em; and next, the
EFFICIENT parts--those by which it, in fact, works and rules. There are
two great objects which every constitution must attain to be
successful, which every old and celebrated one must have wonderfully
achieved: every constitution must first GAIN authority, and then USE
authority; it must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and
then employ that homage in the work of government.

There are indeed practical men who reject the dignified parts of
Government. They say, we want only to attain results, to do business: a
constitution is a collection of political means for political ends, and
if you admit that any part of a constitution does no business, or that
a simpler machine would do equally well what it does, you admit that
this part of the constitution, however dignified or awful it may be, is
nevertheless in truth useless. And other reasoners, who distrust this
bare philosophy, have propounded subtle arguments to prove that these
dignified parts of old Governments are cardinal components of the
essential apparatus, great pivots of substantial utility; and so they
manufactured fallacies which the plainer school have well exposed. But
both schools are in error. The dignified parts of Government are those
which bring it force--which attract its motive power. The efficient
parts only employ that power. The comely parts of a Government HAVE
need, for they are those upon which its vital strength depends. They
may not do anything definite that a simpler polity would not do better;
but they are the preliminaries, the needful prerequisites of ALL work.
They raise the army, though they do not win the battle.

Doubtless, if all subjects of the same Government only thought of what
was useful to them, and if they all thought the same thing useful, and
all thought that same thing could be attained in the same way, the
efficient members of a constitution would suffice, and no impressive
adjuncts would be needed. But the world in which we live is organised
far otherwise.

The most strange fact, though the most certain in nature, is the
unequal development of the human race. If we look back to the early
ages of mankind, such as we seem in the faint distance to see them--if
we call up the image of those dismal tribes in lake villages, or on
wretched beaches--scarcely equal to the commonest material needs,
cutting down trees slowly and painfully with stone tools, hardly
resisting the attacks of huge, fierc