There are two forms of real government; absolute Monarchy and absolute Democracy; all others are bastard forms attesting the failure of these, and themselves doomed to fail. The cause of failure lies in the essential folly and badness of human nature. From a stupid and selfish people there is no certainty of getting a wise and conscientious sovereign. Even when that miracle has been wrought, good government has not resulted, for the sovereign, however absolute in theory, however good and wise in fact, is compelled to work through shallow and selfish officials. Democracy suffers the same disability, with the added disadvantage of a sovereign that is never wise and never just. As to limited Monarchies and constitutional Democracies, they are similarly and equally futile. Divided authority is divided responsibility. Restraint of the power to do evil is restraint of the power to do good. Under the “one-man power” (a name, by the way, that our good forefathers singularly chose to give to the rule of the British ministry and parliament) it is at least known who is to blame for sins of administration, and to whom is due the credit for what is creditable. The autocrat can not hide behind his own back. In all the various and vain experiments in government the one cause of failure is eternally manifest; the general moral and intellectual delinquency that makes government necessary—the folly and depravity of human nature. Do the socialists think that they can alter that?—do they believe that after all these centuries of thought and experiment in government in all possible conditions, it has remained for them to devise a system powerful to chain or persuasive to charm the hitherto indomitable and vigilant selfishness to which, despite its ghastly perversions, the race owes its continued existence? Do they believe that under Socialism the laws will execute themselves without human agency; that less than to-day the state will require a vast and complex administration, with the same and greater temptations and opportunities to ambition and cupidity? Under any conceivable system the cleverest, most enterprising and least scrupulous men will be at the head of affairs, and they will not be there “for their health.” You cannot keep them down, and you cannot keep the others up. If the socialist thinks that can be done, he must hold in hope a better kind of ballot than the kind that works him present woe, or a brand-new infallibility for its casting. VIII