personality, or, in other words, organization and leadership.  It is in opposing these forces to counteract the selfish and anti-social passions that party government acquires its virtue.  By appealing to their higher nature it induces the people to subordinate their class prejudices to the general welfare, and by setting before them definite moral ideals, and appealing to them by the force of personality, it raises the character of public opinion, and moulds individual and national character to an extent that is seldom appreciated.  Here, then, is the key of human progress.  Direct democracies may hold together so long as there are external enemies to induce the people to sink their differences in the common interest, or so long as there is a slave caste to do the menial work, as in the ancient democracies; but representative democracy offers the only hope of welding together a free people into a united whole.  The unrestrained rule of the majority under direct democracy must degenerate into the tyranny of the majority.  Instead of the equality of political power which it promises, the minority is deprived of all power.  Representative democracy, on the other hand, deprives the people of the personal exercise of political power, in order to save them from the free play of their self-assertive passions, but still leaves to every man an equality of influence in deciding the direction of progress.  Thus every man is induced to express his opinion as to the direction of progress; and the party policy is the resultant direction of progress of all the party electors, and therefore represents their organized opinion.  Now, bear in mind that the true direction of progress is not known, and can only be found out by constant experiment directed by the most far-seeing and capable minds.  It is the means of carrying on this experiment which party government provides.  The party representing the organized opinion of the majority has, rightly, complete control of the direction of progress so long as it remains in a majority.  But, although deliberation is the work of many, execution is the work of one.  Hence the creation of a small committee of the party in power—­the cabinet—­associated with the leader of the party, who becomes for the time being the Prime Minister, the cabinet ministers being jointly responsible for the control of administration and the initiation of measures for the public good.  But an organized minority is quite as essential to progress as an organized majority—­not merely to oppose, but to criticise and expose the errors of the party in power, and to supplant it when it ceases to possess the confidence of the country.  Hence progress under party government may be compared to a zigzag line, in which the changes in direction correspond to changes in ministry.  By this mutual action and alternation of parties every vote cast has, in the long run, an equal influence in guiding progress.  The only justification for majority rule sanctioned by free government is that when two parties differ