16 HUME I 



that thesis, and dwells on the importance of forms 

 of government. 



"So great is the force of laws and of particular forms of 

 government, and so little dependence have they on the 

 humours and tempers of men, that consequences almost as 

 general and certain may sometimes be deduced from them as 

 any which the mathematical sciences afford us." (III. 15.) 

 (Seey. 45.) 



Hume proceeds to exemplify the evils which 

 inevitably flow from universal suffrage, from 

 aristocratic privilege, and from elective monarchy, 

 by historical examples, and concludes : 



"That an hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and 

 a people voting by their representatives, form the best 

 monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy." (III. 18.) 



If we reflect that the following passage of the 

 same essay was written nearly a century and a half 

 ago, it would seem that whatever other changes 

 may have taken place, political warfare remains 

 in statu quo : 



"Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a 

 government as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always 

 carry matters to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or de- 

 merit with regard to the public. His enemies are sure to 

 charge him with the greatest enormities, both in domestic and 

 foreign management ; and there is no meanness or crime, of 

 which, in their judgment, he is not capable. Unnecessary 

 wars, scandalous treaties, profusion of public treasure, oppres- 

 sive taxes, every kind of maladministration is ascribed to him. 

 To aggravate the charge, his pernicious conduct, it is said, will 

 extend its baneful influence even to posterity, by undermining 



