their inhabitants, to narrow the
horizon of their views, and to dwarf in some degree the proportions of
their ideas. Public opinion cannot maintain its liberty and purity in
such small dimensions, and the currents that come from larger
communities sweep over a contracted territory. In a small and
homogeneous population there is hardly room for a natural classification
of society, or for inner groups of interests that set bounds to
sovereign power. The government and the subjects contend with borrowed
weapons. The resources of the one and the aspirations of the other are
derived from some external source, and the consequence is that the
country becomes the instrument and the scene of contests in which it is
not interested. These States, like the minuter communities of the Middle
Ages, serve a purpose, by constituting partitions and securities of
self-government in the larger States; but they are impediments to the
progress of society, which depends on the mixture of races under the
same governments.

The vanity and peril of national claims founded on no political
tradition, but on race alone, appear in Mexico. There the races are
divided by blood, without being grouped together in different regions.
It is, therefore, neither possible to unite them nor to convert them
into the elements of an organised State. They are fluid, shapeless, and
unconnected, and cannot be precipitated, or formed into the basis of
political institutions. As they cannot be used by the State, they cannot
be recognised by it; and their peculiar qualities, capabilities,
passions, and attachments are of no service, and therefore obtain no
regard. They are necessarily ignored, and are therefore perpetually
outraged. From this difficulty of races with political pretensions, but
without political position, the Eastern world escaped by the institution
of castes. Where there are only two races there is the resource of
slavery; but when different races inhabit the different territories of
one Empire composed of several smaller States, it is of all possible
combinations the most favourable to the establishment of a highly
developed system of freedom. In Austria there are two circumstances
which add to the difficulty of the problem, but also increase its
importance. The several nationalities are at very unequal degrees of
advancement, and there is no single nation which is so predominant as to
overwhelm or absorb the others. These are the conditions necessary