opinion. Yet it may well be questioned if this same public opinion be
not after all the safest custodian of the public interest, the most
powerful restraint which could be imposed upon these representatives of
the people to compel them to a strict performance of their trust.

Yet while, as we have said, a pure democracy is but another term for the
highest type of civilization, the fact that our form of Government is
not in any sense of the word a democracy, is no argument against our
civilization, but rather in its favor. For it is but a recognition of
the fact that no people on earth is yet fitted for a pure democracy as a
basis of their institutions: it is an adapting of ourselves to that
state of things for which we are most fitted, instead of grasping at
some Utopian scheme of perfection, which the common sense of the nation
tells us is beyond our present capacity. On the other hand, it is a
frank acknowledgment of our own defects and frailties. As the '[Greek:
gnothi seauton]' of the heathen philosophers contained within itself the
germ of all individual philosophy and moral progress, so does it
comprehend the whole problem of national growth and progress. It is only
the rudest, most ignorant and barbarous nation that arrogates to itself
perfection: it is that nation only which, conscious of no defects, sees
no necessity for reform, and has no incentive thereto. The consciousness
of defects, both physical and moral, is the life of all reform, and
hence of all progress; while the capacity to detect error in our system
implies the ability for thorough reform, and the cultivation which
underlies such knowledge implies the inclination to effect it. The
establishment of a pure democracy in our midst, in the present state of
human advancement, were evidence of a lack of that civilization which
depends upon earnest thought and a proper appreciation of the present
capabilities as well as the frailties and imperfections of our humanity.

We have seen that while, in the matter of choosing our rulers and
legislators, our institutions are, in their practical workings,
democratic, in form they are by no means so. This cannot long remain so.
An empty form is of little value, and ere many years the country will
either return to the principles of the olden time--which in the present
advanced state of public sentiment is not likely--or else sweep away the
form and simplify the whole system. Already the question has begun to be
agi