is
absolutely necessary_ if, as the true spirit of the system requires, the
people is to be governed by no one but itself, if there is to be no will
at work other than the will of the people, emanating from itself and
bringing back a sort of harvest of executive acts. Again, I repeat, this
is absolutely necessary, in order that there shall be nothing, not even
originating with the people, which, for a single moment and within the
most narrowly defined limits, shall exercise the functions of
sovereignty over the sovereign people.

This is all very well, but government is an art and we assume that there
is a science of government, and here we have the people governed by
persons who have neither science nor art, and who are chosen precisely
because they have not these qualifications and on the guarantee that
they have none of them!

Again, in a democracy of this kind, if there exist, as a result of
tradition or of some necessity arising out of foreign relations, an
authority, independent for a certain term of years of the legislative
assembly, which has no accounts to render to it and which cannot be
questioned or constitutionally overthrown, that authority is so strange,
and, if the phrase may pass, so monstrous an anomaly, that it dares not
exercise its power, and dreads the scandal which it would raise by
acting on its rights, and seems as it were paralysed with terror at the
very thought of its own existence.

And its attitude is right; for if it exercised its powers, or even lent
itself to any appearance of so doing, there at once would be an act of
will which was not an act of the popular will, a theory altogether
contrary to the spirit of this system. For in this system the chief of
the state can only be the nominal chief of the state. A will of his own
would be an abuse of power, an idea of his own would be an
encroachment, and a word of his own would be an act of high treason.

It follows that, if the constitution has formally conferred these
powers, the constitution on these points is a dead letter, because it
contravenes an unwritten constitution of higher authority, viz., the
inner inspiration of the political institution.

One of these honorary chiefs of the state has said: "During all my term
as president, I was constitutionally silent." This is not correct, for
the constitution gave him leave to speak and even to act. At bottom it
was true, for the constitution, in allowing him to act and speak, was
ac