imes, viz., in science and art, in physics, in politics, in
economics, and mechanics. And great as are its attainments at present,
still, as I have said, we are far from being able to discern, even in
the distance, the limit of its advancement and of its perfectibility.

4.

It is evident from what has been said, that barbarism is a principle,
not of society, but of isolation; he who will not submit even to
himself, is not likely to volunteer a subjection to others; and this is
more or less the price which, from the nature of the case, the members
of society pay individually for the security of that which they hold in
common. It follows, that no polity can be simply barbarous; barbarians
may indeed combine in small bodies, as they have done in Gaul, Scythia,
and America, from the gregariousness of our nature, from fellowship of
blood, from accidental neighbourhood, or for self-preservation; but such
societies are not bodies or polities; they are but the chance result of
an occasion, and are destitute of a common life. Barbarism has no
individuality, it has no history; quarrels between neighbouring tribes,
grudges, blood-shedding, exhaustion, raids, success, defeat, the same
thing over and over again, this is not the action of society, nor the
subject-matter of narrative; it neither interests the curiosity, nor
leaves any impression on the memory. "_Labitur et labetur_;" it forms
and breaks again, like the billows of the sea, and is but a mockery of
unity. When I speak of barbarian states, I mean such as consist of
members not simply barbarous, but just so far removed from the extreme
of savageness that they admit of having certain principles in common,
and are able to submit themselves individually to the system which rises
out of those principles; that they do recognize the ideas of government,
property, and law, however imperfectly; though they still differ from
civilized polities in those main points, which I have set down as
analogous to the difference between brutes and the human species.

As instinct is perfect after its kind at first, and never advances,
whereas the range of the intellect is ever growing, so barbarous states
are pretty much the same from first to last, and this is their
characteristic; and civilized states, on the other hand, though they
have had a barbarian era, are ever advancing further and further from
it, and thus their distinguishing badge is progress. So far my line of
thought leads me