division of
power they have passed to aristocracy, and from aristocracy
to monarchy. Does it not hence follow that those who
constitute states under the democratic form, destine them to
undergo all the intervening troubles between that and
monarchy; but it should at the same time be proved that
social experience is already exhausted for the human race,
and that this spontaneous movement is not solely the effect
of ignorance.

Thus, as in a state, a party absorbed the nation, a family the party,
and an individual the family; so a movement of absorption took place
between state and state, and exhibited on a larger scale in the
political order, all the particular evils of the civil order. Thus a
state having subdued a state, held it in subjection in the form of a
province; and two provinces being joined together formed a kingdom; two
kingdoms being united by conquest, gave birth to empires of gigantic
size; and in this conglomeration, the internal strength of states,
instead of increasing, diminished; and the condition of the people,
instead of ameliorating, became daily more abject and wretched, for
causes derived from the nature of things.

Because, in proportion as states increased in extent, their
administration becoming more difficult and complicated, greater energies
of power were necessary to move such masses; and there was no longer any
proportion between the duties of sovereigns and their ability to perform
their duties:

Because despots, feeling their weakness, feared whatever might develop
the strength of nations, and studied only how to enfeeble them:

Because nations, divided by the prejudices of ignorance and hatred,
seconded the wickedness of their governments; and availing themselves
reciprocally of subordinate agents, aggravated their mutual slavery:

Because, the balance between states being destroyed, the strong more
easily oppressed the weak.

Finally, because in proportion as states were concentrated, the people,
despoiled of their laws, of their usages, and of the government of
their choice, lost that spirit of personal identification with their
government, which had caused their energy.

And despots, considering empires as their private domains and the people
as their property, gave themselves up to depredations, and to all the
licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority.

And all the strength and wealth of nations were diverted to private
expen