ose who enjoy the social advantages
of a settled form of government, and other blessings which accompany
elliptical jurisdiction and laws. [Two tangents are drawn to an
ellipse.] No matter where the individual may be in the unhappy envious
straight line, the result of his reflection will be the same.
Sympathetic chords are drawn, joining the points of contact of the
tangents with the curve; they all pass through a fixed point. All these
conclusions of the various individuals on the straight line will be the
same. All are of opinion that the elliptical form is the best; and they
mourn in secret over the sad events which have occurred in their own
national life, their eccentricity, their lawlessness, when they see the
advantages which their more staid and sober-minded neighbours so freely
enjoy.

2. The normal at any point of an ellipse bisects the angle between the
focal distances of that point.

The normal is the perpendicular from the point on the major axis; it is
the line of thought directed by the observance of just laws and rules.
Hence this proposition shows that the individual citizen, when guided by
sound judgment, regards with equal favour and entire approval the
existence of both foci, or Houses of Legislature. He considers that both
are necessary to his comfort, and the right regulation of the State's
welfare. He cares not for the _abnormal_ condition of those who talk as
if the existence of either House were unnecessary to his country's weal,
and bestows a pitying glance on those wandering lights, or disturbed
erratic governments, which do not possess the advantages which from
experience he has learned to love and to respect. No matter what his
condition may be, the same opinions are held by all classes, all ranks
and degrees; and if a self-opinionated particle think otherwise, he ought
to be transferred to a less enlightened sphere, and migrate to a
parabolic state, or uninteresting straight line. And when he has changed
his location, he will look back on his old home and old surroundings
with longing eyes and an aching heart, thinking of the blessings he has
lost by his own rash act. This can be proved mathematically. He looks
for an ideal state of society, leaps after the shadow his fancy has
depicted; and when he finds himself outside his former state, he looks
back with longing eyes at the once-scorned focus. What is the focus of a
perpendicular on the tangent of an ellipse from any external point? Can