It has come into existence with the appearance of representative government on a large scale; its development has been unhampered by legal or constitutional traditions, and it represents the most vigorous attempt which has been made to adapt the form of our political institutions to the actual facts of human nature.

In a modern State there may be ten million or more voters.

Every one of them has an equal right to come forward as a candidate and to urge either as candidate or agitator the particular views which he may hold on any possible political question.

But to each citizen, living as he does in the infinite stream of things, only a few of his ten million fellow-citizens could exist as separate objects of political thought or feeling, even if each one of them held only one opinion on one subject without change during his life.

Something is required simpler and more permanent, something which can be loved and trusted, and which can be recognised at successive elections as being the same thing that was loved and trusted before; and a party is such a thing.
The origin of any particular party may be due to a deliberate intellectual process.