d it is
the only government that has made a voluntary essay, though but a small
one, to reform the condition of the country.

Having thus glanced at a few of the defects of the old, or hereditary
systems of government, let us compare it with the new, or representative
system.

The representative system takes society and civilisation for its basis;
nature, reason, and experience, for its guide.

Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has demonstrated that it
is impossible to control Nature in her distribution of mental powers.
She gives them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which she,
apparently to us, scatters them among mankind, that rule remains
a secret to man. It would be as ridiculous to attempt to fix the
hereditaryship of human beauty, as of wisdom. Whatever wisdom
constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when
it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a
sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes;
but with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing
its place. It rises in one to-day, in another to-morrow, and has most
probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again
withdrawn.

As this is in the order of nature, the order of government must
necessarily follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate
into ignorance. The hereditary system, therefore, is as repugnant to
human wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as it is unjust.

As the republic of letters brings forward the best literary productions,
by giving to genius a fair and universal chance; so the representative
system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by
collecting wisdom from where it can be found. I smile to myself when I
contemplate the ridiculous insignificance into which literature and all
the sciences would sink, were they made hereditary; and I carry the same
idea into governments. An hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an
hereditary author. I know not whether Homer or Euclid had sons; but
I will venture an opinion that if they had, and had left their works
unfinished, those sons could not have completed them.

Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of hereditary government
than is seen in the descendants of those men, in any line of life, who
once were famous? Is there scarcely an instance in which there is not
a total reverse of the character? It appears as if the