It would perhaps be better to try to put the brake on democracy than to encourage this process of degeneration on the chance of a favourable resurrection. At least this is the course which presents itself most naturally to our mind, and which seems most consonant with duty.
When I say put the brake on democracy, it must be understood that I mean that it should put the brake on itself, for nothing else can stop it, when once it has made up its mind. It must be persuaded or left alone, and even persuasion is a rash experiment, for it dislikes being persuaded of anything but of its own omnipotence. It must be persuaded or left alone, for every other method would be still more useless.
It must be reminded that forms of government perish from the abandonment and also from the exaggeration of the principle from which their merit is derived, though this is a very superannuated maxim; that they perish by an abandonment of their principle because that principle is the historical reason of their coming into existence, and they perish by carrying their principle to excess, because there is no such thing as a principle that is absolutely good and sufficient in itself for regulating the complexity of the social machine.
What do we understand by the principle of a government? It is not that which makes it be such and such a thing, but that "which makes it act" in a particular way, as Montesquieu has remarked; that is, "the human passions which supply the motive forces of life." It is clear then that the passion for sovereignty, for equality, for incompetence, is not sufficient to give to a government a life which is at once complete and strong.
It is necessary to give to competence its part, or rather it is necessary to give competence one part, for I do not wish to argue that there is any question of right involved, I only affirm that it is a social necessity. It is necessary that competence, technical, intellectual, moral competence should be assigned its part to play, even though the sovereignty of the people should be limited and the principle of equality be somewhat abridged thereby.
A democratic element is essentially necessary to a people, an aristocratic element also is essentially necessary to a people.