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evolved in the following manner.

It began with this idea; king and people, democratic royalty, royal
democracy. The people makes, the king carries out, the law; the people
legislates, the king governs, retaining, however, a certain control over
the law, for he can suspend the carrying out of a new law when he
considers that it tends to obstruct the function of government. Here
then was a sort of specialisation of functions. The same person, or
collective body of persons, did not both legislate and govern.

This did not last long. The king was suppressed. Democracy remained, but
a certain amount of respect for efficiency remained too. The people, the
masses, did not, every single man of them, claim the right to govern and
to legislate directly.

It did not even claim the right to nominate the legislature directly. It
adopted indirect election, _a deux degres_, that is, it nominated
electors who in turn nominated the legislature. It thus left two
aristocracies above itself, the first electors and the elected
legislature. This was still far removed from democracy on the Athenian
model which did everything itself.

This does not mean that much attention was paid to efficiency. The
electors were not chosen because they were particularly fitted to elect
a legislature, nor was the legislature itself elected with any reference
to its legislative capacity. Still there was a certain pretence of a
desire for efficiency, a double pseudo-efficiency. The crowd, or rather
the constitution, assumed that legislators elected by the delegates of
the crowd were more competent to make laws than the crowd itself.

This somewhat curious form of efficiency I have called _competence par
collation_, efficiency or competence conferred by this form of
selection. There is absolutely nothing to show that so-and-so has the
slightest legislative or juridical faculty, so I confer on him a
certificate of efficiency by the confidence I repose in him when
nominating him for the office, or rather I show my confidence in the
electors and they confer a certificate of efficiency on those whom they
nominate for the legislature.

This, of course, is devoid of all common sense, but appearances, and
even something more, are in its favour.

It is not common sense for it involves something being made out of
nothing, inefficiency producing efficiency and zero extracting 'one' out
of itself. This form of selection, though it does not appeal to me under
a