1 52 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



The history of the extension of the Roman franchise 

 and its ultimate effects must not be forgotten. Rome, 

 it has been said, was not made but unmade by its 

 politicians. One can hardly overestimate the capacity 

 for wrong-doing which lies in the hands of purely 

 political heroes, who thrive on popular enthusiasms, 

 and neither understand nor sympathize with the genius 

 of development, inherent in the stocks wherein lies 

 the true driving force of a nation. " For exactly a 

 thousand years, the citizens of Rome (with whom 

 those of the other cities of Italy and of other specially 

 deserving states had gradually been put on an equal 

 footing) had enjoyed certain privileges, but they had 

 gained them by burdensome responsibility as well as 

 by restless, incomparably successful hard work." l 



As Rome became more cosmopolitan, the franchise 

 was lowered by successive steps, until, in the third 

 century after Christ, an emperor, not of the dominant 

 race, the degraded Caracalla, extended the privileges of 

 citizenship to all inhabitants of the Empire. Whereat 

 Rome ceased to be Rome and gave way rapidly before 

 the equality of absolute lawlessness. The influence of 

 the stocks who had built up the State was finally 

 destroyed under cover of such well-sounding phrases 

 as universal franchise and the religion of mankind. 



In considering the composition of a second chamber 

 two main principles seem proper to be borne in mind. 

 Firstly, we should aim at securing a hearing for experts 

 in some of the main branches of human knowledge 

 which bear on the science of government. Many of 



1 The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, H. S. Chamberlain, vol. i. p. 124. 



