In the consolidation of public opinion into two definite lines of policy based on the questions to be dealt with lies the only hope, then, of the progress of the individual States within their own range; and in promoting this desirable result the reform advocated in these pages finds its true application.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.

+The Agent of Progress.+—­If the analysis made in the preceding pages of the principles underlying political representation comes to be regarded as correct, the science of sociology must be profoundly affected:  for it is a fact that not only the importance but the very existence of the principles involved has been completely missed by speculators in that field.  The view we have taken is that representation is the most important sociological invention which has been made in the whole history of the human race; that the successive steps taken in the evolution of the British Constitution mark a series of inventions scarcely less important, and that the resulting institution of party and responsible government is the indispensable agent of democratic progress.  We have traced throughout the electoral and parliamentary machinery on which the institution is based the action of two great principles—­organization and responsible leadership—­and we have shown that these are the mainsprings of the whole mechanism.  Yet we find even such an authority as Mr. Herbert Spencer objecting to the party system, on the ground that it lends itself to a one-man or a one-party tyranny.[9] The fact is that it is only when representative government is weak, and approaches direct government, that such a result can happen, and the distinction is so little recognized that a brief recapitulation may be permitted.

The fundamental error is in conceiving representation as merely a means of registering the popular will; many even go so far as to regard it as an imperfect means of ensuring that each single question will be decided according to the will of the majority.  All such conceptions really amount to direct government, and where they are given effect to, whether by the referendum or sectional delegation, society is not organized for consistent progress.  Indeed, if the lessons of history can be trusted, such a state of society is bound to be wrecked from within by anti-social influences; political power becomes the object of factious strife, and the rule of the majority degenerates into the tyranny of the majority.

We have endeavoured to show that the true conception of representative government involves a recognition of the principles of organization and leadership, and that representation is in consequence a means not only of registering the popular will, but also of organizing and guiding it.  In both cases, therefore, the popular will is the ultimate motive force, but in the one case the desires of the people clash, while