representation than it would be a natural result of any other association that it should be divided into two parties, one perpetually labouring to counteract the wishes of the other. The order and the occupations of mankind,—the distribution of population, and the supply of its necessities, are all provided for by physical and moral laws operating on the diversities of nature and of character which are found amongst men. These differences preserve the harmony and the vitality of social life. In political sentiment there is not less variety than in the other motives of human conduct, and abstractedly it would be no more likely that the political opinions of the electors of a borough should fall into two or three antagonistic divisions, than that they should be composed of twenty, fifty, or a hundred distinct views or conceptions. The dissimilarity would be much more probable than the similarity. Opinion and action in politics would be as various as opinion and action in other sciences, if there were not causes that enter into political bodies, and create a disturbed and unhealthy movement, provoking antagonistic divisions.

On the occasion of adverse desires in a society composed of many free agents, the majority must necessarily decide; but in the formation of a representative body, the purpose is that the body thus to be created, and not the constituent body,

is to be intrusted with the power of decision. If that were the function of the constituent body, there would be no necessity for appointing the representative. It is, consequently, by the majority of the representative body that the decision must be pronounced. It is that majority which speaks for the whole, and is irresistible. It may be likened to an engine of enormous power which crushes all opposing forces. The election is the process by which this engine is constructed, but it is not necessary to the efficiency of the engine that the same overpowering force should have been employed in the process of its construction. It is when the engine is formed that we require its power to be exercised; -whilst the engine is being made,—it is the engine we want, and not the power.

The conduct of men may be actuated by two different motives, one, the desire to do that which is believed to be right,-the other, the desire to do that which shall be attended with direct success. A parliamentary representative is to be chosen by two or three thousand electors, and opinions and interests are greatly divided;-two questions may present themselves to every elector,—the one,—who is the person best fitted by character and talent to fill an office in the duties of which the interests of the nation, to an incalculable extent, may be involved,—and the

other, who will my co-electors be most likely to choose? In other words,-what is right, and what will succeed?

It may be answered, that abstract right, when considered by a prudent man, resolves itself into a question of expediency and practicability,—that it is a case of compromise ;—and that, therefore, the second question is that which such a man is justified in asking. It is true that in all political action we must consider what is expedient and practicable. This is the well-known and just defence of party action. Singly, one man can do little, and yet, by combining his efforts with others having similar objects, he may accomplish much. But it is necessary to consider under what conditions an individual is placed when he is called upon to yield up his own opinions of rectitude and prudence. To what extent is the will at liberty? That which is a free concession amongst persons who have associated voluntarily, to pursue the same objects by the same means, -as the partners or shareholders in a company, or the members of a particular society, may be, and most commonly is, entirely different, when the persons collected together are infinitely various in character, disposition, and object, and their association is compulsory and not voluntary. In such a case the question ceases to be of the nature of a compromise, and becomes one

of mastery. Instead of yielding to the opinion of others with whom the elector has been led to associate by the existence of some mutual basis of sympathy or harmony, he is, in the case supposed, obliged, in order to succeed, to give up his own opinions to those who form the most numerous portion of his co-electors, the greater number being, as one of the conditions of nature, the lower in capacity, and he is obliged also to take into account all the disturbing and corrupting influences which may prevail. He is,to refer again to the analogy of party,-in the position that a member of Parliament would be in,-if, instead of attaching himself to the party with which he sympathises and is content to act, -he found himself indissolubly bound to a section, say of fifty other members whom he has had no part in selecting,-and unable to take any step in which he cannot persuade the majority of the fifty to concur. If he does not remain inactive, his objects must be lowered to, and measured by, theirs. This condition is parallel to that of the elector who is forced to act on the answer to the second question, instead of the first and true one.

The necessity of obtaining a majority involves the necessity of creating a party, adopting a party name, and putting forward some party tenet, or dogma, to all of which the majority must lend itself. It is not usually the political

tenet which has caused the party, but the party which has created the tenet. In none of these things, any more than in the choice of their representative, can the members of the majority usefully ask themselves what they ought to do,the only practical question is, what will be successful? Thus, the process of creating the majority demoralises most of those who compose it: it demoralises them in this sense, that it excludes the action of their higher moral attributes, and brings into operation the lower motives. They are compelled to disregard all individuality, and, therefore, all genuine earnestness of opinion, to discard their political knowledge, their deliberate judgment,—their calm and conscientious reflection,—all must be withdrawn or brought down to a conformity with those who possess the least of these qualities.* The same injurious influences, in a measure, operate on the minorities, whenever they make a decided stand for the purpose of contesting a The most intelligent will have submitted to the most numerous, except that, in the minorities, the greater apprehension of defeat may

seat.

*It is by no means uncommon to hear persons state that they vote for a particular candidate, not from any appreciation of his merits, but to exclude some other candidate to whom they are

more averse.