half the entire population, or the aggregate political community, properly so called.

There are, however, other cases in which care is necessary in order to avoid the comparison of disparate quantities, and therefore to guard against error in referring different communities to the respective classes of aristocracy or democracy. The first of these is where there is a class of slaves, necessarily excluded from all political, and nearly all civil rights, and standing to the community in the relation of mere living instruments. If communities are compared with reference to the aristocratic or democratic form of their government, and if one possesses a slave class, whereas in the other the whole community is free, this circumstance ought to be taken into account. It may be true that the body of freemen may be organized democratically, as in the Athenian and Roman states; but if such a democratic community, connected with a body of slaves out-numbering the citizens, is simply compared with a modern community, consisting exclusively of freemen, and the difference in this respect is not adverted to, confusion and error can hardly fail to arise. On the other hand, two states, each possessing a slave-class, may be compared simply without danger of error; for example, the Lacedæmonian and Athenian states, one of which was oligarchical, the other democratic, considered without reference to the slaveclass, which was present in each community.

There is, again, another circumstance which ought not to be left out of sight in determining the entire community,' with reference to the aristocratic or democratic character of the government. This is its possession of imperial subjects; of dependent communities, to which it stands in the relation of the dominant or paramount state. Thus Athens and Rome, though democracies with regard to the free citizens of the imperial territory, had not only a class of slaves, but also a body of imperial or foreign subjects, who, though freemen themselves, were not considered as forming part of the Athenian or Roman free community. Now, in comparing one community with another, with reference to the question of aristocracy and democracy, it is right that this

element should be adverted to, inasmuch as the absence or presence of imperial subjects is a material circumstance, affecting the character of a government, and these subjects are a part of the political community over which the government of the paramount state presides. However democratic may be the internal organization of a community with respect to its own peculiar members, it can scarcely fail to be oligarchical in respect of its imperial subjects: thus, F. v. Raumer remarks that the Italian republics (though popularly constituted at home) were often oligarchical in reference to their districts. (158) At the same time, care must be taken to distinguish between a republican government, whether aristocratic or democratic, in its relations to the paramount community, and in its relations to dependent communities. If this caution be not observed, we may fall into the same mistake as Mitford in his History of Greece, who applies the expressions of the ancients respecting the imperial rule of Athens, to its internal government with respect to its own citizens. (159)

There is a further circumstance to be considered in reference to the question of aristocracy and democracy-viz. the nature of the power, or share in the sovereignty, which constitutes a person a member of the governing body. In an ancient state, whether aristocratic or democratic, each member of the governing body exercised his powers in person. Every Lacedæmonian, Athenian, or Roman citizen, for example, might vote in the supreme assembly. In modern states, where the representative system exists, no such direct exercise of the sovereign power takes place,

(158) Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. v. p. 294.

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(159) After describing the deterioration of the measures of Solon with respect to the Areopagus and Council of Four Hundred-measures which exclusively concerned the internal government of Athens, and dated from a time when Athens was not yet an imperial state-Mr. Mitford proceeds as follows: Interested demagogues inciting, restraint was soon overborne, and so the Athenian government became what, in the very age, we find it was called, and the people seem to have been even pleased to hear it called, a tyranny in the hands of the people.'-Hist. of Gr. c. 21, sect. 2, citing Tupavvida exete Tηy áрxýv, Thucyd. i. 63; iii. 37. The words in the speeches of Pericles and Cleon, cited by Mr. Mitford, mean this: Your empire over the dependent states is in the nature of a despotism.' They have no reference to the action of the Athenian government upon the Athenians themselves.

but the political suffrage which determines the form of government is simply a right of electing representatives to be members of the sovereign body. If, for example, we compare the legislature of France in the years 1848-9, when the suffrage was universal (that is, belonged to all adult males), with the supreme assembly of Athens or Rome, we shall find that France, as compared with those states, is a narrow oligarchy; and we are only entitled to consider the French constitution of these years as democratic, if we reckon the suffrage of the Frenchman (that is, his right of voting for representatives) as equivalent to the suffrage of the Athenian or Roman (that is, his power of voting in person in the sovereign assembly of citizens). It will be observed that the questions last adverted to (viz. the mode of determining the entire community,' the distinction between domestic and imperial rule, and the distinction between the direct and indirect suffrage) only concern aristocracies and democracies, and do not affect despotic monarchies.

§ 10 It follows, therefore, that with respect to the two main classes, of absolute monarchies and republics, and, in some measure, with respect to the two species of republics, aristocracies and democracies, we may, by considering their several characters, ascertain certain general and prevailing properties, which enable us to attribute to them a certain average influence. Where the subject can be reduced to a numerical expression, an average can be computed with perfect precision; as when the average duration of human life, the average rate of prices, the average temperature, is calculated from a series of arithmetical data. Where the subject does not admit of a numerical expression, averages are less precise, but are possible. The characteristics of a certain form of government may converge about a certain point, and those that deviate from it on different sides may be few. There may be a medium state between opposite extremes, which represents the prevailing character, and admits of a general expression. We may be unable to predicate any invariable and universal tendency of a form of government, just as we may be unable to say that all men live a certain number of years. But

as we can say of men, that the average duration of their life is a certain number of years-so we may say of a form of government, that it has a certain prevailing average character. General propositions of this sort are constructed upon the authority of a plurality of the cases, in the same manner that the majority is held, in the decisions of public bodies, to represent the entire number.(1) Propositions expressive of the average state of any class are, as we shall show lower down,(16) only probable, and, when they come to be applied to actual cases, only serve to raise a presumption, which may be overpowered by counter-evidence.

§ 11 An inquiry as to the characteristics of each form of government is distinct from an inquiry as to the best form of government; though the latter may imply the former. In order to determine the prevailing characteristics of each form of government, it is only necessary to take a survey of facts, and to give them a general expression. We assume the existence of governments, but construct nothing-whereas the problem of the best form of government is essentially constructive, and the solution of it does not necessarily represent any state of things which has ever had an actual existence. Thus Spinoza, in treating of the three forms of government in his Tractatus Politicus, does not describe the characteristics of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in general, and according to a scientific method, but he proceeds constructively, and builds up, according to his own views, that type of each form of government which he considers best. (162)

(160) Refertur ad universos, quod publice fit per majorem partem.-Dig. L. 17, 1. 160.

(161) Ch. xx. § 6; and compare ch. xiii. § 4.

(162) See Tract. Pol. c. 8, § 31, where he describes himself as omitting certain points, quia ad meum institutum, quod solummodo est imperii cujuscumque optimum statum describere, non spectant.'

The Tractatus Politicus of Spinoza is incomplete. He was prevented from finishing it by his death, which took place in 1677. The descriptions of monarchy and aristocracy are entire; but of the description of democracy there are only four introductory paragraphs. The title, prefixed by the posthumous editor, thus describes the work: Tractatus Politicus, in quo demonstratur quomodo societas ubi imperium monarchicum locum habet, sicut et ea ubi optimi imperant, debet institui, ne in tyrannidem labatur, et ut pax libertasque civium inviolata manent.'

§ 12 Similar theorems as to the general character of certain political relations and laws may be laid down, affirmative of prevailing tendencies, and representing its influence in the majority of cases. Thus, the general character or tendency of imperial, as distinguished from national, government—of slavery, as distinguished from freedom, of the working classes-of direct, as distinguished from indirect, taxation-may be laid down. In like manner, the tendencies of persecution and endowment, with respect to the suppression or diffusion of religious opinion, may be severally traced. Such propositions, however, are, like those respecting the forms of government, only probable; they raise a presumption of a certain result-they do not indicate an invariable sequence; and hence, when they come to be applied in practice to actual cases, they often require correction and limitation, as we shall show at greater length when we come to treat of the application of political theory to practice.