ay, than a despotic government. And
so rare is great originality among mankind, and so great are its
fruits, that this one benefit of free government probably outweighs
what are in many cases its accessory evils. Of itself it justifies, or
goes far to justify, our saying with Montesquieu, 'Whatever be the cost
of this glorious liberty, we must be content to pay it to heaven.'

NO. VI.

VERIFIABLE PROGRESS POLITICALLY CONSIDERED.

The original publication of these essays was interrupted by serious
illness and by long consequent ill--health, I and now that I am putting
them together I wish to add another which shall shortly explain the
main thread of the argument which they contain. In doing so there is a
risk of tedious repetition, but on a subject both obscure and
important, any defect is better than an appearance of vagueness.

In a former essay I attempted to show that slighter causes than is
commonly thought may change a nation from the stationary to the
progressive state of civilisation, and from the stationary to the
degrading. Commonly the effect of the agent is looked on in the wrong
way. It is considered as operating on every individual in the nation,
and it is assumed, or half assumed, that it is only the effect which
the agent directly produces on everyone that need be considered. But
besides this diffused effect of the first impact of the cause, there is
a second effect, always considerable, and commonly more potent--a new
model in character is created for the nation; those characters which
resemble it are encouraged and multiplied; those contrasted with it are
persecuted and made fewer. In a generation or two, the look of the
nation, becomes quite different; the characteristic men who stand out
are different, the men imitated are different; the result of the
imitation is different. A lazy nation may be changed into an
industrious, a rich into a poor, a religious into a profane, as if by
magic, if any single cause, though slight, or any combination of
causes, however subtle, is strong enough to change the favourite and
detested types of character.

This principle will, I think, help us in trying to solve the question
why so few nations have progressed, though to us progress seems so
natural-what is the cause or set of causes which have prevented that
progress in the vast majority of cases, and produced it in the feeble
minority. But there is a preliminary difficulty: What is progress, and
what is de