Political Science Of The State

INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CAUSES. 541
ever concerns the public good, will wither under a despotism
with all the readiness of a court to reward talent, it can hardly
be doubted.
A class of writers which is increasing in Importance, although
of very modern origin, is that of journalists. As this class of
writers represent through the press all the varieties of political
thought which are floating in society, it might be supposed that
they can only intensify the shades of political opinion. But
this is by no means their whole work. Their main offices are
to give the news and to comment on public affairs. A subor-
dinate one, outside of the political sphere, is to keep men in-
formed of the social and scientific progress of the world. The
distribution of news is so important that a free, progressive
civilization could hardly exist without it. In politics, if there
were no such check as journals exercised on politicians by
the speedy disclosure of their plans, the evils from this source
would be far greater than they are now. They enable the
constituent in a large country to watch his representative,
and in some sort fill the same office which the citizen in the
small state entrusted to the orators in the ecclesia. When a
journal is committed to able hands, its services to the state
will be at least on a par with those of the principal statesmen
of a country.
In a country where journalists find encouragement, there
must be parties with free room to act and free expression of
opinion. The journal need not exactly represent a political
party in all its doctrines and measures, but, as there are mod-
erate men and intense men in every party, as there are those
who go half-way with a party and those who favor all its
measures, so there will be journals of every sort and suited for
every class of readers. Journals do not make but rather fol-
low parties, and bring them into their most advantageous
condition for acting. Parties without journals will be far less
intelligent than parties with journals.
But what do parties themselves do in a state, especially in
a free state, where alone they can fairly act out their nature ?
This we propose to consider in the next chapter.