considerable geographical extent. Such interests, on the contrary, are
necessarily the predominant consideration in the mind of the central
ruler; and through the relations, more or less intimate, which he
progressively establishes with the localities, they become familiar to
the general mind. The most favorable concurrence of circumstances
under which this step in improvement could be made would be one which
should raise up representative institutions without representative
government; a representative body or bodies, drawn from the
localities, making itself the auxiliary and instrument of the central
power, but seldom attempting to thwart or control it. The people being
thus taken, as it were, into council, though not sharing the supreme
power, the political education given by the central authority is
carried home, much more effectually than it could otherwise be, to the
local chiefs and to the population generally, while, at the same time,
a tradition is kept up of government by general consent, or at least,
the sanction of tradition is not given to government without it,
which, when consecrated by custom, has so often put a bad end to a
good beginning, and is one of the most frequent causes of the sad
fatality which in most countries has stopped improvement in so early a
stage, because the work of some one period has been so done as to bar
the needful work of the ages following. Meanwhile, it may be laid down
as a political truth, that by irresponsible monarchy rather than by
representative government can a multitude of insignificant political
units be welded into a people, with common feelings of cohesion, power
enough to protect itself against conquest or foreign aggression, and
affairs sufficiently various and considerable of its own to occupy
worthily and expand to fit proportions the social and political
intelligence of the population.

For these several reasons, kingly government, free from the control