n
began to germinate, as soon as the poor again began to compare their
cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich, there
would have been another scramble for property, another maximum, another
general confiscation, another reign of terror. Four or five such
convulsions following each other, at intervals of ten or twelve years,
would reduce the most flourishing countries of Europe to the state of
Barbary or the Morea.

The civilised part of the world has now nothing to fear from the
hostility of savage nations. Once the deluge of barbarism has passed
over it, to destroy and to fertilise; and in the present state of
mankind we enjoy a full security against that calamity. That flood will
no more return to cover the earth. But is it possible that in the bosom
of civilisation itself may be engendered the malady which shall destroy
it? Is it possible that institutions may be established which, without
the help of earthquake, of famine, of pestilence, or of the foreign
sword, may undo the work of so many ages of wisdom and glory, and
gradually sweep away taste, literature, science, commerce, manufactures,
everything but the rude arts necessary to the support of animal life?
Is it possible that, in two or three hundred years, a few lean and
half-naked fishermen may divide with owls and foxes the ruins of the
greatest European cities--may wash their nets amidst the relics of her
gigantic docks, and build their huts out of the capitals of her stately
cathedrals? If the principles of Mr Mill be sound, we say, without
hesitation, that the form of government which he recommends will
assuredly produce all this. But, if these principles be unsound, if
the reasonings by which we have opposed them be just, the higher and
middling orders are the natural representatives of the human race.
Their interest may be opposed in some things to that of their poorer
contemporaries; but it is identical with that of the innumerable
generations which are to follow.

Mr Mill concludes his essay, by answering an objection often made to the
project of universal suffrage--that the people do not understand their
own interests. We shall not go through his arguments on this subject,
because, till he has proved that it is for the interest of the people
to respect property, he only makes matters worse by proving that they
understand their interests. But we cannot refrain from treating our
readers with a delicious bonne bouche of wisdom, whi