the most rapidly through the next necessary step in social progress.
Such appears to have been the idea of the government of the Incas of
Peru, and such was that of the Jesuits of Paraguay. I need scarcely
remark that leading-strings are only admissible as a means of
gradually training the people to walk alone.

It would be out of place to carry the illustration further. To attempt
to investigate what kind of government is suited to every known state
of society would be to compose a treatise, not on representative
government, but on political science at large. For our more limited
purpose we borrow from political philosophy only its general
principles. To determine the form of government most suited to any
particular people, we must be able, among the defects and shortcomings
which belong to that people, to distinguish those that are the
immediate impediment to progress--to discover what it is which (as it
were) stops the way. The best government for them is the one which
tends most to give them that for want of which they can not advance,
or advance only in a lame and lopsided manner. We must not, however,
forget the reservation necessary in all things which have for their
object improvement or Progress, namely, that in seeking the good which
is needed, no damage, or as little as possible, be done to that
already possessed. A people of savages should be taught obedience, but
not in such a manner as to convert them into a people of slaves. And
(to give the observation a higher generality) the form of government
which is most effectual for carrying a people through the next stage
of progress will still be very improper for them if it does this in
such a manner as to obstruct, or positively unfit them for, the step
next beyond. Such cases are frequent, and are among the most
melancholy facts in history. The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal
despotism of China, were very fit instruments for carrying those