Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/198

 In the representative system, M. Guizot observes:—"Il est vrai, et par le fait nécessaire, que la liberté, la vérité et l'erreur, les volontés perverses et les volontés légitimes, en un mot, le bien et le mal qui co-existent et se combattent dans la société comme dans l'individu, pourront également se produire ; c'est la condition de ce monde ; c'est le fait même de la liberté. Mais à cela deux garanties ; l'une se trouve dans la publicité de la lutte ; c'est pour le bien la meilleure chance de succès ; car ce ne sont pas les hommes qui ont inventé l'analogie du bien avec la lumière, du mal avec les ténèbres ; cette idée commune à toutes les religions du monde, est le symbole de la première des vérités."

The peace and security and strength of social and of individual life depend upon our trust and our trustworthiness. Everything that tends to sap the confidence of man in his fellows, is like an insidious poison in the system,—a worm at the root of every good thought and action. Faith is not a mere theological virtue. It is not a mere metaphysical term. It is enforced as emphatically, though not with the same authority, by the economist as by the divine. Without it there can be none but selfish desires,—nothing but low expectations. It is the golden cord that binds will to duty. Shakespeare has painted in living colours the growth of dark suspicions, which first torture and then madden the wretched husband who distrusts his wife's fidelity. Fenelon has shown us the dismal picture of a tyrannical and avaricious prince, isolated in his palace, his only hope of safety in the bolts and bars that secure his chamber, fearing everything, and having everything to fear, the curse of his subjects and of himself who had lost all trust in his servants and his ministers. A novelist of our day has delineated in a tale the miserable condition of a man without belief in goodness or truth or natural