anied by a corresponding course of
change. Such polities are ever in progress; at first from worse to
better, and then from better to worse. In all human things there is a
_maximum_ of advance, and that _maximum_ is not an established state of
things, but a point in a career. The cultivation of reason and the
spread of knowledge for a time develop and at length dissipate the
elements of political greatness; acting first as the invaluable ally of
public spirit, and then as its insidious enemy. Barbarian minds remain
in the circle of ideas which sufficed their forefathers; the opinions,
principles, and habits which they inherited, they transmit. They have
the _prestige_ of antiquity and the strength of conservatism; but where
thought is encouraged, too many will think, and will think too much. The
sentiment of sacredness in institutions fades away, and the measure of
truth or expediency is the private judgment of the individual. An
endless variety of opinion is the certain though slow result; no
overpowering majority of judgments is found to decide what is good and
what is bad; political measures become acts of compromise; and at
length the common bond of unity in the state consists in nothing really
common, but simply in the unanimous wish of each member of it to secure
his own interests. Thus the veterans of Sylla, comfortably settled in
their farms, refused to rally round Pompey in his war with Caesar.[75]
Thus the municipal cities in the provinces refused to unite together in
a later age for the defence of the Empire, then evidently on the way to
dissolution.[76] Selfishness takes the place of loyalty, patriotism, and
faith; parties grow and strengthen themselves; classes and ranks
withdraw from each other more and more; the national energy becomes but
a self-consuming fever, and but enables the constituent parts to be
their own mutual destruction; and at length such union as is necessary
for political life is found to be impossible. Meanwhile corruption of
morals, which is common to all prosperous countries, completes the
internal ruin, and, whether an external enemy appears or not, the nation
can hardly be considered any more a state. It is but like some old arch,
which, when its supports are crumbled away, stands by the force of
cohesion, no one knows how. It dies a natural death, even though some
Alaric or Genseric happens to be at hand to take possession of the
corpse. And centuries before the end comes, patriots m