ons more conservative of the laws than the laws
themselves, and it embodies in itself all that there is of life, and
energy and growth in the soul of a people. Sometimes history has failed
to give us an aristocracy or that which history has made has
disappeared. It is then that the people ought to draw one out of itself,
it is then its duty to appropriate and preserve the high qualities to be
found in men who have rendered service to the State or whose ancestors
have rendered service to the State, who have special qualifications for
each particular office and a moral efficiency for every form of public
service.

These qualities constitute the acquired aptitude of an aristocracy for
taking a part in the government; these qualities constitute its
adaptation to its social environment, and to its special function in our
social machinery and organisation. One might say that it is by these
qualities that _it enters into and becomes part of the organism of which
it is the material_. As John Stuart Mill has justly remarked, there
cannot be an expert, well-managed democracy if democracy will not allow
the expert to do the work which he alone can do.

What is wanted then and will always be wanted, even under socialism
where, as I pointed out, there will still be an aristocracy though a
more numerous one, is a blending of democracy and aristocracy; and here,
though he wrote a long time ago, we shall find Aristotle is always right
for he studied in a scientific spirit some hundred and fifty different
constitutions.

He is an aristocrat, without concealment, as we have seen, but his final
conclusions, whether he is speaking of Lacedaemon, which he did not like,
or of Carthage, or in general terms, have always been in favour of mixed
constitutions as ever the best. "There is," he says, "a manner of
combining democracy and aristocracy--which consists in so arranging
matters that both the distinguished citizens and the masses have what
they want. The right of every man to aspire to magisterial appointments
is a democratic principle, but the admission of distinguished citizens
only is an aristocratic principle."

This blending of democracy and aristocracy makes a good constitution,
but the union must not be one of mere juxtaposition which would serve
only to put hostile elements within striking distance. I said a
"blending" but the blending must be a real fusion. Our need is that in
the management of public business aristocracy and