634 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and from the House of Lords to the House of Commons ; but to rest 

 in it as the permanent form of government would be to proclaim that 

 the final state of society is unarmed civil war civil Avar unarmed, yet 

 with a perpetual liability to become armed, as it did in the United 

 States twenty years ago. Combination for the attainment of particu- 

 lar objects or reforms, whether political, moral, social, or sanitary, is 

 of course an undying necessity ; but it is limited by the object sought; 

 it involves no submission to conscience, nor even of the understanding 

 except in the choice of means ; it does not corrupt ; it need not in- 

 flame; it furls its standard and disbands when the battle is won. As 

 to connection, what Burke's ideal of it was he best could tell ; what it 

 was in the flesh we learn plainly enough from the parliamentary his. 

 tory of his time. But neither combination nor connection, in any 

 moral and rational sense of the term, has anything to do with a sys- 

 tem of government which perpetually sets up the great offices of state 

 as the prizes of a contest between two organized factions, to one of 

 which each citizen is bound to adhere, owing to his party an allegiance 

 in fact higher than that which he owes to his political conscience or to 

 the state. 



It is almost killing the slain, otherwise we might ask in conclusion, 

 supposing the whole community to be convinced of the wisdom and 

 justice of a certain course of policy, is a moiety of it still to take the 

 wrong side for the purpose of keeping up the balance of party forces 

 without which the party system can not subsist ; without which, in 

 truth, a party government becomes of all governments the least re- 

 sponsible ? Such an agreement as would be fatal to the standing or- 

 ganization of civil discord is by no means out of the question ; to it 

 tends the advance of political science and of the scientific spirit gener- 

 ally, which, gradually making its way in all spheres, is not likely to 

 leave politics untouched. In England at this moment the nation at 

 large is Liberal, though in various degrees, and pretty well united in 

 favor of the modern and against the mediaeval principles of govern- 

 ment ; while the continuance of a division depends mainly on the ex- 

 istence of one or two special interests, such as the territorial aristoc- 

 racy and the beneficed clergy of the Established Church. In fine, as 

 has already been said, the best and indeed the only possible form of 

 government, if the advocates of party are to be believed, is one the 

 foundation of which must inevitably be weakened by every advance 

 of the public intelligence, and which the attainment of truth on the 

 great political questions will bring utterly to the ground. 



What, then, is the alternative ? The alternative, supposing the 

 elective principle to be accepted, is obvious. It is the regular elec- 

 tion of the Executive Council by the members of the Legislature. 

 This would be simply the elective counterpart of the Privy Council, 

 appointed under the monarchical system by the king, which is still the 

 legal executive of England. Renewal by installments would keep the 



