on, by living authority, of the national conduct
to be observed under existing circumstances; and the modification or
enlargement, abrogation or enforcement, of the code of national law
according to present needs or purposes. This government is necessarily
always by council, for though the authority of it may be vested in one
person, that person cannot form any opinion on a matter of public
interest but by (voluntarily or involuntarily) submitting himself to the
influence of others.

This government is always twofold--visible and invisible.

The visible government is that which nominally carries on the national
business; determines its foreign relations, raises taxes, levies
soldiers, orders war or peace, and otherwise becomes the arbiter of the
national fortune. The invisible government is that exercised by all
energetic and intelligent men, each in his sphere, regulating the inner
will and secret ways of the people, essentially forming its character,
and preparing its fate.

Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of
others, the harness of some, the burdens of more the necessity of all.
Sometimes their career is quite distinct from that of the people, and to
write it, as the national history, is as if one should number the
accidents which befall a man's weapons and wardrobe, and call the list
his biography. Nevertheless, a truly noble and wise nation necessarily
has a noble and wise visible government, for its wisdom issues in that
conclusively.

123. Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable of three pure
forms, and of no more than three.

They are either monarchies, where the authority is vested in one person;
oligarchies, when it is vested in a minority; or democracies, when
vested in a majority.

But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously limited and
combined, but capable of infinite difference in character and use,
receiving specific names according to their variations; which names,
being nowise agreed upon, nor consistently used, either in thought or
writing, no man can at present tell, in speaking of any kind of
government, whether he is understood; nor, in hearing, whether he
understands. Thus we usually call a just government by one person a
monarchy, and an unjust or cruel one, a tyranny: this might be
reasonable if it had reference to the divinity of true government; but
to limit the term "oligarchy" to government by a few rich people, and to
call gov