ent; and it brings men more near an equality by so
contriving that no vote shall be wasted, and that every voter shall
contribute to bring into Parliament a member of his own opinions. The
origin of the idea is variously claimed for Lord Grey and for
Considerant. The successful example of Denmark and the earnest advocacy
of Mill gave it prominence in the world of politics. It has gained
popularity with the growth of democracy, and we are informed by M.
Naville that in Switzerland Conservatives and Radicals combined to
promote it.

Of all checks on democracy, federalism has been the most efficacious and
the most congenial; but, becoming associated with the Red Republic, with
feudalism, with the Jesuits, and with slavery, it has fallen into
disrepute, and is giving way to centralism. The federal system limits
and restrains the sovereign power by dividing it, and by assigning to
Government only certain defined rights. It is the only method of curbing
not only the majority but the power of the whole people, and it affords
the strongest basis for a second chamber, which has been found the
essential security for freedom in every genuine democracy.

The fall of Guizot discredited the famous maxim of the Doctrinaires,
that Reason is sovereign, and not king or people; and it was further
exposed to the scoffer by the promise of Comte that Positivist
philosophers shall manufacture political ideas, which no man shall be
permitted to dispute. But putting aside international and criminal law,
in which there is some approach to uniformity, the domain of political
economy seems destined to admit the rigorous certainty of science.
Whenever that shall be attained, when the battle between Economists and
Socialists is ended, the evil force which Socialism imparts to democracy
will be spent. The battle is raging more violently than ever, but it has
entered into a new phase, by the rise of a middle party. Whether that
remarkable movement, which is promoted by some of the first economists
in Europe, is destined to shake the authority of their science, or to
conquer socialism, by robbing it of that which is the secret of its
strength, it must be recorded here as the latest and the most serious
effort that has been made to disprove the weighty sentence of Rousseau,
that democracy is a government for gods, but unfit for man.

We have been able to touch on only a few of the topics that crowd Sir
Erskine May's volumes. Although he has perceived