simple, that is to say, it
established government of the nation by delegates whom it itself elected
and by these delegates strictly and exclusively. This time we have
reached an apotheosis of incompetence that is well nigh absolute.

This, our present system, purports to be the rule of efficiency chosen
by the arbitrary form of selection which has been described. Just as the
bishop in the story, addressing a haunch of venison, exclaimed: "I
baptise thee carp," so the people says to its representatives: "I
baptise you masters of law, I baptise you statesmen, I baptise you
social reformers." We shall see later on that this baptism goes very
much further than this.

If the people were capable of judging of the legal and psychological
knowledge possessed by those who present themselves for election, this
form of selection need not be prohibitive of efficiency and might even
be satisfactory; but in the first place, the electors are not capable of
judging, and secondly, even if they were, nothing would be gained.

Nothing would be gained, because the people never places itself at this
point of view. Emphatically never! It looks at the qualifications of the
candidate not from a scientific but from a moral point of view.

--Well that surely is something, and, in a way, a guarantee of
efficiency. The legislators are not capable of making laws, it is true;
but at least they are honest men. This guarantee of moral efficiency,
some critic will say, gives me much satisfaction.

Please be careful, I reply, we should never think of giving the
management of a railway station to the most honest man, but to an honest
man who, besides, understood thoroughly railway administration. So we
must put into our laws not only honest intentions, but just principles
of law, politics, and society.

Secondly, if the candidates are considered from the point of view of
their moral worth it is in a peculiar fashion. High morality is imputed
to those who share the dominant passions of the people and who express
themselves thereon more violently than others. Ah! these are our honest
men, it cries, and I do not say that the men of its choice are
dishonest, I only say that by this criterion they are not infallibly
marked out even as honest.

--Still, some one replies, they are probably disinterested, for they
follow popular prejudices, and not their own particular, individual
wishes.

Yes, that is just what the masses believe, while they forget tha