Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873 / 2008-09-29 00:00:00

And the maxim, that the
government of a country is what the social forces in existence compel
it to be, is true only in the sense in which it favors, instead of
discouraging, the attempt to exercise, among all forms of government
practicable in the existing condition of society, a rational choice.

Chapter II
The Criterion of a Good Form of Government.

The form of government for any given country being (within certain
definite conditions) amenable to choice, it is now to be considered by
what test the choice should be directed; what are the distinctive
characteristics of the form of government best fitted to promote the
interests of any given society.
Before entering into this inquiry, it may seem necessary to decide
what are the proper functions of government; for, government
altogether being only a means, the eligibility of the means must
depend on their adaptation to the end. But this mode of stating the
problem gives less aid to its investigation than might be supposed,
and does not even bring the whole of the question into view. For, in
the first place, the proper functions of a government are not a fixed
thing, but different in different states of society; much more
extensive in a backward than in an advanced state. And, secondly, the
character of a government or set of political institutions can not be
sufficiently estimated while we confine our attention to the
legitimate sphere of governmental functions; for, though the goodness
of a government is necessarily circumscribed within that sphere, its
badness unhappily is not.
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