Nothing can be more
loathsome in their naked nature.
Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern, unsuccessful or
prosperous, are things of passage. They furnish no argument for
supposing _a multitude told by the head to be the people_. Such a
multitude can have no sort of title to alter the seat of power in the
society, in which it ever ought to be the obedient, and not the ruling
or presiding part. What power may belong to the whole mass, in which
mass the natural _aristocracy_, or what by convention is appointed to
represent and strengthen it, acts in its proper place, with its proper
weight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question.
But in that case, and with that concurrence, I should have much doubt
whether any rash or desperate changes in the state, such as we have seen
in France, could ever be effected.
I have said that in all political questions the consequences of any
assumed rights are of great moment in deciding upon their validity. In
this point of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right in
the mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding and
altering their government _at pleasure_.
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