 To reiterate, conservatism is not essentially associated with aristocracy and hereditary forms of government, or opposed to democracy. For conservatives, as for Millian liberals, the viability of democracy depends on the period and conditions. For Burke, writing much earlier than Mill, a majority should be drawn only from a body qualified by tradition, station, education, property and moral nature; he questioned the “principle that a majority of men told [i.e., counted] by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is to be a law” (Burke 1791, ‘Thoughts on French Affairs’ [1991]: 344).