Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/151



In forming an assembly, consisting of nearly seven hundred of those persons in whom the people "may discern that predominant proportion of active virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as in the great and inevitable mixed mass of human imperfections and infirmities is to be found," every element of society requires to be laid under contribution. The State cannot afford to reject the services of any class, especially of any highly instructed class amongst its sons. Observers of the progress of society have remarked that the more general expansion of literature and diffusion of knowledge, invaluable as they are, do not enlarge the proportionate number of men of great eminence; and that, in the production of such men, nature vindicates her exclusive prerogative. Civilisation multiplies in a vast degree those who read and deliberate, whilst it does not produce any greater number of leading minds. It should be a fundamental principle that all possible facilities should be given to persons of every class to offer themselves as candidates for the representation of any portion of their fellow-subjects. This principle is the only just foundation of the resolution of the House of Commons, which, on the 3rd of May, 1783, expunged from the journals all the declarations, orders, and resolutions relating to the election of Mr. Wilkes,