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two cases, that the provincial corn was a tribute to the government, or purchased at the public cost, and was distributed gratuitously, or sold at a reduced price, to the pauper population of Rome, while the repeal of the English corn-law merely allowed the free importation of corn, but without providing for its gratuitous distribution. Again, the large landed estates under the Roman empire have been cited as an example to prove the evil of extensive holdings of land in a modern state, whereas the detriment which they produced in fact arose from the consolidation of small estates tilled by freemen, and their conversion into plantations cultivated by slaves. Under these circumstances, wealth produced depopulation ;(2) but it would be a serious error to suppose that a wealthy landowner would use his estate in a similar manner in a country where slavery does not exist.

When the ancient French monarchy was swept away by the revolution of 1789, all connexion with the past was cut off, and the precedents of the former government were not only inadmissible as guides to action, but would rather have been quoted as warnings to dissuade. In this state of things, the leaders of the revolutionary movement fell back upon ancient, and especially Roman precedents, which were often quoted and applied in a manner perfectly puerile and inappropriate. The modern imitators of Brutus and Cassius bore about as much resemblance to the originals, as the heroes of Fenelon, in his Télémaque, bear to the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey.(25)

Napoleon's plan of universal conquest was founded on a belief that he could revive the system of the Roman empire, and that he could reduce all the European kingdoms to French dependencies, similar to the Roman provinces. In order, however, to render this attempt practicable, it was necessary that

(24)

'Fœcunda virorum

Paupertas fugitur.'

Lucan, i. 165.

(25) The teaching of French history in schools was prohibited during the revolution: extracts from Greek and Roman history were alone permitted. Granier de Cassagnac, Hist. des Causes de la Rev. Fr. tom. iii. p. 653. On one occasion, an order was issued that no other pieces should be represented at the Théâtre Français than tragedies upon Brutus, Caius Gracchus, and William Tell.—Ib. p. 656.

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the conditions of the problem should be similar, and that the Germans, the Spaniards, the Russians, and the English, should stand to the French in the same relation in which the Libyan, the Iberian, and the Gallic tribes, as well as the Greeks, stood to the Romans, which was very far from the fact. (2) Thus, Bacon cautions us against supposing that we can do what other men, of different character and abilities, have done before us, and he illustrates his advice by the instance of Pompey, who was accustomed to exclaim: Sylla potuit, ego non potero,' whereas the one was of a violent and impetuous, the other of a grave and sober nature.(27)

Historical examples and precedents ought to be clear, authentic, and undisputed:

Nil agit exemplum, litem quod lite resolvit.

Not only must the parallelism of the cases be apparent, but the fact must rest on good testimony. (2) No two cases are similar in all their circumstances-it is therefore always necessary to establish the parallelism, by omitting what is immaterial to the subject in hand; but if this process is complex and doubtful, the argument from the precedent is weak. Allowance must likewise be made for the difference of the surrounding medium; and where an example is derived from a remote and dissimilar state of society, it requires a certain preliminary arrangement in order to adapt it to the service which it is made to perform.

(26) M. Comte (Cours de Phil. Pos. tom. vi. p. 392) condemns the error of representing war, in modern times, as an instrument of civilization, par un chimérique rajeunissement de l'antique politique Romaine.' Again, (in p. 428,) he speaks of 'cette grossière imitation rétrograde de la grande politique Romaine, que nous avons vue, en sens inverse, essentiellement destinée, sous des conditions sociales radicalement opposées à celles du milieu moderne, à comprimer partout, excepté chez un peuple unique, l'essor imminent de la vie militaire, que cette vaine parodie stimulerait, au contraire, simultanément chez des nations dès long-temps livrées à une activité éminemment pacifique.' Compare the author's remarks, in his Essay on the Government of Dependencies, p. 141.

(27) De Augm. Sci. vol. ix. P. 49.

(28) Quintilian (v. 2, § 2-4) enumerates the arguments by which precedents may be supported and impugned. See also Bacon (ib. aph. 27 and 28) on the faithful registration and contemporaneous publication of precedents, as securities against error.

Such examples, however, when duly prepared and illustrated, may become highly appropriate and instructive. (29)

In order that a precedent may be safely used, it is necessary that its circumstances should be completely known. Unless the statement of the case is full, we cannot be sure that material circumstances have not been omitted which affect the comparison, and render it inapplicable to the question under discussion. It is not, indeed, necessary that, in adducing the case as an example, we should recite all its circumstances; but unless we have the means of ascertaining them, and examining their bearings, we can never be confident that the precedent is rightly applied.

§ 7 Practical examples are in general positive, that is to say, they are alleged for the purpose of recommending some particular course, or of establishing some affirmative result. The case adduced is proposed for imitation. Sometimes, however, they are negative, and are held out as warnings against a course to be avoided. An example of the former kind illustrates by its resemblance; an example of the latter kind, by its contrast. (30) Negative precedents merely serve to deter from a wrong course -they do not point out the right course; and as rectitude is one, while error is infinite, they are less useful than positive precedents. Nevertheless, the lessons derived from the errors or the failures of others are important. Experimental trials, even when unsuccessful, afford instruction by being used as warnings. Like lighthouses, they admonish the uncertain mariner to steer away from the rocks and shallows. According to the proverb, Experience taught is better than bought :' and again, experience is said to be the mistress of fools. (3) A wise man learns what

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(29) Exempla in consilium adhibentur, non utique jubent aut imperant. Igitur ita regantur, ut auctoritas præteriti temporis flectatur ad usum præsentis.'-De Augm. Scient. lib. viii, aph. 31.

(30) These two classes of historical examples are opposed to each other by Livy, in the following passage from the preface to his history: 'Hoc illud est præcipue in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum, omnis te exempli documenta in illustri posita monumento intueri inde tibi tuæque reipublicæ, quod imitere, capias; inde foedum inceptu, fœdum exitu, quod

vites.'

(31) See Ray's Proverbs, p. 103; ed. 1768. The German version of

is to be avoided from the mistakes of others :(32) a wise statesman derives a similar lesson from the unsuccessful measures of his predecessors.

§ 8 Practical examples (as we have already said) are real models. The conduct of men formerly distinguished as rulers, statesmen, or warriors, serves as an exemplar and pattern to the present generation. Living men, likewise, in high stations, or at the head of parties, furnish real examples for the imitation of their contemporaries. Governments well constituted or well administered-good systems of municipal law, moderation and good faith in international affairs, also create actual patterns, which other nations may copy.

Real models have this great advantage, that they exhibit what has been done, and what, therefore, may be done again. They establish a standard manifestly attainable by human powers; they hold out to our imitation no impracticable paragon of ideal perfection. There is something peculiarly impressive in the reality of great excellence. Hence the proverb says, that example is better than precept.'(3) Every example, in fact, involves a general precept; if it did not, the example would prove nothing, and teach nothing. But the lesson is enforced by the contemplation of high qualities in real persons, subject with our

this proverb is, Erfahrung ist der narren vernunft.'-Körte, Sprichwörter, No. 1157. Experience, in this proverb, means personal experience, or experience bought. The contrast between Prometheus and Epimetheus turns upon prescience and after-wisdom-the former founded on the experience of others, the latter on self-experience: avràp ó deέáμevos öte dη kakòv eix', évónoev, says Hesiod of Epimetheus, Op. et Di. 89.

(32) 'Ex vitio alterius sapiens emendat suum.'

Publius Syrus, v. 212. 'Bonum est fugienda aspicere in alieno malo.'

Ib. v. 106.

Compare Hesiod, Op. 216, πalov dé te výπios čyvw, and the fable of the sick lion and the fox, Horat. Ep. i. 1, 73; Babrius, Fab. 103. The saying of Minucius, in Plut. (Fab. 13) represents it as impossible to be wise only by

the failures of others.

(33)

Excellentissimum est docendi genus exemplorum subditio.'
Varronis Sentent. v. 10.

'Optimum est sequi majores, recte si præcesserint.'

Publius Syrus, v. 847.

selves to the common infirmities of man's nature. In like manner, the exhibition of excellent political institutions, worked by a civilized population, in a reasonable and temperate spirit, encourages other nations to emulate this example. Model schools, model ships and regiments, model farms, may sometimes do more than the most forcible exhortations to improvement, while the pattern is still merely ideal. The scepticism of mankind as to possible improvement and further progress, (*) and the vis inertia which clings to existing mediocrity, (3) are most easily overcome by an appeal to a positive precedent—to an example of actual and practical success.

The imitation of a real model, the manner in which a single man is taken as the type of a certain set of qualities, or the government of a particular nation as the type of a certain political system, may be illustrated by the formation of general terms from proper names. Thus, the verb to tantalize alludes to the supposed punishment of Tantalus in hades; in the expressions, a quixotic enterprise, Fabian policy, herculean strength, and a hectoring fellow, the allusion is equally evident, though the latter is founded on a strange misapprehension of the character of the Homeric Hector. A mercury is a messenger, or even a newsman. In like manner, the names of particular buildings were generalized into class names, as mausoleum, pharos, palace, chapel, bridewell; the Valley of Gehinnom, the place where children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch, gave the name Gehenna to the place of posthumous torture, which word in French first signified torture generally, and afterwards any slight annoyance, bodily or mental (géne.)

$9 Lord Bacon, in exhorting the world to the study of natural philosophy, calls attention to the fact, that civil institutions are limited to a single community, while the inventions of science and of the useful arts are common to the whole human race; that the former are transitory, while the latter are per

(34) See Bacon, Nov. Org. i. 92; below, ch. xxvii. § 15. (35) According to the French proverb, Le bien est l'ennemi du mieux.'

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