POLITICS CHANGED BY CHANGING IMPULSES 331 



spurred by party rivalry. We refer, somewhat 

 slightingly, to the efforts of these bodies as merely 

 concerned with local government. But there are 

 few Acts of Parliament which affect our lives 

 more nearly than do their multitudinous activi- 

 ties. Their proceedings, it will be said, need no 

 party furbishing to attract attention because they 

 lie so near to the people's interests. This is true. 

 Our interest in public affairs depends upon the 

 closeness of our concern with them. This is 

 assuredly a good argument for the multiplication 

 of parliaments. Issues which affect forty-five 

 millions of people are stretched too widely to be 

 pointed. 







In the drama of political development the 

 action has been sustained by a changing company 

 of impulses, each of which, strengthened by indul- 

 gence, has become, in its turn, a habit of mind or 

 leading idea. Reverence, paid to a king, a priest- 

 hood, or an aristocracy, is the primordial feeling 

 which consolidates a State. It is a conservative, 

 not a vivifying, force and tends to stereotype not 

 only the politics but the usages and ideas of those 

 who are affected by it. The individualistic 

 impulse of self-interest may compete with it ; and, 

 when reverential feelings are not naturally very 

 strong, may gradually undermine the allegiance 

 of the more intelligent and well-to-do classes, 

 prompting them to struggle for the establishment 

 of representative institutions which may secure 

 them from the caprices of despotic authority. 

 By appeals to self-respect, or to vanity, the masses 

 are led to assert their individuality : so democracy 

 is ushered on to the stage, and may hope to 

 remain there in cases where the impulse of 

 deference 1 to the majority is naturally so strong as 



1 This impulse may be cultivated by the young at all events by 

 those of Anglo-Saxon parentage. Upon this fact are based some 

 novel departures in Reformatory organization. 



