THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 195 



knowledge nor the mere feeling. On this point Mr. Spencer remarks 

 that, although the vote of the people is not the expression of absolute 

 utility and truth, it is the expression of the people's understanding of 

 them, and of what they are ready to maintain. True ; but is the pres- 

 ent moment all ? Must we not think of to-morrow ? The fault of the 

 masses is want of foresight. They are instinctive, not reflective. To 

 calculate the remote effects of a measure, to rise to the point of view 

 of future generations, to be moderate now, to give up immediate 

 pleasures for future good, perhaps for the sake of an idea that will 

 never be realized, passes the scope of average minds. The fate of 

 democracy is, then, subordinated to the existence of a real public and 

 impersonal spirit in the majority of the individuals : if this spirit does 

 not exist, universal suffrage is only a strife of individual interests — it 

 dissolves the masses into their atomic elements, then arbitrarily gathers 

 up the atoms, and scatters them to the winds. It may be said, and 

 with truth, that the best means of developing a genuine public spirit 

 in a nation is to call the whole people to political life, and that the 

 participation of all in power is an exercise useful to all, and one that 

 develops knowledge of the national affairs in all. But an important 

 distinction must be made in the matter. It is the conquest of power, 

 not its completed acquisition, that gives the most lively stimulus to 

 progress in political intelligence. While the people are contending 

 for their rights against oppression, their intelligence is growing ; when 

 the masses have become preponderant, the current sets in in the con- 

 trary direction. Those who have the supreme power, whether it be 

 one, a few, or many, have no longer need of the arms of reason ; they 

 can make their mere will prevail. Men who can not be resisted are 

 generally too well satisfied with their own opinions to be disposed to 

 change them, or to be told without impatience that they are in the 

 wrong. John Stuart Mill was right in conceiving that the best in- 

 terest of democracy consisted in giving the different classes force 

 enough to make reason prevail, but not enough to prevail against 

 reason. The existing organization of suffrage is far from securing this 

 guarantee. 



The third theory of universal suffrage, higher and more correct 

 than the theories of force and interest, is based on right. Public free- 

 dom is above public force and public interest, and is founded on indi- 

 vidual freedom. The individual has no right to alienate, for the benefit 

 of another, his own liberty and that of his descendants. The object 

 of universal suffrage is to reserve the will of generations to come, and 

 for that reason it involves the suppression of hereditary privileges, of 

 aristocracies and monarchies, and of everything that shackles present 

 and future freedom. 



This principle is morally incontestable ; but the consequences de- 

 rivable from it do not seem to be generally comprehended. From the 

 point of right, suffrage seems to us to imply — 1. A power over one's 



