ABSTRACT
When moral philosophy passes from an oracular phase into one that, at least in theory, is exclusively humanitarian, the object and criterion of good government will be said to be “the good of the people.” This way of expressing it does not exclude from the functions 398of government all concern for country, glory, monuments, science, letters, or religion. The cultivation of these interests might well form a part of the good proper to the people, or to a part of them. Yet humanitarian morality excludes ideal aims except as they may be psychological demands in living persons; that they may have been occasionally the goods chiefly prized by mankind, or may be such in the future, would not make them the good of the people now. Leaving for consideration later what the good of the people may be, I will first consider more carefully the scope of this term “the People.”
