By what they call reasoning without prejudice, they leave not
one stone upon another in the fabric of human society. They subvert all
the authority which they hold, as well as all that which they have
destroyed.
As in the abstract it is perfectly clear, that, out of a state of civil
society, majority and minority are relations which can have no
existence, and that, in civil society, its own specific conventions in
each corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so as
to make their act the signification of the general will,--to come to
particulars, it is equally clear that neither in France nor in England
has the original or any subsequent compact of the state, expressed or
implied, constituted _a majority of men, told by the head_, to be the
acting people of their several communities. And I see as little of
policy or utility as there is of right, in laying down a principle that
a majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people,
and that as such their will is to be law. What policy can there be found
in arrangements made in defiance of every political principle? To enable
men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the
ends for which they are incorporated into that capacity, we must suppose
them (by means immediate or consequential) to be in that state of
habitual social discipline in which the wiser, the more expert, and the
more opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten and protect, the
weaker, the less knowing, and the less provided with the goods of
fortune.
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