this standard, so will the government improve in quality up to the
point of excellence, attainable but nowhere attained, where the
officers of government, themselves persons of superior virtue and
intellect, are surrounded by the atmosphere of a virtuous and
enlightened public opinion.

The first element of good government, therefore, being the virtue and
intelligence of the human beings composing the community, the most
important point of excellence which any form of government can possess
is to promote the virtue and intelligence of the people themselves.
The first question in respect to any political institutions is how far
they tend to foster in the members of the community the various
desirable qualities, moral and intellectual, or rather (following
Bentham's more complete classification) moral, intellectual, and
active. The government which does this the best has every likelihood
of being the best in all other respects, since it is on these
qualities, so far as they exist in the people, that all possibility of
goodness in the practical operations of the government depends.

We may consider, then, as one criterion of the goodness of a
government, the degree in which it tends to increase the sum of good
qualities in the governed, collectively and individually, since,
besides that their well-being is the sole object of government, their
good qualities supply the moving force which works the machinery. This
leaves, as the other constituent element of the merit of a government,
the quality of the machinery itself; that is, the degree in which it
is adapted to take advantage of the amount of good qualities which may
at any time exist, and make them instrumental to the right purposes.
Let us again take the subject of judicature as an example and
illustration. The judicial system being given, the goodness of the