There is no difficulty in showing that the ideally best form of
government is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme controlling
power in the last resort, is vested in the entire aggregate of the
community, every citizen not only having a voice in the exercise of
that ultimate sovereignty, but being, at least occasionally, called on
to take an actual part in the government by the personal discharge of
some public function, local or general.

To test this proposition, it has to be examined in reference to the
two branches into which, as pointed out in the last chapter, the
inquiry into the goodness of a government conveniently divides itself,
namely, how far it promotes the good management of the affairs of
society by means of the existing faculties, moral, intellectual, and
active, of its various members, and what is its effect in improving or
deteriorating those faculties.

The ideally best form of government, it is scarcely necessary to say,
does not mean one which is practicable or eligible in all states of
civilization, but the one which, in the circumstances in which it is
practicable and eligible, is attended with the greatest amount of
beneficial consequences, immediate and prospective. A completely
popular government is the only polity which can make out any claim to
this character. It is pre-eminent in both the departments between
which the excellence of a political Constitution is divided. It is
both more favorable to present good government, and promotes a better
and higher form of national character than any other polity
whatsoever.

Its superiority in reference to present well-being rests upon two