of all sorts necessary to enable this government to realize its
tendencies, and what, therefore, are the various defects by which a
people is made incapable of reaping its benefits. It would then be
possible to construct a theorem of the circumstances in which that
form of government may wisely be introduced; and also to judge, in
cases in which it had better not be introduced, what inferior forms of
polity will best carry those communities through the intermediate
stages which they must traverse before they can become fit for the
best form of government.

Of these inquiries, the last does not concern us here, but the first
is an essential part of our subject; for we may, without rashness, at
once enunciate a proposition, the proofs and illustrations of which
will present themselves in the ensuing pages, that this ideally best
form of government will be found in some one or other variety of the
Representative System.



Chapter III

That the ideally best Form of Government is Representative Government.


It has long (perhaps throughout the entire duration of British
freedom) been a common form of speech, that if a good despot could be
insured, despotic monarchy would be the best form of government. I
look upon this as a radical and most pernicious misconception of what
good government is, which, until it can be got rid of, will fatally
vitiate all our speculations on government.