultivated people in the
midst of a great nation of moderately educated people. In theory it is
desirable that this highest class of wealth and leisure should have an
influence far out of proportion to its mere number: a perfect
constitution would find for it a delicate expedient to make its fine
thought tell upon the surrounding cruder thought. But as the world
goes, when the whole of the population is as instructed and as
intelligent as in the case I am supposing, we need not care much about
this. Great communities have scarcely ever--never save for transient
moments--been ruled by their highest thought. And if we can get them
ruled by a decent capable thought, we may be well enough contented with
our work. We have done more than could be expected, though not all
which could be desired. At any rate, an isocratic polity--a polity
where every one votes, and where every one votes alike--is, in a
community of sound education and diffused intelligence, a conceivable
case of Cabinet government. It satisfies the essential condition; there
is a people able to elect, a Parliament able to choose.

But suppose the mass of the people are not able to elect--and this is
the case with the numerical majority of all but the rarest nations--how
is a Cabinet government to be then possible? It is only possible in
what I may venture to call DEFERENTIAL nations. It has been thought
strange, but there ARE nations in which the numerous unwiser part
wishes to be ruled by the less numerous wiser part. The numerical
majority--whether by custom or by choice, is immaterial--is ready, is
eager to delegate its power of choosing its ruler to a certain select
minority. It abdicates in favour of its elite, and consents to obey
whoever that elite may confide