the two others, I should not find myself nearer
the solution of the practical problem. A nation does not
change the form of its government with the same facility
that a man changes his coat. A nation in general only
changes the form of its government by means of a violent
revolution.... The history of forcible attempts to improve
governments is not cheering. Looking back upon the course of
revolutionary movements, and upon the character of their
consequences, the practical conclusion which I draw is, that
it is the part of wisdom and prudence to acquiesce in any
form of government, which is tolerably well administered,
and affords tolerable security to person and property. I
would not, indeed, yield to apathetic despair or acquiesce
in the persuasion that a merely tolerable government is
incapable of improvement. I would form an individual model,
suitable to the character, disposition, wants, and
circumstances of the country, and I would make all
exertions, whether by action or by writing, within the
limits of the existing law, for ameliorating its existing
condition, and bringing it nearer to the model selected for
imitation; but I should consider the problem of the best
form of government as purely ideal, and as unconnected with
practice; and should abstain from taking a ticket in the
lottery of revolution, unless there was a well-founded
expectation that it would come out a prize.'

The conservatism of Lewis was that of a profoundly sceptical instinct,
of practical cautious incredulity. Bagehot's was the conservatism of
middle-class English thought and experience. Tocqueville's was that of
wide observation and bitter disappointment. Mill was a Conservative only
so far as conservatism was forced upon a mind essentially radical and
even revolutionary, imbued with a profound faith in abstract principles
leading far beyond universal suffrage to, if not across the verge of
communism, by the danger which he foresaw to individual liberty and
unfettered intellectual freedom from the ascendency of mere numbers.
Upon this point he agreed closely with Tocqueville, though upon nearly
every other their views were as opposite as their character and
experience; and their teaching has been fully confirmed by the actual
working of the most successful, the most tolerant, and the most
fortunately situated democracy