enlightened doctrines on all these subjects, though not equally likely
to be understood and acted on under all forms of government, yet, if
understood and acted on, would in general be equally beneficial under
them all. It is true that these doctrines could not be applied without
some modifications to all states of society and of the human mind;
nevertheless, by far the greater number of them would require
modifications solely of detail to adapt them to any state of society
sufficiently advanced to possess rulers capable of understanding them.
A government to which they would be wholly unsuitable must be one so
bad in itself, or so opposed to public feeling, as to be unable to
maintain itself in existence by honest means.

It is otherwise with that portion of the interests of the community
which relate to the better or worse training of the people themselves.
Considered as instrumental to this, institutions need to be radically
different, according to the stage of advancement already reached. The
recognition of this truth, though for the most part empirically rather
than philosophically, may be regarded as the main point of superiority
in the political theories of the present above those of the last age,
in which it was customary to claim representative democracy for
England or France by arguments which would equally have proved it the
only fit form of government for Bedouins or Malays. The state of
different communities, in point of culture and development, ranges
downwards to a condition very little above the highest of the beasts.
The upward range, too, is considerable, and the future possible
extension vastly greater. A community can only be developed out of one
of these states into a higher by a concourse of influences, among the
principal of which is the government to which they are subject. In all
states of human improvement ever yet attained, the nature and degree
of authority exercised over individuals, the distribution of power,