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CHAPTER II.
THAT THE NOTIONS OF DEMOCRATIC NATIONS ON GOVERNMENT ARE
NATURALLY FAVOURABLE TO THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER.
The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign
and his subjects, occurred naturally to the imagination of aristocratic
nations, because those communities contained individuals or
families raised above the common level, and apparently destined
to command by their birth, their education, and their wealth. This
same notion is naturally wanting in the minds of men in
democratic ages, for converse reasons; it can only be introduced
artificially, it can only be kept there with difficulty; whereas they
conceive, as it were, without thinking upon the subject, the notion of
a sole and central power which governs the whole community by
its direct influence. Moreover in politics, as well as in philosophy
and in religion, the intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly
open to simple and general notions. Complicated systems are
repugnant to it, and its favourite conception is that of a great nation
composed of citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all
governed by a single power.
The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every man sees that he differs but little from those about him, he cannot understand why a rule which is applicable to one man should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the slightest privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be the first condition of good government.
I find, on the contrary, that this same notion of a uniform rule, equally binding on all the members of the community, was almost
