A DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY
CHAPTER I
THE ARISTOCRAT AS THE ESSENTIAL RULER
"Neither Montaigne in writing his essays, nor Des Cartes in building new worlds, nor Burnet in framing an antediluvian earth, no, nor Newton in discovering and establishing the true laws of nature on experiment and a sublime geometry, felt more intellectual joys than he feels who is a real patriot, who bends all the force of his understanding, and directs all his thoughts and actions to the good of his country."—Bolingbroke, On the Spirit of Patriotism, p. 23.
It is not my intention in this essay to support any particular aristocracy or aristocrat. I wish merely to throw what light I can upon the principle of aristocracy itself. Often I shall seem as hostile to aristocracies in particular as the most confirmed Radical; albeit, wherever I reveal any abhorrent vice in an individual aristocracy it will be with the object rather of demonstrating how unessential and unnecessary that vice is to the true principle of aristocracy than of stirring up ill-feeling to no purpose.
When one contends 'Fat the hereditary principle, as one of the essential conditions of an aristocracy, is a good principles it is a common thing to hear people reply by calling attention to the number of instances in which it has hopelessly failed. They say, "Look at the Bourbons, the Spanish Hapsburgs, the Braganzas, the House of Osman, the later Stuarts!" Perhaps the reader will follow me and attempt to bear with me for a while, if I preface all my remarks by saying that while I shall make no endeavour to vindicate either the Bourbons, the Spanish
