heavenly body whose course is regulated by a parabolic
curve.

We may look for similar eccentric behaviour on the part of a community,
nation, or state, whose centre is at infinity, whose constitution has
been violently disturbed, and whose monarchy is situated in the far-off
regions of unlimited space. The erratic course of Republican rule is
proverbial. There is no stability, no regularity. To-day we may observe
its brilliancy, which seems to laugh at and eclipse the sombre shining
of more steady and enduring worlds; but ere to-morrow's moon has risen,
it may have vanished into the regions of eternal night, and we look for
its bright shining light in the councils of the nations, but it has
ceased to shed its rays, and we are disappointed. Sometimes it is asked,
with fear and trembling: 'What would be the effect if our earth were to
come in contact with the tail of a comet? Should we be destroyed by the
collision, and our ponderous world cease to be?' But we are assured
that no such disastrous results would follow. We have already passed
through the tails of many comets, but we have not discovered any
inconvenient change in our ordinary mode of procedure. It is probable
that the comet's tail is composed of no solid substance.

We may therefore infer by analogy that a Republican State would not
offer any powerful resistance if it were to come into collision with a
nation possessing a more settled form of government. A shower of
meteoric stones, like passing fireworks, might take place; but beyond
that nothing would occur to excite the fear, or arouse the energies of
the more favoured nation. As an example of the weakness of a Republican
State I may mention France. There we see an industrious race of people,
endowed with many natural gifts and graces, a country rich and
productive; and yet, owing to the unsettled nature of its government,
all these natural advantages are neutralized; its course amongst the
nations is erratic in the extreme, a spectacle of feeble
administration; and it would offer no more resistance to a colliding
Power than the empty vacuum of a comet's tail. This example will
demonstrate to you the truth of our theory with regard to the
instability of a social system which is geometrically represented by a
parabolic curve.

We will now turn from this picture of insecurity and unrest to another
figure which possesses most advantageous social properties. I refer to
the ellipse. An ellipse is a curve f