The Altruistic Type of Government 221 



of less wisdom, whether they desire it or not. This is indeed 

 a well defined question. It cannot be denied that authority 

 which emanates from the people, and is to be somewhere 

 personified, may be by them entrusted to a constitutional 

 king, or even to an unlimited autocrat; if the majority find 

 that course desirable. There is nothing in the principle of 

 popular will which demands that it shall be carried into prac- 

 tice only under the forms usually called democratic. But 

 there is in the principle an essential need that the authority, 

 conferred no matter where, shall be sustained by continuous 

 support or consent; and this forbids, or at least discredits, 

 any transfer of that authority which endeavors to restrain 

 the inherent rights of future generations. It therefore denies 

 the existence of a vested right, in any governmental powers 

 derived from the past, and assumed to control the present. 

 Rulers are prone to fortify themselves in power by the 

 personal use of privileges intended to be official. This is 

 strangely true of the institution, even when the office is 

 elective and limited ; and much more is it true when the title 

 is hereditary, and a family lineage is interested in it as a 

 vested right and possession ; and most strongly does the same 

 tendency develop in regard to an imperial or autocratic 

 power, however transmitted. The weakness of human nature 

 is seldom proof against the vanity which sees its eminence 

 justified by its personal qualities ; and fails to ascribe it to 

 the ideal which it is employed to personify. 



Then the need of occasional reversion to aggressive con- 

 duct, which a world environment of imperfect development 

 imposes from time to time, helps visibly to keep alive the 

 belief in, and perhaps too the reality of, individual leader- 



