that is the only way in which capacities can be equalised--a very
wasteful and ruinous expedient, and one that the born leaders of the
people will not long endure. Then there is the proverbial fickleness
of democracy, one day all aglow, and cooled down the next, never
pursuing any course steadily, in foreign policy least of all, though
there the dearest interests of the State are often at stake. As one
who lived under such a government once put it: "Sheer democracy is of
all institutions the most ill-balanced and ill put together, like a
wave at sea restlessly tossing before the fitful gusts of wind:
politicians come and go, and not one of them cares for the public
interest, or gives it a thought." (Quoted by Demosthenes, Speech on
the Embassy, p. 383 A.) What they do care for and think of sedulously,
is pleasing the people and clinging to office. In that respect they
are the counterparts of the favourites who cluster round the throne of
a despotic monarch, and suck up his power by flattering him. Peoples
have their favourites as well as kings. To these persons, the Cleon or
Gracchus of the hour, they blindly commit the management of their
concerns, as the _roi faineant_ of old Frankish times left everything
to his Mayor of the Palace, till the Mayor came to reign in his
master's stead; and so has the popular favourite ere now developed
into the military despot. Strong-minded kings of course are not ruled
by favourites, nor are highly intelligent and capable peoples; but it
is as hard to find a people fit to wield the power of pure democracy
as to find an individual fit for an absolute monarch, especially where
the State is large.

9. From all this we conclude that the new-fashioned Magog of pure
democracy, or the perfect sovereignty of the people, is not to be
worshipped to the overthrow and repudiation of all other polities, any
more than the old-fashioned Gog of pure monarchy, idolised by Stuart