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know the manner in which business is transacted in numerous assemblies, will not scruple to affirm that the few who are united, who take an active part in public affairs, and whose station makes them conspicuous, have such an advantage over the many who turn their eyes towards them, and are without union among themselves, that, even with a middling degree of skill, they can at all times direct, at their pleasure, the general resolutions; that, as a consequence of the very nature of things, there is no proposal, however absurd, to which a numerous assembly of men may not, at one time or other, be brought to assent, and that laws would be wiser, and more likely to procure the advantage of all, if they were to be made by drawing lots, or casting dice, than by the suffrages of a multitude.

tion of circumstances having happened at the same time, to raise and preserve among them, during three years, an uncommon spirit of union and perseverance, they in the issue succeeded, in a great measure, to repair the injuries which they had been made to do to themselves for two hundred years and more. (A total change has since that time been effected by foreign forces, in the government of the republic (A. D. 1782), upon which this is not a proper place to make any observation.)

[Since the year 1789, farther changes have been made in the government of Geneva; and it is now a département of the extensive and increasing empire of France. EDIT.]

CHAPTER VI.

Advantages that accrue to the People from appointing Representatives.

How then shall the people remedy the disadvantages that necessarily attend their situation? How shall they resist the phalanx of those who have engrossed to themselves all the honours, dignities, and power in the state?

It will be by employing for their defence the same means by which their adversaries carry on their attack :-it will be by using the same weapons as they do,-the same order,-the same kind of discipline.

They are a small number, and consequently easily united;-a small number must therefore be opposed to them, that a like union also may be obtained. It is because they are a small number, that they can deliberate on every occurrence, and never come to any resolutions but such as are maturely weighed ;—it is because they are few, that they can have forms which continually serve them for general standards to resort to, approved maxims to which

they invariably adhere, and plans which they never lose sight of:-here, therefore, I repeat it, oppose to them a small number, and you will obtain the like advantages.

Besides, those who govern, as a farther conse quence of their being few, have a more considerable share, consequently feel a deeper concern in the success, whatever it may be, of their enterprises. As they usually profess a contempt for their adversaries, and are at all times acting an offensive part against them, they impose on themselves an obligation of conquering. They, in short, who are all alive from the most power-` ful incentives, and aim at gaining new advantages, have to do with a multitude, who, wanting only to preserve what they already possess, are unavoidably liable to long intervals of inactivity and supineness. But the people, by appointing representatives, immediately gain to their cause that advantageous activity which they before stood in need of, to put them on a par with their adversaries; and those passions become excited in their defenders, by which they themselves cannot be actuated.

Exclusively charged with the care of public liberty, the representatives of the people will be animated by a sense of the greatness of the concerns with which they are intrusted. Distin

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guished from the bulk of the nation, and forming among themselves a separate assembly, they will assert the rights of which they have been made the guardians, with all that warmth which the esprit de corps is used to inspire*. Placed on an elevated theatre, they will endeavour to render themselves still more conspicuous; and the arts and ambitious activity of those who govern will now be encountered by the vivacity and perseverance of opponents actuated by the love of glory.

Lastly, as the representatives of the people will naturally be selected from among those citizens who are most favoured by fortune, and will have consequently much to preserve, they will, even in the midst of quiet times, keep a watchful eye on the motions of power. As the advantages they possess will naturally create a kind of rivalship between them and those who' govern, the jealousy which they will conceive against the latter will give them an exquisite degree of sensibility on every increase of their authority. Like those delicate instruments which discover the operations of nature, while they are

*If it had not been for an incentive of this kind, the English commons would not have vindicated their right of taxation with so much vigilance as they have done, against all enterprises (often perhaps involuntary) of the lords...

yet imperceptible to our senses, they will warn the people of those things which of themselves they never see but when it is too late; and their greater proportional share, whether of real riches, or of those which lie in the opi`nions of men, will make them, if I may so express myself, the barometers that will discover, in its first beginning, every tendency to a change in the constitution*.

CHAPTER XII.

The Subject continued.-The Advantages that accrue to the People from their appointing Representatives are very inconsiderable, unless they also entirely trust their Legislative Authority to them.

THE observations made in the preceding chapter are so obvious, that the people themselves, in popular governments, have always been sensible of the truth of them, and never thought it possible to remedy, by themselves alone, the dis

All the above reasoning essentially requires that the representatives of the people should be united in interests with the people. We shall soon see that this union really prevails in the English constitution, and may be called the master-piece of it.

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