Rulers would like us to accept the maxim that in politics they alone are capable of clearsightedness, and that it is therefore for them alone to have an opinion on this subject. They certainly have their reasons for speaking thus, and the ruled have exactly the same reasons for refusing to accept this principle, which in fact, considered in itself and without the prejudices of either ruler or ruled, is indeed totally absurd. For, on the contrary, rulers – even if we suppose them to be upright – are by their position the most incapable of forming a just and elevated opinion on general politics; since the more one is immersed in practice, the less one is able to have a clear view of theory. A necessary condition for a publicist who wants to form broad political ideas is strictly to abstain from any public office or employment: for how could he be at the same time actor and spectator?

But in this regard men have gone from one extreme to the other. In combating the rulers' ridiculous pretension to exclusive political wisdom they have engendered in the ruled the prejudice – no less ridiculous, though less dangerous – that any man is capable, by instinct alone, of forming a just opinion of the political system, and each of us has asserted the duty to set himself up as a legislator.