Aristocracy, in its proper signification, is neither less nor more than a scheme for rendering more permanent and visible, by the interference of political institution, the inequality of mankind. Aristocracy, like monarchy, is founded in falsehood, the offspring of art foreign to the real nature of things, and must therefore, like monarchy, be supported by artifice and false pretences. Its empire however is founded in principles more gloomy and unsocial than those of monarchy. The monarch often thinks it advisable to employ blandishments and courtship with his barons and officers; but the lord deems it sufficient to rule with a rod of iron.
Both depend for their perpetuity upon ignorance. Could they, like Omar, destroy the productions of profane reasoning, and persuade mankind that the Alcoran contained everything which it became them to study, they might then renew their lease of empire. But here again aristocracy displays its superior harshness. Monarchy admits of a certain degree of monkish learning among its followers. But aristocracy holds a stricter hand. Should the lower ranks of society once come to be generally able to write and read, its power would be at an end. To make men serfs and villains, it is indispensibly necessary to make them brutes. This is a question which has long been canvassed with eagerness and avidity. The resolute advocates of the old system have, with no contemptible foresight, opposed the communication of knowledge as a most alarming innovation. In their well known observation 'that a servant who has been taught to write and read ceases to be any longer the passive machine they require', is contained the embryo from which it would be easy to explain the whole philosophy of European society.
And who is there that can ponder with unruffled thoughts the injurious contrivances of these self-centred usurpers, contrivances the purpose of which is to retain the human species in a state of endless degradation?
It is in the subjects we are here examining that the celebrated maxim of 'many made for one' is brought to the test. Those reasoners were, no doubt, 'wise in their generation', who two centuries ago conceived alarm at the blasphemous doctrine 'that government was instituted for the benefit of the governed, and, if it proposed to itself any other object, was no better than an usurpation'. It will perpetually be found that the men who, in every age, have been the earliest to give the alarm of innovation, and have been ridiculed on that account as bigoted and timid, were, in reality, persons of more than common discernment, who saw, though but imperfectly, in the rude principle, the inferences to which it inevitably led. It is time that men of reflection should choose between the two sides of the alternative: either to go back, fairly and without reserve, to the primitive principles of tyranny; or, adopting any one of the maxims opposite to these, however neutral it may at first appear, not feebly and ignorantly to shut their eyes upon the system of consequences it draws along with it.
It is not necessary to enter into a methodical disquisition of the different kinds of aristocracy, since, if the above reasonings have any force, they are equally cogent against them all. Aristocracy may vest its prerogatives principally in the individual, as in Poland; or restrict them to the nobles in their corporate capacity, as in Venice. The former will be more tumultuous and disorderly; the latter more jealous, intolerant and severe. The magistrates may either recruit their body by election among themselves, as in Holland;Chapter r by the choice of the people, as in ancient Rome.
The aristocracy of ancient Rome was incomparably the most venerable and illustrious that ever existed. It may not therefore be improper to contemplate in them the degree of excellence to which aristocracy may be raised. They included in their institution some of the benefits of democracy, as, generally speaking, no man became a member of the senate but in consequence of his being elected by the people to the superior magistracies. It was reasonable therefore to expect that the majority of the members would possess some degree of capacity. They were not like modern aristocratical assemblies, in which, as primogeniture, and not selection, decides upon their prerogatives, we shall commonly seek in vain for capacity, except in a few of the lords of recent creation. As the plebeians were long restrained from looking for candidates, except among the patricians, that is, the posterity of senators, it was reasonable to suppose that the most eminent talents would be confined to that order. A circumstance which contributed to this was the monopoly of liberal education and the cultivation of the mind, a monopoly which the invention of printing has at length fully destroyed. Accordingly, all the great literary ornaments of Rome were either patricians, or of the equestrian order, or their immediate dependents. The plebeians, though, in their corporate capacity, they possessed, for some centuries, the virtues of sincerity, intrepidity, love of justice and of the public, could scarcely boast of any of those individual characters in their part that reflect lustre on mankind, except the two Gracchi: while the patricians told of Brutus, Valerius, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, Camillus, Fabricius, Regulus, the Fabii, the Decii, the Scipios, Lucullus, Marcellus, Cato, Cicero and innumerable others. With this retrospect continually suggested to their minds, it was almost venial for the stern heroes of Rome, and the last illustrious martyrs of the republic, to entertain aristocratical sentiments.
