"All government is a system of restraint and compulsion; preventing men from doing some things and obliging them to do other things. To lay down any universal rules for civil liberty is impracticable. The rules must vary according to the conditions of the community to which they are applied. Men are born members of some society—either so rude that it is called savage, or in a condition more or less civilized. Wherever born, they are not born free. If they survive their childhood—a period of helpless subservience-they find themselves subject to the customs or laws which prevail around them. All the institutions of society are limitations of liberty. How best to reconcile the liberty of individuals with the general interests of society is the problem to be solved.

"Men are not agreed upon the laws which are to form the basis of human society. The laws of marriage are a restriction of liberty, in

regard to which men are not agreed. The laws of property are matters of dispute," &c., &c.

This able writer demolishes natural liberty altogether, and contends that the expression "civil liberty" has not any precise meaning.

The familiar phrases, religious liberty, liberty of the press, liberty of bequest, &c., are only expressions for degrees of freedom qualified by some restrictions in every civilized community.

After reference to the writings of Locke, of John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Froude, and of Sir James Stephen, the result arrived at is, that the phrase natural liberty has no intelligible meaning; civil liberty cannot be defined, as the expression is vague and variable; and personal liberty, "Potestas vivendi ut velis," is not granted to man living under any form of government.

Tocqueville, after contemplating American society, remarked: "Il n'y a rien de moins indépendant qu'un citoyen libre."

Democracy has not been favourable to human freedom. The ancient republics imposed a system of drill and discipline incompatible with personal liberty, and they did not even tolerate freedom of opinion.

Political philosophers from Plato to Comte paid little respect to human liberty whenever it interfered with their own theories of government.

The principles enunciated by Plato would warrant the condemnation of Socrates. Comte, as J. Stuart Mill observed, proposed a system of government quite as oppressive and intolerant as any propounded by the ancient philosophers of Greece;-and in a preceding page it has been shown that Mill suggested man should not "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth;" declaring, moreover, that this prohibition of the universal instinct of humanity was not a restriction of human liberty! A Zulu king is not more arbitrary and despotic than a Radical philosopher.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF ARISTOCRACY.

"Vocantur illi optimates quasi optimi."-CICERO.

ARISTOCRACY, according to the meaning of the word, is a form of government where the chief authority is vested in the most eminent

men.

The word did not originally signify a class of hereditary rulers, but rather a privileged order to which men might rise by meritorious public service. Aristocracy is now commonly used to designate persons who have inherited social rank not necessarily connected with political power.

Aristocrat is a word of modern origin; it is not in Johnson's Dictionary, but was probably imported from France at the end of the last century. The separation of classes in

that country led to the use of appellations, for which in English we have no equivalent terms: "roturier," "vilain," "bourgeois," were designations by which the French nobility stigmatized all other classes of the community. These classes retorted by identifying " aristocrat" with enmity to the people.

Offensive appellations produce more ill-will than graver injuries, as history and daily experience abundantly prove. Hatred, moreover, seems to linger in the breast of a people long after the actual grievance which engendered it has been removed.

According to the strict meaning of the word, the French nobility in the last century were not an aristocracy; they were not the governing class. At an earlier period Lewis XIV did not select his ministers from the nobility; even in the provinces, although he allowed a nobleman to represent the dignity of government, he sent an official "intendant" to administer the affairs.