Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/654

634 and from the House of Lords to the House of Commons; but to rest in it as the permanent form of government would be to proclaim that the final state of society is unarmed civil war—civil war unarmed, yet with a perpetual liability to become armed, as it did in the United States twenty years ago. Combination for the attainment of particular objects or reforms, whether political, moral, social, or sanitary, is of course an undying necessity; but it is limited by the object sought; it involves no submission to conscience, nor even of the understanding except in the choice of means; it does not corrupt; it need not inflame; it furls its standard and disbands when the battle is won. As to connection, what Burke's ideal of it was he best could tell; what it was in the flesh we learn plainly enough from the parliamentary his. tory of his time. But neither combination nor connection, in any moral and rational sense of the term, has anything to do with a system of government which perpetually sets up the great offices of state as the prizes of a contest between two organized factions, to one of which each citizen is bound to adhere, owing to his party an allegiance in fact higher than that which he owes to his political conscience or to the state.

It is almost killing the slain, otherwise we might ask in conclusion, supposing the whole community to be convinced of the wisdom and justice of a certain course of policy, is a moiety of it still to take the wrong side for the purpose of keeping up the balance of party forces without which the party system can not subsist; without which, in truth, a party government becomes of all governments the least responsible? Such an agreement as would be fatal to the standing organization of civil discord is by no means out of the question; to it tends the advance of political science and of the scientific spirit generally, which, gradually making its way in all spheres, is not likely to leave politics untouched. In England at this moment the nation at large is Liberal, though in various degrees, and pretty well united in favor of the modern and against the mediæval principles of government; while the continuance of a division depends mainly on the existence of one or two special interests, such as the territorial aristocracy and the beneficed clergy of the Established Church. In fine, as has already been said, the best and indeed the only possible form of government, if the advocates of party are to be believed, is one the foundation of which must inevitably be weakened by every advance of the public intelligence, and which the attainment of truth on the great political questions will bring utterly to the ground.

What, then, is the alternative? The alternative, supposing the elective principle to be accepted, is obvious. It is the regular election of the Executive Council by the members of the Legislature. This would be simply the elective counterpart of the Privy Council, appointed under the monarchical system by the king, which is still the legal executive of England. Renewal by installments would keep the