eant, his argument would leave the popular theory of the balance
quite untouched. For it is the very theory of the balance that the help
of the people will be solicited by the nobles when hard pressed by the
king, and by the king when hard pressed by the nobles; and that, as the
price of giving alternate support to the crown and the aristocracy, they
will obtain something for themselves, as the Reviewer admits that they
have done in Denmark. If Mr Mill admits this, he admits the only theory
of the balance of which we ever heard--that very theory which he has
declared to be wild and chimerical. If he denies it, he is at issue with
the Westminster Reviewer as to the phenomena of the Danish government.

We now come to a more important passage. Our opponent has discovered, as
he conceives, a radical error which runs through our whole argument, and
vitiates every part of it. We suspect that we shall spoil his triumph.

"Mr Mill never asserted 'THAT UNDER NO DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT DOES ANY
HUMAN BEING, EXCEPT THE TOOLS OF THE SOVEREIGN, POSSESS MORE THAN THE
NECESSARIES OF LIFE, AND THAT THE MOST INTENSE DEGREE OF TERROR IS
KEPT UP BY CONSTANT CRUELTY.' He said that absolute power leads to
such results 'by infallible sequence, where power over a community is
attained, AND NOTHING CHECKS.' The critic on the Mount never made a more
palpable misquotation.

"The spirit of this misquotation runs through every part of the reply
of the Edinburgh Review that relates to the Essay on Government; and is
repeated in as many shapes as the Roman pork. The whole description of
'Mr Mill's argument against despotism,'--including the illustration from
right-angled triangles and the square of the hypothenuse,--is founded on
this invention of saying what an author has not said, and leaving unsaid
what he has."

We thought, and still think, for reasons which our readers will soon
understand, that we represented Mr Mill's principle quite fairly, and
according to the rule of law and common sense, ut res magis valeat quam
pereat. Let us, however, give him all the advantage of the explanation
tendered by his advocate, and see what he will gain by it.

The Utilitarian doctrine then is, not that despots and aristocracies
will always plunder and oppress the people to the last point, but that
they will do so if nothing checks them.

In the first place, it is quite clear that the doctrine thus stated is
of no use at all, unless the force of the checks b