742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dinary trust), and of instituting a tribunal for the trial of offenders. 

 And therefore we are still at liberty, at all events, to entertain the 

 belief that the sight of a single politician suffering a felon's doom by 

 the impartial and righteous judgment of a court of law, for the corrupt 

 betrayal of his public trust, would have a more salutary effect than 

 the interested and reckless denunciations of all the jiarty orators and 

 journalists in the world. 



It is easy to see why, up to thj^ time, party has been the law of 

 politics ; but it is not easy to see why, for the future, and as reason 

 extends its sway over the political sphere and limits the reign of pas- 

 sioUj party should be the law of politics more than of any other sub- 

 ject. Party, we mean, organized and permanent ; such as the parties 

 of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, of the Blacks and Whites, of the Caravats 

 and Shanavests. On social and philanthropic questions, on questions 

 and in movements of all kinds, people combine for a particular object, 

 and the object having been gained they fall back into their ordinary 

 associations. Why should they not do the same in politics, supposing 

 politics to be a matter not of passion and ambition, but of reason and 

 of the public good? This is the answer to the argument on the side 

 of party that nothing can be carried without combination. It can 

 hardly be necessary to meet the argument that political truth can 

 only be hammered out by the constant collision of parties. With re- 

 gard to all other subjects it is supposed that while free discussion is 

 conducive to the discovery of the truth, party feeling and subserviency 

 to party are most adverse to it. But people tacitly assume that they 

 can have party without party feeling and the evils to which every one, 

 when the question is distinctly proposed to him, admits that party 

 feeling must lead. 



Nor, again, need we dwell long on the argument that party is neces- 

 sary in order to keep up an interest in human affairs. Human affairs, 

 according to all present appearances, are likely to be interesting 

 enough to keep the mind of man alive and to give birth to abundance 

 of controversy (if that is the thing desired) for generations to come, 

 without our forming artificial parties for the purpose of enabling am- 

 bitious men to obtain exclusive possession of the power of the state. 



Party is no doubt indispensable to selfish interests, which by tak- 

 ing advantage of the balance of factions are enabled, to an almost in- 

 definite extent, to compass their special objects at the expense of the 

 community. It is indispensable to political sharpers who, without 

 legislative powers or any sort of ability or inclination to serve the 

 public in any honorable way, find subsistence in an element of passion 

 and intrigue. To whom or to what else it is indispensable, no one 

 has yet been able definitely to say. 



Burke himself, the great apologist of party, was the great apostate 

 from it. He called his apostasy fidelity to the Old Whigs ; but the 

 Old Whigs were in their graves, and the i-hetorical turn given by him 



