grounded and ramified system of institutions, checking and modifying one another, strong and self-ruling, with a power limited by the very principle of self-government within each, yet all united and working toward one common end, thus producing a general government of a co-operative character, and serving, in many cases in which, without institutions, interests would jar with interests, as friction-rollers do in machinery.

The institution is strong within its bounds, yet not feared, because necessarily bounded in its action. What can be more powerful than the king's bench in England, in each case in which it acts within its own limits? Now older than five hundred years, it has repeatedly stood up against parliament with success. Yet no one fears that its power will invade that of other institutions; nor did the people of the state of New York apprehend that the court of appeals might become an invasive power, when in its own legitimate and efficient way it lately declared the Canal Enlargement Law, which had been passed by a great majority, unconstitutional, and consequently null and void.

Seeking for liberty merely or chiefly in a vetitive power of each class or circle, interest or corporation, upon the rest, as has been often proposed, after each modern revolution,1 would simply amount to dismembering, instead of constructing. It would produce a multitudinous antagonism, instead of a vital organism, and it would be falling back into the medieval state of narrow chartered independencies. We cannot hope for liberty in a pervading negation, but must find it in comprehensive action. All that is good or great is creative and positive. Negation cannot stand for itself, or impart life. But that negation which is necessary to check and refrain is found in the self-government of many and vigorous institutions, as they also are the only efficient preventives of the undue growth of power. If they are not always able to. hinder it, man has no better preventive. When in the seven

Harris, in his Oceana, St. Just, in the first French revolution, and many former and recent writers, might be mentioned.

teenth century the Danes threw themselves into the power of the king, making him absolute, in order to protect themselves against baronial oppression, they necessarily created a power which in turn became oppressive. The English, on the contrary, broke the power of their barons, not by raising the king, but by increasing self-government.

We find, among the characteristic distinctions between modern history and ancient, the longevity of modern states, contemporaneous progress of wealth or culture and civil liberty, and the national state as contradistinguished from the ancient city-state, the only state of antiquity in which liberty existed. These are not merely facts which happen to present themselves to the historian, but they are conditions upon which it is the modern problem to develop liberty, because they are requisites for modern civilization, and civilization is the comprehensive aim of all humanity.

We must have national states (and not city-states ;) we must

These differences between antiquity and modern times, all of which are more or less connected with Christianity and the institution, are:

I. That in antiquity only one nation flourished at a time. The course of history, therefore, flows in a narrow channel, and the historian can easily arrange universal ancient history. In modern periods, many nations flourish at the same time, and their history resembles the broad Atlantic, on which they all freely meet.

2. Ancient states are short-lived; modern states have a far greater tenacity of life.

3. Ancient states, when once declining, were irretrievably lost. Their history is that of a rising curve, with its maximum and declension. Modern states have frequently shown a recuperative power. Compare present England with that of Charles II., France as it is with the times of Louis XV.

4. Ancient liberty and wealth were incompatible, at least for any length of time; modern nations may grow freer while they are growing wealthy.

5. Ancient liberty dwelt in city-states only; modern liberty requires enlarged societies-nations.

6. Ancient liberty demanded disregard of individual liberty; modern liberty is founded upon it.

7. The ancients had no international law. (Nor have the Asiatics now. The incipiency of international law is, indeed, visible with all tribes, for they are men. The Romans sent heralds to declare war, and the Greek, advised to poison his arrows, declines doing so, "for," Homer makes him say, "I fear the gods will punish me.")

have national broadcast liberty (and not narrow chartered liberty;) we must have increasing wealth, for civilization is expensive; we must have liberty, and our states must endure long, to perform their great duties. All this can be effected by institutional liberty alone. It is neither affirmed that longevity alone is the object, nor that it can be obtained by institutions alone. Russia, peculiarly uninstitutional, because it unites Asiatic despotism with European bureaucracy, has lasted through long periods, even though we may consider the late celebration of its millennial existence as a great official license. All we maintain here is, that longevity, together with progressive liberty, is obtainable only by institutional. liberty. England, now really a thousand years old, presents the great spectacle of an old nation advancing steadily in wealth and liberty. She is far richer than she was a century ago, and her government is of a far more popular cast. In ancient times, it was adopted as an axiom that liberty and wealth are incompatible. Modern writers, down to a very recent period, have followed the ancients. Declaimers frequently do so to this day; but they show that they do not comprehend modern liberty and civilization. Modern in-door civilization, with all her schools and charities and comforts of the masses, is incalculably dearer than ancient out-door civilization. Modern civilization requires immense production; it is highly expensive. Yet our liberty needs civilization as a basis and a prop; our progressive liberty requires progressive civilization, consequently progressive wealth—not, indeed, enormous riches in the hands of a few. Asia possesses to this day hoarded treasures in greater number than modern Europe has ever known them. We stand in need of immeasurable wealth, but it is diffused, widely-spread and widelyenjoyed wealth, necessary for widely-diffused and widely-enjoyed culture.

I

To last long-to last with liberty and wealth-is the great

Indeed, the enormous treasures occasionally met with in Asia are indications of her comparative poverty.

problem to be solved by a modern state. Our destinies differ from that of brief and brilliant Greece. Let us derive all the benefit from Grecian culture and civilization-from that chosen nation, whose intellectuality and æsthetics, with Christian morality, Roman legality, and Teutonic individuality and independence, form the main elements of the great phenomenon we designate by the term modern civilization, without adopting her evils and errors, even as we adopt her sculpture without that religion whose very errors contributed to produce it.

CHAPTER XXXI.

INSECURITY OF UNINSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENTS.-UNORGANIZED INARTICULATED POPULAR POWER.

THE insecurity of concentrated governments has been discussed in a previous part of this work. The same insecurity exists in all governments that are not of a strongly institutional character. Eastern despotism is exposed to the danger of seraglio conspiracies, as much so as the centralized governments of the European continent showed their insecurity in the year 1848. They tottered, and many broke to pieces, although there was, with very few exceptions, no ardent struggle, and nothing that approached to a civil war. To an observer at a distance, it almost appeared as if those governments could be shaken by the loud huzzaing of a crowd. They have, indeed, recovered; but this may be for a time only; nor will it be denied that the lesson, even as it stands, is a pregnant one.

During all that time of angry turmoil, England and the United States stood firm. The government of the latter country was exposed to rude shocks, indeed, at the same period; but her institutional character protected her. England has had her revolution; every monarchy probably must pass through such a period of violent change ere civil liberty can be largely established and consciously enjoyed by the people-ere government and people fairly understand one another on the common ground of liberty and self-government. But no fact seems to be so striking in the revolution of England as this, that all her institutions of an organic character, her jury, her common law, her representative legislature, her local self-government, her justice of the peace, her sheriff, her coroner—all survived domestic war and despotism, and, having done so, served as