His principle of enfranchisement is competency alone. When we turn to another political moralist of a very different school, Professor Sidgwick, we have, at first sight, an entirely novel attempt to reach a principle. Professor Sidgwick, as a sound utilitarian, rejects the transcendental idea of the inherent rights of man, and puts the utility of social life as the first principle. He then urges that the laws will have a better chance of being observed if they have the active consent of all who are subject to them--in other words, if the citizens have elected the law-makers. Thus he gets a general franchise, which he proceeds to limit. He at once admits that only mental or moral inferiority is a ground of exclusion from the franchise, and so neither sex nor poverty can be a legitimate bar. But when he comes to formulate his principle we get the astonishing declaration that "every sane, _self-supporting_ adult" should have a vote. The words I have italicised are put in, quite wantonly, to exclude married women from the franchise. But I need not discuss here the somewhat frivolous grounds on which Sidgwick would exclude wives, nor stay to point out how many highly cultivated males would be deprived of the vote by his arbitrary phrase. It suffices for my purpose that he takes competency alone as the just basis of enfranchisement. Sidgwick somewhere suggests that the poorer citizens should be allowed to prove their competency by a public examination. This idea was elaborated by Mr. Holyoake, who advocated biennial examinations in economics and constitutional history, at which candidates for the vote, of either sex, should prove their capacity. The idea was seriously expounded in the House of Lords, and much discussed at one time. Apart from the question of practicability, however, it would have the peculiar disadvantage of annihilating the electorate. Its principle of competency was generally accepted. Lastly, I may notice the political theorising of Professor Ritchie. In this there is no fantastic casuistry, but a plain restatement of the principle laid down by Aristotle and accepted, as a rule, without the aid of philosophy. The difficulty is practical, not theoretical. The work of government is to be discharged by experts, and the experts are to be elected, on a broad franchise, by an educated democracy. The principle is again competency, and we need not stay to criticise the vagueness of the "broad franchise."