ily oppressive, it might seem, he admits, as it
actually seemed to Hobbes and to the French economists, that the fewer
the oppressors the better, and that therefore an absolute monarchy is
the best. Experience, he thinks, is 'on the surface' ambiguous.
Eastern despots and Roman emperors have been the worst scourges to
mankind; yet the Danes preferred a despot to an aristocracy, and are
as 'well governed as any people in Europe.' In Greece, democracy, in
spite of its defects, produced the most brilliant results.[86] Hence,
he argues, we must go 'beyond the surface,' and 'penetrate to the
springs within.' The result of the search is discouraging. The hope of
glutting the rulers is illusory. There is no 'point of saturation'[87]
with the objects of desire, either for king or aristocracy. It is a
'grand governing law of human nature' that we desire such power as
will make 'the persons and properties of human beings subservient to
our pleasures.'[88] This desire is indefinitely great. To the number
of men whom we would force into subservience, and the degree in which
we would make them subservient, we can assign no limits. Moreover, as
pain is a more powerful instrument for securing obedience than
pleasure, a man will desire to possess 'unlimited power of inflicting
pain upon others.' Will he also desire, it may be asked, to make use
of it? The 'chain of inference,' he replies, in this case is close and
strong 'to a most unusual degree.' A man desires the actions of others
to be in correspondence with his own wishes. 'Terror' will be the
'grand instrument.'[89] It thus follows that the very principle upon
which government is founded leads, in the absence of checks, 'not only
to that degree of plunder which leaves the members (of a community)
... the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which
is necessary to keep in existence the most intense terror.' An English
gentleman, he says, is a favourable specimen of civilisation, and yet
West Indian slavery shows of what cruelty he could be guilty when
unchecked. If equal cruelty has not been exhibited elsewhere, it is,
he seems to think, because men were not 'the same as sheep in respect
to their shepherd,'[90] and may therefore resist if driven too far.
The difficulty upon this showing is to understand how any government,
except the most brutal tyranny, ever has been, or ever can be,
possible. What is the combining principle which can weld together such
a mass o