of the sky as something quite distinct from all the rest, and, though they apply the epithet āsmāni, sky-coloured, not sky-blue, to what we call sky-blue, they would unhesitatingly deny that the sky was blue in the sense in which indigo is blue. They have, in fact, no generic term corresponding to the English blue, the word nīl, which is the most general of all the terms applied by them to colours of the blue class, covering a comparatively very limited area. Thus, while they speak specifically of nil, indigo blue, ferozi, turquoise-coloured, ūsmānī, sky-coloured, Ganga-lati, Ganges-water coloured, a very light, greyish-blue, and so on, they have no generic term that includes the whole of these-a condition of things which, though it may indicate defective linguistic development, co-exists with a highly-developed colour sense.

It can hardly be necessary to adduce detailed proofs of the existence of this highly-developed colour sense among the natives of India. Indian coloured textile fabrics and works of art are now so common among us and furnish such conclusive testimony on this head that to him who doubts I need only say Circumspice.'

JAMES W. FURRELL.

DEMOCRACY AND ENGLAND.

SOME recent writers of the highest intelligence, both English and French, have seemed to derive much satisfaction from the enunciation, as of a great truth, that Democracy is a form of government. As such they bring it to the test of its fulfilment of the duties of government, and fix upon it the responsibilities of government for the peace, good order, and protection of society.

But whatever satisfaction there may be in an imaginary summons on democracy to account for its use, and the advantage to be derived from its governmental properties, there is this drawback to the satisfaction, that there is no defendant to appear to the summons, as the world has never seen a purely democratic government.

There is no form of government into which democracy enters not at all, nor any of which it is the sole and entire principle. The most autocratic monarchy needs a council of advice more or less under popular influences; and the most popular commonwealth must have a head, and a capable central executive.

The most absolute despotisms of the East cannot escape some sort of subjection to their subjects. Even the Chinese Emperor is controlled in the exercise of sovereign power by established maxims and a public censorship which set limits to the prerogative. The chief Lama of Thibet is elected by the priests, whose strength in government is the religion of the people. The Sultan is but the nominal representative of a numerous ministry, to whom the enervating habits of despotism have resigned the real sovereignty; and the mufti's privileges depend practically on the limit of popular endurance.

On the other hand, the most republican government in the West has its President, from whose personal ambition the great founders of the United States feared most for the constitution, and anticipated a possible monopoly of the control of public affairs. Fresh in their memory was the personal influence of George the Third, and they imagined in the President a four years' king.

In fact, there may be monarchy without tyranny, and there may be democracy without popular freedom.

In ancient Rome, during the period of monarchy, the government was more really in the hands of the whole free native people, with an elected chief, than it was during the subsequent commonwealth.

Grecian democracy, emerging from monarchy, never became popular to any greater extent than as an aristocracy of privileged citizens, the bulk of the people being slaves.

The mediæval republics of Italy had no more in common with democracy than the Doge of Venice with the American President. Swiss democracies are mixed aristocracies.

The successive experiments in republican forms of government in France have been as central in administration of the country as the preceding monarchy, and central administration is the negation of democracy.

There has, then, been something of democracy in every form of government, and no democracy has realised purely popular power. The wider, indeed, a democracy becomes, the more inevitable the necessity of a concentration of power for all practical purposes in the hands of a few, if, indeed, it falls not under the direction of one master mind. The nearest approach to the democratic idea has been realised in the United States, and there universal suffrage has been reduced to the minutest, and most intricate, organisation.

Aristotle's theory has proved true in history, that the best forms of government are based on mixed principles, no one element of society being preponderant, and the claims of freedom, wealth, and eminence being all represented. The three distinct principles of government-monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy-are all coincident in their common object-that of national action and order; and the historical variations of forms have been produced by differences of character in peoples, and of circumstances of countries.

No one of the three principles is ever singly embodied, nor can any one of them be abstractedly considered, in worth, above the others.

It was by the expansive influence of the circumstances of its origin that the American Constitution took so democratic a departure from the aristocratic forms it inherited.

The world's history has continuously exhibited a progressive development in the forms of government as population has advanced in number, power, and extension from its original habitation. Three great areas of the world's habitable surface seem to have been assigned, and suitably circumstanced, for the successive establishment of each of the three main distinctions of government.

The patriarchal form naturally adjusted itself to the wants of the first families resident in Asia. Widening societies bred in Europe the wider government of aristocracy. A multitude of nations invading from the East assumed a distinct and uniform type of government

indigenous to Europe, to which only ancestral traces of oriental institutions kept some relationship. Chieftains grouped their followers into nationalities, and themselves composed the national councils. In England, the constitutional monarch attempting absolute power precipitated further the tendency to widen development of government, and the people assumed the sovereignty of themselves, and carried to the capacious field of America a democratic offshoot from European aristocracy. Each successive form of government remains typical of its own area of origin, and promises to remain there, never to be obliterated, however mixed with other forms. Nor has the course of typical succession ever reverted.

There are, however, two nations which seem, as it were, links between the successive stages :-Russian government bears jointly the characters of Asia and of Europe, and England combines the qualities of European and American freedom. They may each derive a permanent vigour from imbibing life from double sources, and inspiring a perennial present with the spirit of the past and future.

The Scandinavian foundation of Russia was as feudal as despotic, and the nobles still mitigate the absolutism of her government.

'What,' said Guizot, has made the fame and fortune of the English Constitution? It is that royalty and aristocracy were originally strong, and that the Commons have acquired from them, and in connection with them, the rights that they now possess.'

The historical sketch just given of the progress of government in democratic expansion would well bear elaboration, but it by no means involves de Tocqueville's fatalistic theory that to attempt to check the progress described would be to resist the will of God, nor does it adopt his warning that we should not obstinately fix our eyes on ruins we have left, whilst the current sweeps us backward to a gulf of doom. We have already said that democracy seems by no means destined to universal conquest, but that typical forms of government in each of the world's areas seem to be ineradicable, and each area is only the scene of a wider expansion.

The English in India do not, and cannot, with all their vigorous self-assertion, europeanise Asiatic forms, and it is thought that the more the House of Commons attempts to intrude English principles into the government of India, the more fear there is of our losing that empire. Fortunately, the postponement of the Indian budget. to the fag-end of every session, and the scarce attendance at its discussion, promise a wholesome non-interference on the part of the House of Commons. We are not likely to commit the folly of attempting to acclimatise English government in Asia.

So, also, democracy, as it flourishes in American atmosphere, would burst the old forms of Europe. Its gradual admission into the English Constitution has been a process of reform, not of revolution. Our aristocratic tradition checks its influx, or absorbs it,

yielding to it, when requisite, in time. It is a process of assimilation, and not of neutralisation.

In this country of late, successive Reform Acts have largely transferred political power from the aristocracy to the middle class; and the last Act, in theory at least, sends it further down, to the lower classes. Yet Mr. Bright has still to deplore our want of resemblance to our New-World offspring. We have not got American democracy transferred into the old home. How far growing democracy will affect our old institutions is a very useful study, if only to check empirical meddling, or alarmist theories, about a natural course of things.

The first study is democracy itself. M. Scherer's pamphlet, which is so ably discussed in the last Quarterly, describes it as the government of a country by those who live by daily labour, such being necessarily the mass of the people. It is in this view the reign of manual workmen, exclusively even of those whose work is mental. But he immediately allows that such national sovereignty must fall ▸ under the control of the higher intelligences of the nation. It may be that the lead will sometimes be assumed by mere demagogue orators and journalists, who will pander to popular fancies. At all events it is impossible that a nation should habitually follow the will of the greatest number, for such an aggregate will could never be ascertainable.

A whole people or its majority, or any number of sufficient force, may precipitate national action under a gust of passion, or maddened by distress; but for normal national conduct both at home, and in relation with foreigners, some sustained and coherent policy is a sine quâ non. But the mass of any people cannot form a united judgment upon political questions in detail, or even a united volition, and practical legislation requires some judgment as well as volition. The democracy of America is necessarily qualified by the requirements of national action, and in such combined conduct capacity, superior intelligence, qualities for command, and strength of will must take their part. The very roughest politics require some study, leisure, and thought, and none of these are much within the command of the mass of any people, most of whom have their time and powers almost wholly occupied with the mere routine, and the necessities, of daily life. It is the folly of soi-disant educators of the people nowadays to suppose science to be the business of all, and that its acquaintance can be got within the intervals of early and continuous labour. M. Scherer truly says, ' Cet enseignement intégral qu'on inscrit dans les programmes radicaux n'est qu'un appât à l'amour-propre populaire.'

To a certain extent, and in a certain sense, there is truth in John Stuart Mill's saying, that the free exercise of the suffrage may itself be an education of the people. But our boasting enfranchisers do not really mean to give their extension of the suffrage in free exercise to the people. They know it could not be independently exercised by