which, in some degree,
answer to this description; that the poor compose the class which
government is established to restrain, and the people of some property
the class to which the powers of government may without danger be
confided. It might be said that a man who can barely earn a livelihood
by severe labour is under stronger temptations to pillage others than a
man who enjoys many luxuries. It might be said that a man who is lost in
the crowd is less likely to have the fear of public opinion before his
eyes than a man whose station and mode of living render him conspicuous.
We do not assert all this. We only say that it was Mr Mill's business to
prove the contrary; and that, not having proved the contrary, he is not
entitled to say, "that those principles which imply that government is
at all necessary, imply that an aristocracy will make use of its power
to defeat the end for which governments exist." This is not true,
unless it be true that a rich man is as likely to covet the goods of
his neighbours as a poor man, and that a poor man is as likely to be
solicitous about the opinions of his neighbours as a rich man.

But we do not see that, by reasoning a priori on such subjects as these,
it is possible to advance one single step. We know that every man has
some desires which he can gratify only by hurting his neighbours, and
some which he can gratify only by pleasing them. Mr Mill has chosen
to look only at one-half of human nature, and to reason on the motives
which impel men to oppress and despoil others, as if they were the only
motives by which men could possibly be influenced. We have already shown
that, by taking the other half of the human character, and reasoning
on it as if it were the whole, we can bring out a result diametrically
opposite to that at which Mr Mill has arrived. We can, by such a
process, easily prove that any form of government is good, or that all
government is superfluous.

We must now accompany Mr Mill on the next stage of his argument.

Does any combination of the three simple forms of government afford the
requisite securities against the abuse of power? Mr Mill complains
that those who maintain the affirmative generally beg the question;
and proceeds to settle the point by proving, after his fashion, that
no combination of the three simple forms, or of any two of them, can
possibly exist.

"From the principles which we have already laid down it follows that, of
the objects of h