The forms in which communities have sought to realize the idea of government, as thus explained, have been divided, from very early times, into three classes: 1st, mon archy, or that form in which the sovereignty of the state is placed in the hands of a single individual; 2, aristocracy, or that in which it is confided to a select class, sup posed to be possessed of peculiar aptitude for its exercise; and, 3d, democracy, or that in which it is retained by the community itself, and exercised either directly, as in the small republics of ancient Greece, or indirectly, by means of representative institutions, as in the constitutional states of modern times. Each of these forms of political organ,. ization, if called into existence by an expression of the general will of the community, maintained by its consent, and employed for its benefit, is said to be a legitimate govern ment (Aristot. Politic. lib. iii. c.•5)—that is to say, a government which vindicates the interests of the collective bodyof the people without needlessly encroaching on indi vidual freedom of action. But each of these legitimate forms was said by the ancient publicists (Aristot. ut sup. and iii. 4, 7) to have a particular degenerate form to which it was prone. Monarchy tended in the direction of tyranny, or a government for the exclusive benefit of the single ruler; aristocracy to oligarchy, or a government for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class; and democracy to ochlocracy, or mob-government —a government in which the majority, who Were necessarily the rudest and most ignorant portion of the community, exercised a tyranny over the more refined and culti vated few. Through these various forms, in the order in which we have enumerated them, each legitimate form being followed by its corresponding degenerate or perverted form, government was supposed to run in a perpetual cycle; the last form, ochlocracy, being followed by anarchy, or no government at all, which formed a species of inter regnum so abhorrent to the social and political instincts of mankind as to induce them speedily to revert to monarchy, at the expense of subjecting themselves to a repetition of the misfortunes which they had already experienced. As a refuge from there evils, the so-called mixed goyernment, or government which should combine the elements of order and permanence of two, at least, if not of all the three pure forms of government, whilst rejecting their tendencies to derangement and degeneracy, is supposed to have been devised. A union of aristocracy and democracy was the form in which Aristotle conceived the government, and spoke of it under the title of the politeia. But the tripartite government was not unknown to speculators of even an earlier date. Plato had shadowed it forth in his laws, and Aristotle himself tells us that it had been treated of by other writers (Politic. IL c. 3). Who these writers really were has been a subject of much speculation, but there is reason to believe that their works con tained mere hints of the principle, and the first writer with whom we are acquainted to whose mind its practical importance was fully present is Polybins, who, with Cicero, by whom he was very closely followed in "the republic," holds it to have been realized in the Roman constitution. The most famouS- example of the mixed government, how ever, is supposed to be exhibited in that balance of powers which has been so often said to form time essence of the English constitution. But in addition to the fact that these are not separate powers, but only separate organs of the one power or sovereignty which in free states is of necessity centered in the general will (see CONSTITUTION), it is extremely doubtful whether any period could be pointed out, either in our own history or in the history of any other nation, in which the sovereignty did not find expression obviously either through the one, the few, or the many; or whether such a period, if it did exist, was not a mere period of struggle and transition.
The question as to how far forms of government are a matter of choice on the part of a free people, or are dictated to them by influences which arc beyond their volition, has been discussed in a very interesting manner by Mr. Mill in his important work on
Representative Government. The conclusion at which he arrives is, that "men .did not wake on a summer morning and find them sprung up; neither do they resemble trees," which, once planted, "are aye growing" while men "are sleeping;" but that "in every stage of their existence they are made what they are by human voluntary agency " (p.'4). This absolute power of human choice, however, is limited by three conditions which Mr. Mill states thus: "The people for whom the government is intended must be willing to accept it, or at least not so unwilling as to oppose an insurmountable obstacle to its establishment; they must be willing and able to do what is necessary to keep it standing; and they must be willing and able to do what it requires of them to enable it to fulfill its purposes. . . The failure of any of these conditions renders a form of government, whatever favorable promise it may otherwise hold out, unsuitable to the particular case" (p. 5). But there arc still more important conditions, not here enumerated by Mr. Mill, but one of which at least is fully recognized in the sequel of his work, which, if not complied with, render forms of government unsuitable not only to one case, or stage of social development, but to all cases and all stages of develop ment. These conditions may be broadly stated as falling under a single category—viz., that forms of government must conform to the constitution of human nature, and recog nize those arrangements of Providence 'which - arcs beyond the reach Of human control, This condition seems so obvious, that one would suppose it could scarcely be overlooked in fixing on a particular form of government, and yet there is none which has been overlooked more freqUently. The most prominent example—to which, in recent years, much importance has been attached by Mr. J. S. Mill and all speculative politicians of note—is that in which a form of government is constructed on the assumption that " all men are equal," the fact of nature being the very opposite. Such a form of government, being founded on a false assumption, can be made to work only by the direct results of its action being counteracted by indirect means, as has been the case in all the so-called pure democracies that have had any permanent existence. The state in these cases is governed not iu accordance with, but in spite of the form of government.
The famous discussion as to what is absolutely and in itself the best form of govern ment, which has occupied so large a portion of human time and ingenuity, is one which we must here dismiss with the observation, that it rests on another question which has been not less keenly and perhaps scarcely less futilely discussed. The second question is, What is the end of government? for it is clear that could f he end-in-itself (the Wes teleion) be discovered, we might limit the discussion as to the best form of government to an inquiry into the means which led most directly to the attainment of this end. Now there are, and have always been, two classes of speculators, who assign what appear to be different, and what by many are believed to be irreconcilable ends or objects to government, and indeed to human effort, separate as well as aggregate. By the one, the end of government is said to be "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," or the greatest amount of human happiness absolutely considered; by the other class it is said to be the realization of the idea of humanity—that is to say, of the divine conception of human nature, through the instrumentality of society– The man-. ner in which the first or utilitarian creed has recently been expounded by its most important adherents, has had the effect of showing that the two ends are in reality coin cident. If happiness be so defined as to render it identical with moral, intellectual,. and physical perfection, the advocate of the ideal end acknowledges that its attainment. would involve, of necessity, the realization of his own aspirations.