divisions to embitter them, no patriotic or religious associations to endear the institutions of their country, or to inspire confidence in certain public men. Now such a community as

this never did, and never can exist. The internal relations of the society which the idealist assumes as his basis are wholly unsuitable and inapplicable to every conceivable real and concrete community. Not only do they not exist in any actual state, and never have existed, but they cannot, consistently with the laws of our social nature, be even imagined to exist in any actual case. The external relations of the ideal state are, if possible, conceived in a form still more remote from anything which can have a real existence. The writers to whom we refer isolate it from the rest of the world; they place it, as it were, under an exhausted receiver, and remove it from all international influences. Like the republic of Plato, its prototype is in heaven, and it has no place and name upon earth;(148) or, like Utopia, it

(148) The Cretan Utopia of Plato's Laws has no immediate neighbour. The Athenian asks, γείτων δὲ αὐτῆς πόλις ἆρ ̓ ἔσται τις πλήσιον ; to which Clinias, the Cretan, answers, où rávu, diò Kai KatoikiČerai.-Leg. iv. 1, p. 704.

Fenelon describes the happy region of Bætica, as enjoying perpetual peace: La fraude, la violence, le parjure, les procès, les guerres, ne font jamais entendre leur voix cruelle et empestée dans ce pays, chéri des dieux.' This exemption is thus accounted for: Il me reste, ajoutait Télémaque, à savoir comment ils font pour éviter la guerre avec les autres peuples voisins. La nature, dit Adoam, les a separés des autres peuples d'un côté par la mer, et de l'autre par des hautes montagnes du côté du nord. D'ailleurs, les peuples voisins les respectent à cause de leur vertu.'-Télémaque, liv. vii.

The following account of the nation of the Atlantes is given in the political romance of Sethos: Pour passer maintenant à la police du notre état, sa constitution nous dispense d'abord de cette grande partie qui fait ailleurs le militaire, puisque nous n'avons d'autre défense que la faveur des autres nations, et l'estime qu'elles veulent bien faire de notre simplicité. Nous n'avons même aucun besoin de la politique, en tant qu'elle est l'art de suspendre les guerres, ou de reculer les frontières par des traités. Personne ne nous dispute notre territoire enfermé par la mer à l'occident, par deux rivières, le Subur au midi, et le Zilis au nord, et par une chaîne de montagnes au levant. Nous ne chercherons point non plus à l'accroître.' -Vol. ii. p. 182.

The land of the Mezoranians, in the centre of Africa, is described as difficult to find, even for the natives, and unknown to all the world beside.' Gaudentio di Lucca, p. 117. He tells us strange stories of one of the most beautiful countries in the world, in the very heart of the vast deserts of Africa, inaccessible to all the world but by one way, which seems as extraordinary as the country it leads to.'-Ib. p. 12.

The happy valley of Rasselas is surrounded on all sides by impassable mountains. The only entrance is through a cavern, closed with iron gates

is a remote island in an unknown ocean; or, like the happy valley of Rasselas, and the land of the Mezoranians, it lies amidst the deserts of Africa, and is cut off by an impassable barrier from the rest of mankind. Every real community, however, is influenced in important respects, not only by its internal, but also by its external relations. It is a member of the great community of nations; it breathes a political atmosphere which is common to other countries, and which circulates round the entire civilized world; it recognises the established principles of international law; its trade, its provisions for defence, and often, in some degree, its form of government, depend upon the character of the states which it immediately adjoins. (149)

It may, therefore, be said, without exaggeration, that the search after the ideal model of the perfect state-which has occupied the thoughts of so many illustrious speculators, intent upon the amelioration of mankind-is necessarily, by the very condi

so massy, that they cannot be opened without the help of engines. The sages who instructed them, told them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where discord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man.'-C. 2.

(149) Il est une circonstance qui exerce sur la civilisation ou sur la barbarie de certains peuples une influence immense: c'est la position dans laquelle ils se trouvent relativement à d'autres peuples. Une nation qui serait placée au milieu d'une multitude de circonstances favorables à son développement, mais qui serait en même temps exposée aux invasions de peuples condamnés, par leur position, à une éternelle barbarie, ne pourrait faire des progrès que difficilement. C'est là un des obstacles les plus puissans qu'ont trouvés à leur avancement les peuples de la Perse, de la Chine, de l'Indostan, et, je pourrais dire, de presque toutes les parties du globe.'Comte, Traité de Législation, liv. iv. c. 10.

Se questo reame fosse sorto, come un' isola in mezzo all' oceano, spiccato, e diviso da tutto il resto del mondo, non s'avrebbe avuta gran pena a sostenere, per compor di sua civile istoria molti libri; imperciocchè sarebbe bastato aver ragione de' principi, che lo dominarono, e delle sue proprie leggi ed istituti, co' quali fu governato. Ma poichè fu egli quasi sempre soggetto, e parte, o d'un grand' imperio, come fu il Romano, e dapoi il Greco, o d'un gran regno, come fu quello d'Italia sotto i Longobardi, o finalmente ad altri principi sottoposto, che tenendo collocata altrove la regia lor sede, quindi per mezzo de' loro ministri 'l reggevano; non dovrà imputarsi, se non a dura necessità, che per ben' intendere la sua spezial politia, si dia un saggio della forma e disposizione dell' imperio Romano, e come si reggessero le sue provincie, fra le quali le più digne, ch' ebbe in Italia, furon certamente queste, che compongono oggi il nostro regno.'— Giannone, Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli; introd.

tions of the problem, a search not less irrational and vain than that after the philosopher's stone or the elixir of life. No artifice can defeat, no ingenuity can elude, the logical absurdities which the data of the problem involve. They may, at first, be concealed beneath the surface, but as the work proceeds they inevitably come to light.

Ideal plans of government assume that the lawgiver has a greater power over the society for which he is to legislate than he really possesses. This supposition lies at the bottom of all schemes of a perfect state, considered as a working model. They suppose a ductility of materials, a plastic nature in the human conglomerate, which does not exist.(150) Hence the constructor of an Utopia is tempted to pass those bounds, indicated by universal experience and recognised utility, which even the most capricious and self-willed despots have respected. One remarkable example of this error is afforded by the disposition shown, in some of the plans of an ideal state, to treat man, with respect to generation, as man himself treats the domesticated animals, and to establish institutions having for their aim the propagation of a fine human breed. Plato distinctly enounces this object, laying it down that, in his perfect state, the guardians are to breed from the handsomest individuals, and in the vigour of life -as is done with horses, hunting-dogs, and the nobler species of birds. He accordingly directs that the couples should be selected by the magistrates, the best and the worst of each sex being respectively combined (152) he regulates the ages for each

(150) Speaking of the Utopian plans of government, Mr. Stewart says: Of these plans, by far the greater number proceed on the supposition, that the social order is entirely the effect of human art; and that wherever this order is imperfect, the evil may be traced to some want of foresight on the part of the legislator or to some inattention of the magistrate to the complicated structure of that machine of which he regulates the movements. The projects of reform, therefore, which such plans involve are, in general, well entitled to all the ridicule and contempt they have met with, inasmuch as they imply an arrogant and presumptuous belief, in their authors, of the superiority of their own political sagacity to the accumulated wisdom of former ages.'-Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. ch. 4, § 8. As to political government being a work of human art, see above, ch. xviii. § 6.

(151) See Rep. v. 7-9, p. 458-61.

(152) The manner in which this selection is appointed to be made is

sex during which this union is to take place, and the children of the defective couples are, as it appears, not to be reared, in order that the breed of the guardians may be maintained in a state of purity.(153) Campanella likewise, in his Civitas Solis, (15) lays it down that the generation of the citizens is to be entirely under the control of the magistrates, and that the public interest in the selection of the couples is alone to be consulted, the object in view being the physical perfection of the race. The regulations for this purpose which he describes are, like those of Plato, founded on the assumption, that the propagation of the human race is, by legislative enactments, to be regulated on the same principles as the propagation of those domestic animals which are under the control of man. .(155) Yet even the contubernia of slaves, when the law has regarded them as mere

worthy of notice. Plato perceives that the choice exercised by the magistrates in assigning the most beautiful women to one portion of the guardians, in preference to the other, would give rise to discontent. He therefore directs that this distribution of the two sexes into pairs should be effected apparently by lots; but that the lots should in fact be prepared secretly by the magistrates that the dice should be loaded, so as to bring out the result which they desire, without exposing themselves to the charge of favouritism.-See Rep. v. 8. p 460; Timæus, c. 2. p. 18. Now, if this proposition is to be made the subject of serious criticism, it must at once be seen that no trick of this kind could be successful as a permanent system: it would inevitably be disclosed, if it was not detected, and would therefore fail of its purpose. If it be said that it is unfair to subject such propositions to serious criticism, it may be asked in return, what, then, is the value of an ideal state? and whether the reluctance to submit it to serious criticism does not imply that it is devoid of practical value ?'

(153) Aristotle has a similar set of regulations, among the conditions for the best form of government. Physical excellence in the human breed is the object which he proposes to the legislator: τὸν νομοθέτην ὁρᾶν δεῖ ὅπως βέλτιστα τὰ σώματα γένηται τῶν τρεφομένων.—Polit. vii. 16.

It is on the same principle that deformed or defective children are, in the ideal states, directed to be killed immediately after birth. See Plat. Rep. v. 8, 9, p. 459, 460; also Aristot. Pol. vii. 16. The Australians visited by Iambulus had the same law, Diod. ii. 57. The government of Sparta appears, indeed, to have recognised these principles in practice : thus, the Ephors fined Archidamus for marrying a little wife, saying that she would breed a puny race of kings : οὐ γὰρ βασιλεῖς ἄμμιν ἀλλὰ βασιλείδια yevváσei.-Theophrast. ap. Plut. Ages. 2.

(154) Non copulant nisi fœminas grandes ac pulcras nisi grandibus ac studiosis viris, et pingues macribus [sic], et macras pinguibus, ut bene temperentur et utiliter.'-P. 33; see also, p. 35.

(155) Campanella refers to the fraudulent method proposed by Plato for determining the unions of men and women in his perfect state; but he

chattels as mere domestic animals-have never been subjected to such merely physical conditions as those indicated by Plato and Campanella. But with regard to free men and women, no practical legislator has ever seriously proposed to regulate their unions on the same principles as the breeding of horses or cattle, and to transfer to human marriages the maxims of the stable and the farm.(156)

§ 27 Another valid objection to an ideal government, propounded as a type of perfection, which professes to be, not merely better, but the best, is, that it assumes the possibility of our seeing with our present lights what is the most perfect form of government, and thus implicitly denies the progressive character of human society; unless, indeed, it assumes that this ideal will never be in fact attained, and that society will be the asymptote which, though perpetually approaching the line of ideal perfection, will never touch it. If the writings 'de optimo reipublicæ statu,' were de meliore reipublicæ statu,' they would at least attempt to solve a soluble problem. But there is nothing to show that, when we have actually climbed to the height indicated by the idealist, we may not discern other heights above us. Until we have had practical experience of an ideal plan of government, we do not discover all its defects; and it is by mounting up one platform that we see how another is to be scaled.

§ 28 One inducement to the composition of imaginary commonwealths has been the facility which they afford for the free expression of opinion, and for the proposal of plans which, if put in a practical form, might give umbrage to rulers, or offend the prevailing sentiments of readers. (157) By assuming to describe

declares that any such contrivance is unnecessary in his commonwealth, inasmuch as the women lead such active and healthy lives as to be all beautiful. It is by gratuitous suppositions of this sort that the fabricator of an Utopia smooths down difficulties and eludes objections.

(156) Compare the remark of M. Granier de Cassagnac upon St. Just's propositions respecting marriage for his ideal state, Histoire des Causes de la Revolution Française, tom. iii. p. 579.

(157) Speaking of the Histoire des Sevarambes, Prosper Marchand (Dict. Hist. art. Allais,') says: Fiction tres ingénieuse, qui a fait beaucoup de bruit parmi les gens de lettres, et qui parait n'avoir été imaginée que