THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 199 



The child loves to push things to extremes, and, armed with his petty 

 logic, goes from destruction to destruction without concerning himself 

 about obstacles. How many theorists have reconstructed the state in 

 the same manner ! Universal suffrage should never forget that radi- 

 cals may be good opponents, but are detestable governors. Unfortu- 

 nately, in the real world of the ballot, even the violence of the radicals 

 has a chance of success with the masses, to whom often it is enough to 

 promise everything, to get everything from them. 



The liberal progressive spirit corresponds with the age of youth 

 and early manhood, which is especially distinguished by the develop- 

 ment of the productive forces. The young man endeavors to assert 

 himself, to produce, to take his place in the world. Liberal natures 

 offer the same character, and the organizing power which they show is 

 the infallible sign of true liberalism. The liberal loves liberty above 

 everything else ; but he suspects liberties that are granted or gotten up 

 for the occasion. He has faith only in liberty that is innate, or that 

 has been conquered by labor and effort. Progress is his aim. 



The conservative liberal is the man, some forty or fifty years old, who 

 is less concerned about acquiring new possessions than about improving 

 and expanding those that he has. The conservative is less enthusiastic 

 than the progressist, not that he does not appreciate his ideas, but 

 because he more clearly sees the difficulty of realizing them. As the 

 progressist above all loves liberty, the conservative loves pre-eminently 

 the law which gives force and stability to relations that are recognized 

 as necessary. Further, he attaches himself particularly to historic 

 right, of which he maintains even the traditional form. He wishes the 

 movement toward the future to respect the rights of the past. Thus 

 he is little aggi-essive, and his particular force is the defensive. His 

 natural place is after a revolution, or a fundamental transformation, 

 when the living question is to preserve the conquests that have been 

 made, and secure them against new abuses. Great legislators are gen- 

 erally progressists ; great jurists are for the most part conservatives. 

 Reactionary absolutism corresponds with old age, when life is declin- 

 ing and approaching its end, and the passive elements become prepon- 

 derant. Its ideal is passive obedience ; but, if its tranquillity is dis- 

 turbed, it becomes irritable and cruel. 



While we may recognize the part of truth in such a psychology of 

 the parties, we need not believe that each age is rigorously analogous 

 to any of the characters mentioned ; the affair is one simply of general 

 tendencies and means, which do not exclude individual differences. 

 The progress of the state will be regular and consistent with a just 

 conservation of acquired results, if the national representation is com- 

 posed of two great liberal parties, one progressive and the other con- 

 servative, with a few elements of radicalism counterbalanced by a 

 spice of absolutism. The two extremes are gradually becoming more 

 restricted, to the advantage of moderate and liberal tendencies, and 



