doubt, one step in advance of a savage. He has not the first lesson of
political society still to acquire. He has learned to obey. But what
he obeys is only a direct command. It is the characteristic of _born_
slaves to be incapable of conforming their conduct to a rule or law.
They can only do what they are ordered, and only when they are ordered
to do it. If a man whom they fear is standing over them and
threatening them with punishment, they obey; but when his back is
turned, the work remains undone. The motive determining them must
appeal, not to their interests, but to their instincts; immediate hope
or immediate terror. A despotism, which may tame the savage, will, in
so far as it is a despotism, only confirm the slaves in their
incapacities. Yet a government under their own control would be
entirely unmanageable by them. Their improvement can not come from
themselves, but must be superinduced from without. The step which they
have to take, and their only path to improvement, is to be raised from
a government of will to one of law. They have to be taught
self-government, and this, in its initial stage, means the capacity to
act on general instructions. What they require is not a government of
force, but one of guidance. Being, however, in too low a state to
yield to the guidance of any but those to whom they look up as the
possessors of force, the sort of government fittest for them is one
which possesses force, but seldom uses it; a parental despotism or
aristocracy, resembling the St. Simonian form of Socialism;
maintaining a general superintendence over all the operations of
society, so as to keep before each the sense of a present force
sufficient to compel his obedience to the rule laid down, but which,
owing to the impossibility of descending to regulate all the minutiæ
of industry and life, necessarily leaves and induces individuals to do
much of themselves. This, which may be termed the government of
leading-strings, seems to be the one required to carry such a people