Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/32

xxviii is deserving of the most profound consideration of all who desire to perpetuate any definite political principle, whether it is possible to insure it for a geographical ascendancy; and whether there are any means of promoting its maintenance so certain and lasting as would be found in a consistent adoption of the sole and simple principle of personal representation.

In framing the constitution, there has been little of that kind of aid which physical science derives from experiments. Government is necessarily established before the question of circumscribing its powers can arise,—and powers once possessed are not often willingly given up. Every step by which a class has been admitted to a new participation in power has been either a concession or a conquest; and the moment of gaining it has been a time of action, and not of speculation. It may have been so far experimental as to have arisen from the sense of some prominent defect in the existing institutions calling for amendment. “Many minds, long ages, and various events have contributed to the advance” of our representative institutions. The successive labourers worked under the unconscious influence of the idea of representation,—though “only seeking to remedy the injustice of some particular case, or prevent the recurrence of some particular evil.” But, “when the idea of any institution becomes distinctly apprehended, we may proceed with a firmer step and more assured success towards its full development. We have the guidance of a principle; we have the clue to what had appeared a tangled maze. Our notions may be termed theoretical, but the theory is a condensation of all the practicality of the past.” The full display of the principle of representation “is as much the function of the future, as the origination and progress of the principle has been the achievement of the past. We have here our test of the venerable and the obsolete; of the use and the abuse; of