Rousseau_contrat-social

how often will nature and fortune conspire to give him a crown? And, if
royal education necessarily corrupts those who receive it, what is to be
hoped from a series of men brought up to reign? It is, then, wanton
self-deception to confuse royal government with government by a good
king. To see such government as it is in itself, we must consider it as
it is under princes who are incompetent or wicked: for either they will
come to the throne wicked or incompetent, or the throne will make them
so.
These difficulties have not escaped our writers, who, all the same, are
not troubled by them. The remedy, they say, is to obey without a murmur:
God sends bad kings in His wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges
of Heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more in
place in a pulpit than in a political book. What are we to think of a
doctor who promises miracles, and whose whole art is to exhort the
sufferer to patience? We know for ourselves that we must put up with a
bad government when it is there; the question is how to find a good one.
7. MIXED GOVERNMENTS
STRICTLY speaking, there is no such thing as a simple government. An
isolated ruler must have subordinate magistrates; a popular government
must have a head. There is therefore, in the distribution of the
executive power, always a gradation from the greater to the lesser
number, with the difference that sometimes the greater number is
dependent on the smaller, and sometimes the smaller on the greater.
Sometimes the distribution is equal, when either the constituent parts
are in mutual dependence, as in the government of England, or the
authority of each section is independent, but imperfect, as in Poland.
This last form is bad; for it secures no unity in the government, and
the State is left without a bond of union.
Is a simple or a mixed government the better? Political writers are
always debating the question, which must be answered as we have already
answered a question about all forms of government.
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