was granted that prophetic
vision of the Just Man, accused, condemned and scourged, and dying on a
Cross--nevertheless employed the most splendid intellect ever bestowed
on man to advocate the abolition of the family and the exposure of
infants; that Aristotle, the ablest moralist of antiquity, saw no harm
in making raids upon a neighbouring people, for the sake of reducing
them to slavery--still more, if you will consider that, among the
moderns, men of genius equal to these have held political doctrines not
less criminal or absurd--it will be apparent to you how stubborn a
phalanx of error blocks the paths of truth; that pure reason is as
powerless as custom to solve the problem of free government; that it
can only be the fruit of long, manifold, and painful experience; and
that the tracing of the methods by which divine wisdom has educated the
nations to appreciate and to assume the duties of freedom, is not the
least part of that true philosophy that studies to

Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

But, having sounded the depth of their errors, I should give you a very
inadequate idea of the wisdom of the ancients if I allowed it to appear
that their precepts were no better than their practice. While statesmen
and senates and popular assemblies supplied examples of every
description of blunder, a noble literature arose, in which a priceless
treasure of political knowledge was stored, and in which the defects of
the existing institutions were exposed with unsparing sagacity. The
point on which the ancients were most nearly unanimous is the right of
the people to govern, and their inability to govern alone. To meet this
difficulty, to give to the popular element a full share without a
monopoly of power, they adopted very generally the theory of a mixed
Constitution. They differed from our notion of the same thing, because
modern Constitutions have been a device for limiting monarchy; with them
they were invented to curb democracy. The idea arose in the time of
Plato--though he repelled it--when the early monarchies and oligarchies
had vanished, and it continued to be cherished long after all
democracies had been absorbed in the Roman Empire. But whereas a
sovereign prince who surrenders part of his authority yields to the
argument of superior force, a sovereign people relinquishing its own
prerogative succumbs to the influence of reason. And it has in all times
proved