Rule,

and their modes, may be diversified by contingencies; but their objects are ever the same. acquisition, distinction, pleasure, applause, are the rewards which animate his hopes, and prompt his exertions. Forced into activity by these unwearied monitors, he becomes gradually acquainted with the capabilities of his mind, and is led by their constant agency in a regular ascent to property, inequality, and subordination; taking new impressions as he proceeds, till he reaches his true point of dignity and elevation in the orderly dispositions of civilized life.

Now all this is in a true course of nature, and with little consultation of the rights of man. Still, in this state of improved nature, the human mind is true to itself, and preserves in a manner its parallelism. Its habits and qualities have changed their modes, but are the same in principle, dilated, indeed, by their reference to higher purposes, and their connection with wider combinations. We perceive, therefore, that these passions and dispositions are not only inseparable from the mind of man, but are really the instruments of his social advancement; and that plainly every good system of policy ought not only to suppose their existence and allow scope for their operation, but so to dispose and direct them as to render them subservient to its interests and support.

The ancient governments were none of them suited to the nature of man. Democracies were all either loose and uncompacted, or violent and distorted; and nothing shows their weakness more than their constant jealousy of their great men. Their history, therefore, is a melancholy picture of tumults and proscriptions; and, however it may suit the purposes of weak arguments to build upon their examples,

and blazon their transactions, it can never be the wish of any sober mind to see them repeated in our own times. The monarchies of old were still less calculated to promote the happiness or improvement of society; and plainly neither the one nor the other proceeded upon the idea of consulting the nature of man; and rational liberty was equally a stranger to both. So little adapted was the commonwealth of Rome to second the progressive improvement of man, and consequently so weak, timid, and jealous in its principles, that the introduction of philosophy and the cultivation of the arts were dreaded, by those who knew best the interests of the republic, as the forerunners of their country's ruin. The Spartan government was still more forced and unnatural than that of Rome, and can only be admired by those politicians whose opinion it is that nature designed us for soldiers, and that the ends of creation are fulfilled by courage and military discipline. Athens had no constitution that deserves the name of government: a natural taste, the force of emulation, the noble air of freedom, and a national pride, raised within its walls a gigantic growth of geniuses, and produced individuals that have furnished models to their posterity in those arts which dignify and polish humanity; but in a political light, it was the most wretched of all communities.

We may perceive, in a sober examination of these ancient republics, that their prosperity, and even existence, depended upon the operation of a national spirit and patriotic enthusiasm in the mass of the people. While this principle was in its full vivacity, all was sure to go well; it served as a point of union to all the individuals of the state: by an irresistible attraction, it drew every thing to itself; and every custom and usage, however intrinsically barbarous,

suggested nothing to the mind but images and associations of the purest patriotic tendency: but as soon as this superinduced and precarious principle fell away, for want of other cements arising out of the uniform and constant feelings and passions of the mind, the whole system went speedily to decay, and, being vitally wrong in its construction, afforded no stock from which recovery might be hoped, or whereon improvements might be grafted.

It was late, indeed, in the history of man before it came to be understood that the principle of surest operation, on which governments could depend for their continuance, was simply the love of self, a feeling that does not decay with time, or lie exposed to contingences; and that no political union was made to last, in which the interests of the whole body were not so blended with those of the individual, that, in prosecuting his own advancement, he was adding strength and support to the community. This law of action and reaction, and this spirit of mutual controul which pervades all nature, and which upholds the great fabric of the universe, did sometimes present itself to the wisest among the ancients, as affording analogies to direct us in the theory of governments; but they cherished it as a pleasing vision, not daring to hope that the temper of the times would ever admit of so rational a system.

This theory, so sublime, so consonant to the mighty scheme of nature, so grounded in principles of unfailing operation, which no force of human genius or human counsels have been able to accomplish, under all the diversities of place and circumstance on the great theatre of the world, has, at length, by a train of fortuitous occurrences and combinations, acted upon by vigorous intelligences and that native majesty of mind which early directed the views

of Englishmen towards a noble freedom, established a footing in this favourite isle, and exhibited a practical wonder to the envy of surrounding nations.

Could those ancients, whose deep study of human nature suggested this form of government, as an unattainable model of perfection, have been told that at length it would actually exist under an inclement sky, in a remote island in the northern seas; which island it would raise to unrivalled splendour in arms, in commerce, and in arts-how would their minds have been overwhelmed with astonishment! and yet how would that astonishment have been increased, by hearing that the day would arrive when this happy country, satiated with prosperity, should contain a description of persons, and those not destitute of sense and knowledge, who would have the hearts to plan its destruction, and set every engine to work to root it up from its very foundations!

The false principles on which the enemies of this envied constitution proceed, appear in nothing more clearly than in their objections to its dateless origin and gradual incidental progress: they acknowledge nothing that has not sprung at once into form, and received a ratifying stamp from a regular convention of the people; as if, to legitimate a real blessing, we must produce the evidences and records of its birth. In this instance, however, as in its general tenor, our constitution has proceeded in a manner correspondent to nature, whose method it is to develope her greatest truths, and to unlock her stores of knowledge, with gradual reserve, and in a tardy course of progressive discovery. I trace with veneration the finishing hand of nature in this slow conformation of our political liberty. Every thing that is most valuable in human knowledge has been the fruit of this gradual attainment: every gift of God,

and even religion itself, has moved in the same march of progression. The moral order of the universe itself, while cities and empires flourish and decay, rolls on in a silent course of unmarked improvement. Thus answering to nature in the manner of its progress, it has not lost sight of her in the spirit of its plans, in which we observe a remarkable accommodation to the frame and character of the human mind. It depends on no forced or superinduced principles of action; and while it is susceptible of every advantage resulting from the highest exercise of virtue, it has not only provided against the operations of selfish passions, but has made them the fountain of useful activity.

Power there must be in every state, and power has a natural bias towards falling into the hands of a single ruler forestalling, therefore, these effects, which never peaceably happen of themselves, our constitution has adopted and modified this evil, thereby preventing the greater evil of numerous pretenders. In the progress of national wealth, large proportions of property and influence will be necessarily accumulated; hence will unavoidably arise pretensions to honours and distinctions. Our constitution has prevented the struggles for these distinctions, by creating them at once; and by the invention of titles has enabled itself to gratify this ambition, without entrenching upon the integral power of the state to supply it. The people are a great body, and mighty, which ever way they turn: if they enjoy no consequence themselves, they are always liable to become the instruments of bad and interested designs. The state has therefore given them a form, invested them with great power, and provided for them a medium through which they may act; and as the few that have most sense and