ABSTRACT

Any Government in respect of any composite or complex questions requires the definite support of any general will at all, is bound, so long as it cannot resort to bribery, to manufacture such a will for itself in substantially the same ways. Neither the will of the governing few nor the will of the governed many could, without oligarchic arts, become so much as articulate. With regard to Composite questions, the pure will of the many, unless it is unified by the formative influence of the few, is neither a foolish will nor a wise will. It can come into action and acquire a definite content when the few have provided it with a subject-matter on which to act. In all advanced states of society the exceptional influence of a more or less numerous few is absolutely essential to the operation of the democratic principle, and this fact is at the same time fatal to the theory of pure democracy.