d this fits it for appointing an aedile. All these
things are matters of fact about which the man in the street has better
knowledge than the king in his palace."

This passage, I confess, does not appear to be convincing. Why should
not a king in his palace know of the riches of a financier, the
reputation of a judge or the success of a colonel just as well as the
man in the street? There is no difficulty in getting information about
such things. The people knows that such an one was always a good judge
and such another always an excellent officer. Therefore it is qualified
to appoint a general or a high-court judge or other officer of the law.
So be it, but for the selection of a young judge or a young and untried
officer what special source of information has the people? I cannot find
that it has any. In this very argument, Montesquieu limits the
competence of the people to the election of the great chiefs, and of the
most exalted magistrates, and indeed further confines the popular
prerogative in this matter to assigning an office and career to one who
has already given proof of his capacity. But for putting the competent
man for the first time in the place where he is wanted, how has the
people any special instinct or information? Montesquieu shows that the
people can recognise ability when it has been proved, but he says
nothing to show that it recognises readily nascent, unproved talent. The
argument of Montesquieu is not here conclusive.

He has been led astray, it seems to me, by his desire to present his
argument antithetically (using the term in its logical sense). What he
really wished to prove was not so much the truth of the proposition that
he was then advancing, but the falsity of quite another proposition. The
question for him, the question which he had in his mind, was as follows:
Is the people capable of governing the state, of taking measures
beforehand, and of understanding and solving the difficulties of home
and foreign affairs? By no means. Then is it fit to elect its own
magistrates? Well, it might do that. Thus he had been led away by this
antithesis so far as to say: Able to govern?--Certainly not! Able to
elect its own magistrates? Admirably! The explanation of the whole
paragraph which I have just quoted lies in the conclusion, which runs as
follows: "All these things are matters of fact about which the man in
the street has better knowledge than the king in his palace. _But_ can
the people