Considerations of a Representative Government | Page 6

and conditions as all
other arts.
At this point we are met by another objection, or the same objection in
a different form. The forces, it is contended, on which the greater
political phenomena depend, are not amenable to the direction of
politicians or philosophers. The government of a country, it is affirmed,
is, in all substantial respects, fixed and determined beforehand by the
state of the country in regard to the distribution of the elements of
social power. Whatever is the strongest power in society will obtain the
governing authority; and a change in the political constitution can not
be durable unless preceded or accompanied by an altered distribution of
power in society itself. A nation, therefore, can not choose its form of
government. The mere details, and practical organization, it may
choose; but the essence of the whole, the seat of the supreme power, is
determined for it by social circumstances.
That there is a portion of truth in this doctrine I at once admit; but to
make it of any use, it must be reduced to a distinct expression and
proper limits. When it is said that the strongest power in society will

make itself strongest in the government, what is meant by power? Not
thews and sinews; otherwise pure democracy would be the only form of
polity that could exist. To mere muscular strength, add two other
elements, property and intelligence, and we are nearer the truth, but far
from having yet reached it. Not only is a greater number often kept
down by a less, but the greater number may have a preponderance in
property, and individually in intelligence, and may yet be held in
subjection, forcibly or otherwise, by a minority in both respects inferior
to it. To make these various elements of power politically influential
they must be organized; and the advantage in organization is
necessarily with those who are in possession of the government. A
much weaker party in all other elements of power may greatly
preponderate when the powers of government are thrown into the scale;
and may long retain its predominance through this alone: though, no
doubt, a government so situated is in the condition called in mechanics
unstable equilibrium, like a thing balanced on its smaller end, which, if
once disturbed, tends more and more to depart from, instead of
reverting to, its previous state.
But there are still stronger objections to this theory of government in
the terms in which it is usually stated. The power in society which has
any tendency to convert itself into political power is not power
quiescent, power merely passive, but active power; in other words,
power actually exerted; that is to say, a very small portion of all the
power in existence. Politically speaking, a great part of all power
consists in will. How is it possible, then, to compute the elements of
political power, while we omit from the computation any thing which
acts on the will? To think that, because those who wield the power in
society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to
attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on
opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active
social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to
ninety-nine who have only interests. They who can succeed in creating
a general persuasion that a certain form of government, or social fact of
any kind, deserves to be preferred, have made nearly the most
important step which can possibly be taken toward ranging the powers
of society on its side. On the day when the protomartyr was stoned to

death at Jerusalem, while he who was to be the Apostle of the Gentiles
stood by "consenting unto his death," would any one have supposed
that the party of that stoned man were then and there the strongest
power in society? And has not the event proved that they were so?
Because theirs was the most powerful of then existing beliefs. The
same element made a monk of Wittenberg, at the meeting of the Diet of
Worms, a more powerful social force than the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, and all the princes there assembled. But these, it may be said, are
cases in which religion was concerned, and religious convictions are
something peculiar in their strength. Then let us take a case purely
political, where religion, if concerned at all, was chiefly on the losing
side. If any one requires to be convinced that speculative thought is one
of the chief elements of social power, let him bethink himself of the age
in which there was scarcely a throne in Europe which was not filled by
a liberal and reforming king, a liberal and