he secretary of state and privy council, were
instruments of terror to the subject, who had no remedy by law. There
was no safety but for harmless stupidity or slavish conformity.
Individual independence was impossible. Every noble, manly head that
appeared above the servile mass, was unceremoniously hid away in a
dungeon, or struck off on a scaffold.

Such annoying and insolent meddling on the part of governments no longer
exists. There can be no such thing among an enlightened people. As the
mass of mankind, or we will say their leaders or representatives, become
more cultured, they demand a larger field of individual freedom, and
organize a pressure upon government, which in time effects its object,
and the oppression is removed, or gradually becomes relaxed and
obsolete.

Observing that the differentiation of function obtains chiefly in the
administrative department of government, and putting the two general
facts of history together,--first, that while the subject is enlarging
the domain of individual liberty, and secondly, the government becoming
more complex in structure and activity,--we infer that, through the
advance of general intelligence and the multiplication of interests,
government is changing its character from an instrument of compulsion
and force to an instrument of management and direction, wielded by the
governed themselves for the benefit of their own diversified and
interrelated interests.

In following the course of individuality, we find it simple and almost
absolute in savage life; then it is overpowered and disappears under the
despotic and one-idea governments of ancient times, and of Asia still;
at length it reappears, and gathers strength with every advancing age,
with every discovery, with every improvement, with every flash of
intelligence, till it has accumulated, in its course, all the
diversified means of expression and gratification afforded by art,
literature, and all the social appliances of a complex and exalted form
of society;--and the end is not yet: there will be more freedom, other
methods of expression, new facilities for enjoyment and happiness. Its
destiny is a glorious one!

It may be well in this connection to recall to mind the principle that,
with the rise of new functions and the increase of complexity, _unity
obtains its completest form and fullest expression_. These two elements
are by no means antagonistic; they belong together, and one necessitates
the other.