The stability obtained by an institutional government is closely connected with the tenacity which has been mentioned; but it is necessary to observe that an institutional selfgovernment seems to be the only one which unites the two necessary elements of continuity and progression, or applicability to changing conditions. Asia, with its retrospective and traditional character, and without political mutations proper, offers the sight of stagnation. France, with her ardently prospective and intellectual character, but without political institutions proper, lacks continuity and political development. There is a succession of violent changes, which made Napoleon I. exclaim, observing the fact but not perceiving the cause, "Poor nations! in spite of all your enlightening men,' of all your wisdom, you remain subject to the caprices of fashion like individuals." Now, it is pre-eminently institutional self-government which prevents the rule of political fashion, because, on the one hand, it furnishes a proper organism by which public opinion is elaborated, and may be distinguished from mere transitory general opinion,2 from acclamation or panic; and, on the other hand, it seems to be the only government strong enough to resist momentary

many firmly-established laws and civil institutions, to which the conquering race continued strangers, at least so far as to remain chiefly soldiers. No reliance is weaker than that which rests mainly on the army, even if the army is in fighting order, which the Chinese is not.

1 The word reported to have been used by Napoleon is Lumières. which may mean men who enlighten or the light which is given. The passage is found in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hèléne, by Las Cases. Napoleon was speaking of the clergy, and the whole passage runs thus:

"Je ne fais rien pour le clergé qu'il ne me donne de suite sujet de m'en repentir, disait Napoléon; peut-être qu'après moi viendront d'autres principes. Peut-être verra-t-on en France une conscription de prêtres et de religieuses, comme on y voyait de mon temps une conscription militaire. Peut-être mes casernes deviendront-elles des couvents et des séminaires. Ainsi va le monde! Pauvres nations! en dépit de toutes vos lumières, de toute votre sagesse, vous demeurez soumises aux caprices de la mode comme de simples individus."

2 Public Opinion and General Opinion have been discussed in the first volume of Political Ethics.

excitement and a sweeping turn of the popular mind. Absolute popular governments are liable to be influenced by every change of general passion or desire, and monarchical concentrated absolutism is as much exposed to the mutations of passions or theories. The difference is only that single men-ministers or rulers-may effect the sudden changes according to the views which may happen to prevail. The English government, with all its essential changes and reforms, and the lead it has taken in many of the latter, during this century, has proved itself stable and continuous in the same degree in which it is popular and institutional, compared to the chief governments of the European continent. The history of a people, longing for liberty but destitute of institutional self-government, will always present a succession of alternating tonic and clonic spasms. Many of the Italian cities in the middle ages furnish us with additional and impressive examples.

Liberty is a thing that grows, and institutions are its very garden beds. There is no liberty which as a national blessing has leaped into existence in full armor like Minerva from the head of Jove. Liberty is crescive in its nature. It takes time, and is difficult, like all noble things. Things noble are hard,' was the favorite saying of Socrates, and liberty is the noblest of all things. It must be defended, developed, conquered, and bled for. It can never be added, like a mere capital on a column; it must pervade the whole body. If the Emperor of China were to promulgate one of the charters of our states for his empire, it would be like hanging a gold collar around the neck of a camel.

Liberty must grow up with the whole system; therefore we must begin at once, where it does not exist, knowing that it will take time for perfection, and not indeed discard it, because it has not yet been commenced. That would be like giving up the preparation of a meal, because it has not been commenced in time. Let institutions grow, and sow them at

once.

1 χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά.

May we not add καί καλά τὰ χαλεπά ?

We see, then, how unphilosophical were the words of the present emperor of the French to the assembled bodies of state in February, 1853, when he said: "Liberty has never aided in founding a durable edifice; liberty crowns it when it has been consolidated by time."

History denies it; political philosophy and common sense. alike contradict it. Liberty may be planted where despotism has reigned, but it can be done only by much undoing, and breaking down; by a great deal of rough ploughing. We cannot prepare a people for liberty by centralized despotism, any more than we can prepare for light by destroying the means of vision. Nowhere can liberty develop itself out of despotism. It can only chronologically follow the rule of absolutism; and if it does so, it must begin with eleminating its antagonistic government. Every return to concentrated despotism, therefore, creates an additional necessity of revolution, and throws an increased difficulty in the way of obtaining freedom.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DANGERS AND INCONVENIENCES OF INSTITUTIONAL SELF

GOVERNMENT.

INSTITUTIONAL self-government has its dangers and inconveniences, as all human things have, and if its success requires the three elements necessary for all success of human action -common sense, virtue and wisdom, it must be added that, while Self-Government accepts the ancient saying: Divide and rule, in a sense different from that in which it was originally meant, the opposite is equally true: Unite and rule, as history and our own times abundantly prove.

It has been stated that nothing is more common than governments, which, fearing the united action of the nation, yet being obliged to yield in some manner to the demand for liberty, try to evade it and to deceive the people by granting provincial representations or estates. In these cases division is indeed resorted to for the greater chance of ruling the people, because when separate, they are weak, and one portion may be played off against the other, as the marines and sailors neutralize one another on board the men-of-war. In no period probably has this conduct of continental governments more strikingly shown itself than in that which began with the downfall of Napoleon, and ended with the year 1848. But it must not be forgotten that by institutional self-government a polity has been designated that comprehends institutions of self-government for all the regions of the political actions of a society, and it includes the general and national self-government as well as the minute local self-government.

The self-government of a society, be this a township or a nation, must always be adequate to its highest executive; and

when any branch is national, all the three branches must be national. The very nature of civil liberty, as we have found it, demands this. They must work abreast, like the horses of the Grecian chariot, public opinion being the charioteer. Had England, as she has now, a general executive, but not, as now, a general parliament, the self-government of the shires and towns, of courts and companies, would soon be extinguished. Had we a president of the United States and no national legislature, it is evident that either the president would be useless, and there would be no united country, or if the executive had power, there would be an end to the state self-governments, even if the president were to remain elective. Liberty requires union of the whole, whatever this whole, or Koinon, as the Greeks styled it, may be, as has been already mentioned. Wisdom, practice, political forbearance and manly independence can alone decide the proper degree of union, and the necessary balance.

One of the dangers of a strongly institutional self-government is that the tendency of localizing may prevail over the equally necessary principle of union, and that thus a disintegrating sejunction may take place, which history shows as a warning example in the United States of the Netherlands. I do not allude to their Pact of Utrecht, which furnished an inadequate government for the confederacy, and upon which the framers of our federal constitution so signally improved, after having tried a copy of it in the articles of the confederation. I refer to the Netherlandish principle, according to which every limited circle and even most towns did not only enjoy self-government, but were sovereign, and to each of which the stadtholder was obliged to take a separate oath of fidelity. The Netherlands presented the very opposite extreme of French centralism. The consequence has been that the real Netherlandish greatness lasted but a century, and in this respect may almost be compared to the brevity of Portuguese grandeur, though it resulted from the opposite cause.1

1 We may also mention as a want of union, the fact that unanimity of