impossible.

The statesman who builds his hope upon the aristocracy, upon the middle
classes, upon the people, will probably, if he have sufficient experience
of them, conclude that all classes are much alike, and that one is as good
as another, and that the liberties of no class are safe in the hands of the
rest. The higher ranks have the advantage in education and manners, the
middle and lower in industry and self-denial; in every class, to a certain
extent, a natural sense of right prevails, sometimes communicated from the
lower to the higher, sometimes from the higher to the lower, which is too
strong for class interests. There have been crises in the history of
nations, as at the time of the Crusades or the Reformation, or the French
Revolution, when the same inspiration has taken hold of whole peoples, and
permanently raised the sense of freedom and justice among mankind.

But even supposing the different classes of a nation, when viewed
impartially, to be on a level with each other in moral virtue, there remain
two considerations of opposite kinds which enter into the problem of
government. Admitting of course that the upper and lower classes are equal
in the eye of God and of the law, yet the one may be by nature fitted to
govern and the other to be governed. A ruling caste does not soon
altogether lose the governing qualities, nor a subject class easily acquire
them. Hence the phenomenon so often observed in the old Greek revolutions,
and not without parallel in modern times, that the leaders of the democracy
have been themselves of aristocratic origin. The people are expecting to
be governed by representatives of their own, but the true man of the people
either never appears, or is quickly altered by circumstances. Their real
wishes hardly make themselves felt, although their lower interests and
prejudices may sometimes be flattered and yielded to for the sake of
ulterior objects by those who have political power. They will often learn