II. Toward the end of the preceding volume the different character, yet equally injurious effect of monarchical and democratic absolutism has been spoken of; for our present purpose it is necessary to say a few more words on this subject. Monarchical absolutism, it was shown, is not real, in so far as the monarch, individually, can have no power; it must be lent him, he must be supported; and, again, it is substantial, in so far as individual responsibility goes. In his name the acts are done; of him the people, once risen, demand justice, and to him the wrongs of his menials are ultimately laid. However great his power, however many thousands he may find ready to do as he bids, still what is done is at his peril. There is a visible despot, and therefore a visible malefactor when the time of reckoning comes; while the consciousness, that he must lend his name to all acts, and that "the water, although when calm, supports the boat, but, if roused, will overwhelm it," (1) may keep even the Chinese emperor from too oppressive measures (2). Democratic absolutism, on the other hand is real, inasmuch as it demands no support; it is an over-flooding power itself; and it is not substantial in so far as it is nowhere visibly embodied; it acts, it strikes, with fearful certainty; but the moment after, where can the author of the deed be grasped? Responsibility evanesces; the injured party cannot seize it, and the absolute actors neither fear the rising of those over whom they sway, nor do they themselves feel so distinctly their responsibility, because it appears divided. Their conscience feels appeased; although, as we have seen, there is, in fact, no divisibility of any thing which belongs to morals (3). But liberty, or untrammeled action, without conscientiousness of action, which we

have called licentiousness-rights, I repeat, without acknowledged obligations, necessarily lead to absolutism, first to democratic, and, through it, generally to monarchic. A sincere reverence, therefore, for liberty, demands imperatively that we should well know our political obligations, both that liberty may not degenerate into absolutism, and that, on the other hand, we should feel our duty in prizing, cherishing and supporting, keeping, watching and jealously defending this last and highest of earthly goods, lest the forms of freedom with the spirit of bondsmen become only the fitter means of thraldom. For a government, which rules with the traditional forms of past liberty over a servile people, shifts its responsibility of all odious acts upon the people themselves. Parliaments, without parliamentary power, are but a fair and plausible way into bondage," was the ruling maxim of Pym. And this parliamentary power," of course, presupposes parliamentary spirit, that is, true love and esteem of liberty. Tyranny and mere tranquillity are things for which men may be trained, into which they may be forced. There are no more quiet and peaceable people on earth than the Chinese. But liberty is too noble in its nature; to support, enjoy and perpetuate it, man must cultivate his best and noblest parts (4). An active and preventive police may do much toward making fit subjects; but the essentials of a freeman are within; they cannot be forced upon him from without; they must grow out of his moral nature. They require character, love of justice, love of truth, self-respect and devotion to our neighbors, esteem of our kind and ardor of cultivation.

(1) A Chinese Emperor, so say the ancient books of the Chi

nese, said to his heir: "You see that the boat in which we sit is supported by the water, which at the same time is able, if roused, to overwhelm it: remember that the water represents the people, and the emperor only the boat." T. F. Davis, The Chinese: a general Descrip. of the Emp. of China and its Inhab., 2 vols. Lond. 1836; vol. I, p. 212, reprinted in New York by Messrs. Harper. This work seems to me, for a general reader, the most instructive, trustworthy and comprehensive on that empire, so interesting because its civilisation has grown up entirely independent of that from which we derive ours.

(2) The same author, see previous note, makes the following remark, vol. II, p. 428: "The emperor-the theoretical father of his people-does not find it so easy openly to impose new taxes as his necessities may require them; and his power, though absolute in name, is limited in reality by the endurance of the people, and by the laws of necessity."-See likewise part first on Public Opinion.

(3) Many years ago, on my way through Geneva, I became acquainted with a member of the former French constituent assembly, who had always acted with Robespierre, so long as the latter was at the head of his party. The manner in which this exile spoke of the " poor Robespierre," "the virtuous man to whom sufficient time had not been allowed to develope his plans," greatly attracted my interest. For the first time in my life I saw, face to face, one who had acted in those scenes, to me already like distant and fearful history. I could not help putting a number of questions as to the massacres and those enormous sacrifices of life, when he spoke of liberty. When I suggested that surely for the priests who were slaughtered there was no liberty, he answered, that it was believed they conspired with the foreign armies. When I repeatedly urged the question, whether they really did conspire, whether there was any proof, he would only shrug his shoulders and say: On le croyait, mon cher. This On made a very deep impression upon me, which time has not effaced; and has repeatedly recurred to my mind in meditating upon politics and history.

(4) Quiet has frequently been mistaken for civilisation. The Chinese have a saying: "Better a dog in peace than a man in anarchy." Mr. Laplace, a French circumnavigator, says:

peat that the Chinese are very much our superiors in true civilisation-in that which frees the majority of men from the brutality and ignorance which, among many European nations, place the lowest classes of society on a level with the most savage beasts," and Mr. Davis, ut supra vol. II, p. 29, adds: "Monsieur Laplace is quite right the lower classes of the Chinese people are better educated, or at least better trained, than in most countries." I fear that the words "or at least better trained" contain the essence of the remarks of both these gentlemen. If we peruse the Chinese novels, which have been given to the western public and are represented by the best Chinese scholars, among others by Mr. Davis himself, as faithful pictures of their life, and which, indeed, bear great internal evidence of truth, we shall not feel tempted to desire to exchange our civilisation for theirs, however willingly we may acknowledge all those points in which they are. really our superiors. Rather all the disturbance of the West, so that it be a fermentation which promises a better, purer state, than Chinese peace and stagnation.

III. As men, therefore, and especially as freemen, we are bound to acquaint ourselves thoroughly with our ethic relations in politics. We shall find that we are not the less so if we contemplate to what race we belong and in what period we live.

From the vast continent of Asia, it appears, that all civilisation originally flowed, and to it we are invariably led, as to the fountain-head of history. It is there that all those religions originated, which count the largest number of votaries (1); there that the ancient Sanscrit was spoken, the grandest idiom uttered by human tongue, and the mother of so many western languages (2); there that traffic commenced, and larger empires first were founded, and thence that we received most of the first inventions in all the simpler and therefore most important mechanical arts. But the Europeans and their descendants in other parts of the globe, have perfected

and developed all these. Christianity rose in Asia, indeed, but what effect has it exercised on the Asiatic nations? In Europe it penetrated to the inmost elements of society. Empires were first formed in the East, governments were first there established on a larger scale, but with few exceptions those tribes, over which they hold sway, live on from thousands to thousands of years, in the torpor or the anarchy of despotism. The arts and commerce started into existence indeed, but they have been slowly perfected, in the East; many branches of industry are in the same condition in which they were even a thousand years ago. There indeed many languages of surprising perfection and wonderful depth of thought were developed, when Europe spoke yet the uncouth accents of barbarism; and yet, great and noble as many of the Eastern works are, Oriental literature is very confined if compared to the vast and multifarious treasures of the West. Devastating conquerors have appeared one after the other in the extensive regions of that continent, but they appear low, without hardly any exception, if compared to the powerful genius and mental greatness of European generals, from some of the first Greek commanders to the Napoleons and Wellingtons of our own times. Architecture and sculpture originated in the East, and gratefully we ought to acknowledge it, yet Europe perfected, purified and refined also here. Compare the Hindoo idol or Egyptian statue to the works of Phidias or Thorwaldsen, the mighty piles of Asiatic temples to Grecian or Gothic architecture, in taste and the expression of thought? (3) Three times did Asia send her swarming hordes to conquer the West, but the Persians, Mongols and Arabians were repelled,