ies, with different interests, acting separately, and interested in
keeping each other and the executive in check, it is not from the
government that much danger is to be apprehended.

It is not meant to dwell on this particular part of the subject. As those
governed hold a check on the executive power, which alone can be
supposed to profit by oppression, there is a means of defence, in the
first instance, and of redress, in the second, which diminishes greatly,
if it does not entirely do away all danger from encroachment.

Another thing to be said about this government is, that government
and the subject never come into opposition with each other, except
where there is law or precedent to determine between them.

The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and
it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests,
they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most

---
{96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not,
and even those who have separate interests make part of that very
public.--This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the
course of the present chapter.
-=-

[end of page #116]

other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive
power.

It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of
society. Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all
those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in
France, _l'esprit du corps_, for which we have no proper expression,
though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a
fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more
dangerous.

In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of
public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is
limited. It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all
power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men,
from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by
laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such
nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper
subjection. {97}

---
{97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters
must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people,
which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad
purpose. It is, therefore, impossible that the govern