statesman before thirty; he may acquire ripe capacities, become prime Minister, the sole pilot, alone able, like Pitt, Canning, or Peel, to steer the ship of State between the reefs, or give in the nick of time the touch to the helm which will save the ship.--Such is the service to which an upper class is adapted. Only this kind of specialized stud farm can furnish a regular supply of racers, and, now and then, the favorite winner that distances all his competitors in the European field. But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for this career, the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to travel too repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal dignity, and refined manners are sources of disfavor with the people; if, to obtain their votes, he is forced to treat as equals electoral brokers of low character; if impudent charlatanism, vulgar declamation, and servile flattery are the sole means by which votes can be secured, then, as nowadays in the United States, and formerly in Athens, the aristocratic body will retire into private life and soon settle down into a state of idleness. A man of culture and refinement, born with an income of a hundred thousand a year, is not tempted to become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For want of other occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of an amateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one of society's great forces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and largest acquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and of moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper branches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young ones, remain sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest and reaches the top it ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the nation is thus condemned to constant and irremediable failures because it cannot find a suitable outlet for its activity. It wants no other outlet, for in all directions its rival, who are born below it, can serve as usefully and as well as itself. But this one it must have, for on this its aptitudes are superior, natural, unique, and the State which refuses to employ it resembles the gardener who in his fondness for a plane surface would repress his best shoots.[2213]--Hence, in the constructions which aim to utilize the permanent forces of society and yet maintain civil equality, the aristocracy is brought to take a part in public affairs by the duration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the institution of an hereditary character, by the application of various machinery, all of which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the culture, and the political capacity of the upper class, and to place power, or the control of power, in its hands, on the condition that it shows itself worthy of exercising it.--Now, in 1789, the upper class was not unworthy of it.