prove, to concentre, to advance its results. Their dynasty never
lasted long; the oldest tyranny in Greece endured but a hundred years
[159]--so enduring only from its mildness. The son of the tyrant
rarely inherited his father's sagacity and talents: he sought to
strengthen his power by severity; discontent ensued, and his fall was
sudden and complete. Usually, then, such of the aristocracy as had
been banished were recalled, but not invested with their former
privileges. The constitution became more or less democratic. It is
true that Sparta, who lent her powerful aid in destroying tyrannies,
aimed at replacing them by oligarchies--but the effort seldom produced
a permanent result: the more the aristocracy was narrowed, the more
certain was its fall. If the middle class were powerful--if commerce
thrived in the state--the former aristocracy of birth was soon
succeeded by an aristocracy of property (called a timocracy), and this
was in its nature certain of democratic advances. The moment you
widen the suffrage, you may date the commencement of universal
suffrage. He who enjoys certain advantages from the possession of ten
acres, will excite a party against him in those who have nine; and the
arguments that had been used for the franchise of the one are equally
valid for the franchise of the other. Limitations of power by
property are barriers against a tide which perpetually advances.
Timocracy, therefore, almost invariably paved the way to democracy.
But still the old aristocratic faction, constantly invaded, remained
powerful, stubborn, and resisting, and there was scarcely a state in
Greece that did not contain the two parties which we find to-day in
England, and in all free states--the party of the movement to the
future, and the party of recurrence to the past; I say the past, for
in politics there is no present! Wherever party exists, if the one
desire fresh innovations, so the other secretly wishes not to preserve
what remains, but to restore what has been. This fact it is necessary
always to bear in mind in examining the political contests of the
Athenians. For in most of their domestic convulsions we find the
cause in the efforts of the anti-popular party less to resist new
encroachments than to revive departed institutions. But though in
most of the Grecian states were two distinct orders, and the
Eupatrids, or "Well-born," were a class distinct from, and superior
to, that of the commonalty, we s