Excerpt from A Short Enquiry Into the Formation of Political Opinion: From the Reign of the Great Families to the Advent of Democracy Him personally was all he cared about, and he trans ferred his allegiance on that ground alone. No very prolonged search into the records of history is necessary to show the inquirer how the transformation of Liberals through Whiggism to Toryism was accomplished in times gone by, when similar fears seized hold upon their minds and this is the great difficulty the Liberal party in their prolonged struggle to introduce such political reforms as the advance of civilisation imperatively demands, has always had to deal with, viz. The desertion by its sup porters through fear of their property, or their privileges being undermined by some proposed new reform. We can all understand how easily apprehension of that kind grows with some people in proportion as new property or privileges are acquired but what would become of the weaker section of the community if the stronger were, in attaining the upper hand, to be allowed for ever to band themselves together for the purpose of governing the country in their own exclusive interests P The far-seeing politician, however, cannot fail to per ceive, if he only carries his investigations into the past far enough, that in politics, as in other sciences, there is a resistless volume of force pushing on the develop ment of civilisation to a goal at which each individual will get his deserts and no more, and at which each distinct race; if it has vitality and character enough to be able to survive the dying-out of the lust of conquest, will be allowed by their stronger neighbours to govern themselves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.