Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/72

 no more than fall weight to opposing and conflicting interests, a salutary check is interposed to all precipitate resolutions. “They render deliberation a matter not of choice but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which materially begets moderation: they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations, and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power for ever impracticable.” How are those who form their opinions upon considerations which the majority do not appreciate,—to bring about this compromise? They must have the power of exercising a volition of their own. Without this, neither reason, entreaty, nor persuasion, can be relied upon. The basis of union and permanence, in the ordinary partnerships by which the commercial transactions of the world are carried on, is the necessity of mutual attention, forbearance, and respect. If this be not rendered by one to the other, the partnership is dissolved. That it is not so dissolved, is because the feebler judgment yields to the stronger, the cautious is encouraged by the more impetuous, the more impetuous is tempered by the cautious, and each character and person derives improvement and profit from the combination. The progress of physical science has advanced by observation of laws which apply to things under our sight, and the application of the same laws to bodies of greater magnitude which are otherwise beyond our vision and comprehension. It reasons from the lesser to the greater. So in political life; an element which is potent, and preserves harmony in the smaller sections of society, may be brought to bear on its larger combinations. Let electors, whether they consist only of the “tens or twenties scattered in vast communities, and whose votes are now utterly without influence in any one place,” or whether they com-