5^2 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



therefore, the private interests of the 

 rulers or of the ruling class is a very 

 powerful force, constantly in action, 

 and exercising the most important 

 influence upon their conduct, there 

 is also in what they do a large por- 

 tion which that private interest by 

 no means affords a sufficient expla- 

 nation of ; and even the particulars 

 which constitute the goodness or bad- 

 ness of their government are in some, 

 and no small degree, influenced by 

 those among the circumstances act- 

 ing upon them, which cannot, with 

 any propriety, be included in the term 

 self-interest. 



Turning now to the other proposi- 

 tion, that responsibility to the governed 

 is the only cause capable of producing 

 in the rulers a sense of identity of in- 

 terest with the community ; this is 

 still less admissible as an universal 

 truth, than even the former. I am 

 not speaking of perfect identity of in- 

 terest, which is an impracticable chi- 

 mera, which, most assuredly, responsi- 

 bility to the people does not give. I 

 epeak of identity in essentials ; and 

 the essentials are different at different 

 places and times. There are a large 

 number of cases in which those things 

 which it is most for the general in- 

 terest that the rulers should do, are 

 also those which they are prompted to 

 do by their strongest personal interest, 

 the consolidation of their power. The 

 suppression, for instance, of anarchy 

 and resistance to law, — the complete 

 establishment of the authority of the 

 central government, in a state of so- 

 ciety like that of Europe in the middle 

 ages, — is one of the strongest interests 

 of the people, and also of the rulers 

 simply because they are the rulers : 

 and responsibility on their part could 

 not strengthen, though in many con- 

 ceivable ways it might weaken, the 

 motives prompting them to pursue this 

 object. During the greater part of the 

 reign of Queen Elizabeth, and of many 

 other monarchs who might be named, 

 the sense of identity of interest be- 

 tween the sovereign and the majority 

 of the people was probably stronger 



than it usually is in responsible gov- 

 ernments : everything that the people 

 had most at heart, the monarch had 

 at heart too. Had Peter the Great, 

 or the rugged savages whom he began 

 to civilise, the truest inclination to- 

 wards the things which were for the 

 real interest of those savages ? 



I am not here attempting to esta- 

 blish a theory of government, and am 

 not called upon to determine the pro- 

 portional weight which ought to be 

 given to the circumstances which this 

 school of geometrical politicians left 

 out of their system, and those which 

 they took into it. I am only concerned 

 to show that their method was un- 

 scientific ; not to measure the amount 

 of eiTor which may have affected their 

 practical conclusions. 



It is but justice to them, however, 

 to remark that their mistake was not 

 so much one of substance as of form ; 

 and consisted in presenting in a sys- 

 tematic shape, and as the scientific 

 treatment of a great philosophical 

 question, what should have passed for 

 that which it really was, the mere 

 polemics of the day. Although the 

 actions of rulers are by no means 

 wholly determined by their selfish 

 interests, it is chiefly as a security 

 against those selfish interests that 

 constitutional checks are required ; 

 and for that purpose such checks, in 

 England and the other nations of 

 modern Europe, can in no manner be 

 dispensed with. It is likewise true, 

 that in these same nations, and in the 

 present age, responsibility to the gov- 

 erned is the only means practically 

 available to create a feeling of identity 

 of interest, in the cases, and on the 

 points, where that feeling does not 

 sufficiently exist. To all this, and to 

 the arguments which may be founded 

 on it in favour of measures for the 

 correction of our representative sys- 

 tem, I have nothing to object ; but I 

 confess my regret, that the small 

 though highly important portion of 

 the philosophy of government, which 

 was wanted for the immediate pur- 

 pose of serving the cause of parlia- 



