en while it
circumscribes it, and represses. So have we seen a mountain stream
useless in summer, dangerous in winter, now a torrent now a puddle,
wasting its unprofitable waters in needless brawling; let a barrier be
opposed to its downward course, let it be dammed up, let a point of
resistance be afforded where its waters may be gathered together, and
regulated, you find it turned to valuable account, acting with men's
hands, becoming a productive labourer, and contributing its time and its
industry to advance the general sum of rational improvement.

From the material to the moral world you may always reason by analogy.
If you study the theory of revolutions, you will not fail to observe
that, wherever, in constructing your barrier, you employ ignorant
engineers, who have not duly calculated the depth and velocity of the
current; whenever you raise your dam to such a height that no flood will
carry away the waste waters; whenever you talk of finality to the
torrent, saying, thus long shalt thou flow, and no longer; whenever you
put upon your power a larger wheel than it can turn--you are slowly but
surely preparing for that flood which will overwhelm your work, destroy
your mills, your dams, and your engines; in a word, you are the remote
cause of a revolution.

This is the danger into which aristocracies of power are prone to fall:
the error of democracies is, to delight in the absolutism of liberty;
but thus it is with liberty itself, that true dignity of man, that
parent of all blessings: absolute and uncontrolled, a tyranny beyond the
power to endure itself, the worst of bad masters, a fool who is his own
client; restrained and tempered, it becomes a wholesome discipline, a
property with its rights and its duties, a sober responsibility,
bringing with it, like all other responsibilities, its pleasures and its
cares; not a toy to be played with, nor even a jewel to be worn in the
bonnet, but a talent to be put out to interest, and enjoyed in the
unbroken tranquillity of national thankfulness and peace.

Another defect in the aristocracy of power is, the narrow sphere of
their sympathies, extending only to those they know, and are familiar
with; that is to say, only as far as the circumference of their own
limited circle. This it is that renders them keenly apprehensive of
danger close at hand, but comparatively indifferent to that which
menaces them from a distance. Placed upon a lofty eminence, they are
compar