f democracy, regarding
democratic government chiefly in its origin and phases (for its function
is that of all government) and social democracy chiefly as an ideal,
since its origin is simply that of society itself.

[Sidenote: Well-founded distrust of rulers. Yet experts, if rational,
would serve common interests.]

The possibility of intelligent selfishness and the prevalence of a
selfishness far from intelligent unite to make men wary in intrusting
their interests to one another's keeping. If passion never overcame
prudence, and if private prudence always counselled what was profitable
also to others, no objection could arise to an aristocratic policy. For
if we assume a certain variety in endowments and functions among men, it
would evidently conduce to the general convenience that each man should
exercise his powers uncontrolled by the public voice. The government,
having facilities for information and ready resources, might be left to
determine all matters of policy; for its members' private interests
would coincide with those of the public, and even if prejudices and
irrational habits prevented them from pursuing their own advantage, they
would surely not err more frequently or more egregiously in that respect
than would the private individual, to whose ignorant fancy every
decision would otherwise have to be referred.

Thus in monarchy every expedient is seized upon to render the king's and
the country's interests coincident; public prosperity fills his
treasury, the arts adorn his court, justice rendered confirms his
authority. If reason were efficacious kings might well be left to govern
alone. Theologians, under the same hypothesis, might be trusted to draw
up creeds and codes of morals; and, in fact, everyone with a gift for
management or creation might be authorised to execute his plans. It is
in this way, perhaps, that some social animals manage their affairs, for
they seem to co-operate without external control. That their instinctive
system is far from perfect we may safely take for granted; but
government, too, is not always adequate or wise. What spoils such a
spontaneous harmony is that people neither understand their own
interests nor have the constancy to pursue them systematically; and
further, that their personal or animal interests may actually clash, in
so far as they have not been harmonised by reason.

To rationalise an interest is simply to correlate it with every other
interest which it