the result of a classical education, has
taken possession of all the thinkers and great writers of our country.

To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator
appear to be the same as those which exist between the clay and the
potter.

Moreover, if they have consented to recognise in the heart of man a
principle of action, and in his intellect a principle of discernment,
they have looked upon this gift of God as a fatal one, and thought that
mankind, under these two impulses, tended fatally towards ruin. They
have taken it for granted, that if abandoned to their own inclinations,
men would only occupy themselves with religion to arrive at atheism,
with instruction to come to ignorance, and with labour and exchange to
be extinguished in misery.

Happily, according to these writers, there are some men, termed
governors and legislators, upon whom Heaven has bestowed opposite
tendencies, not for their own sake only, but for the sake of the rest of
the world.

Whilst mankind tends to evil, they incline to good; whilst mankind is
advancing towards darkness, they are aspiring to enlightenment; whilst
mankind is drawn towards vice, they are attracted by virtue. And, this
granted, they demand the assistance of force, by means of which they are
to substitute their own tendencies for those of the human race.

It is only needful to open, almost at random, a book on philosophy,
polities, or history, to see how strongly this idea--the child of
classical studies and the mother of socialism--is rooted in our country;
that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organisation,
morality, and wealth from power; or, rather, and still worse--that
mankind itself tends towards degradation, and is only arrested in its
tendency by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Classical
conventionalism shows us everywhere, behind passive society, a hidden
power, under the names of Law, or Legislator (or, by a mode of
expression which refers to some person or persons of undisputed weight
and authority, but not named), which moves, animates, enriches, and
regenerates mankind.

We will give a quotation from Bossuet:--

"One of the things which was the most strongly impressed (by whom?)
upon the mind of the Egyptians, was the love of their country....
_Nobody was allowed_ to be useless to the State; the law assigned
to every one his employment, which descended from father to son. No
one was