n instance, accordingly, of that ruder reciprocation which may
obtain among multitudes, I name the Roman Legion.

It is said that the success of the armies of Rome is not fully accounted
for, until one takes into account the constitution of this military
body. It united, in an incomparable degree, the different advantages
of fixity and fluency. Moderate in size, yet large enough to give the
effect of mass, open in texture, yet compact in form, it afforded to
every man room for individual prowess, while it left no man to his
individual strength. Each soldier leaned and rested upon the Legion,
a body of six thousand men; yet around each was a space in which his
movements might be almost as free, rapid, and individual as though he
had possessed the entire field to himself. The Macedonian Phalanx was a
marvel of mass, but it was mass not penetrated with mobility; it could
move, indeed could be said to have an existence, only as a whole;
its decomposed parts were but _debris_. The Phalanx, therefore, was
terrible, the constituent parts of it imbecile; and the Battle of
Cynocephalae finally demonstrated its inferiority, for the various
possible exigencies of battle, to the conquering Legion. The brave
rabble of Gauls and Goths, on the other hand, illustrated all that
private valor, not reposing upon any vaster and more stable strength,
has power to achieve; but these rushing torrents of prowess dashed
themselves into vain spray upon the coordinated and reposing courage of
Rome.

The same perpetual opposites must concur to produce the proper form and
uses of the State,--though they here appear in a much more elevated
form. Rest is here known as _Law_, motion as _Liberty_. In the true
commonwealth, these, so far from being mutually destructive or
antagonistic, incessantly beget and vivify each other; so that Law
is the expression and guaranty of Freedom, while Freedom flows
spontaneously into the forms of Justice. Neither of these can exist,
neither can be properly _conceived of_, apart from its correlative
opposite. Nor will any condition of mere truce, or of mere mechanical
equilibrium, suffice. Nothing suffices but a reciprocation so active and
total that each is constantly resolving itself into the other.

The notion of Rousseau, which is countenanced by much of the
phraseology, to say the least, of the present day, was, indeed, quite
contrary to this. He assumed freedom to exist only where law is not,
that is, in the sa