ike those
devotees who worship the statue and forget the deity it represents.
Centralization imparts without difficulty an admirable regularity to the
routine of business; provides for the details of the social police
with sagacity; represses the smallest disorder and the most petty
misdemeanors; maintains society in a status quo alike secure from
improvement and decline; and perpetuates a drowsy precision in the
conduct of affairs, which is hailed by the heads of the administration
as a sign of perfect order and public tranquillity: *s in short, it
excels more in prevention than in action. Its force deserts it when
society is to be disturbed or accelerated in its course; and if once the
co-operation of private citizens is necessary to the furtherance of
its measures, the secret of its impotence is disclosed. Even whilst it
invokes their assistance, it is on the condition that they shall act
exactly as much as the Government chooses, and exactly in the manner it
appoints. They are to take charge of the details, without aspiring to
guide the system; they are to work in a dark and subordinate sphere, and
only to judge the acts in which they have themselves cooperated by their
results. These, however, are not conditions on which the alliance of
the human will is to be obtained; its carriage must be free and its
actions responsible, or (such is the constitution of man) the citizen
had rather remain a passive spectator than a dependent actor in schemes
with which he is unacquainted.

[Footnote s: China appears to me to present the most perfect instance of
that species of well-being which a completely central administration may
furnish to the nations among which it exists. Travellers assure us that
the Chinese have peace without happiness, industry without improvement,
stability without strength, and public order without public morality.
The condition of society is always tolerable, never excellent. I am
convinced that, when China is opened to European observation, it will
be found to contain the most perfect model of a central administration
which exists in the universe.]

It is undeniable that the want of those uniform regulations which
control the conduct of every inhabitant of France is not unfrequently
felt in the United States. Gross instances of social indifference and
neglect are to be met with, and from time to time disgraceful blemishes
are seen in complete contrast with the surrounding civilization. Useful
undert