overlook the future; and hence it is desirable that the government should take care-at any rate, by collecting and spreading information—that attention is excited to distant evils and remote advantages.

From these remarks it will be seen that the ideal of a good government differs very widely from any actual as yet realized, and it is important to consider whether democracy is likely to accomplish what is required. The general tendencies of democratic change have been already investigated, and it will suffice now to observe that it is only by constant publicity and discussion that a popular government is likely to be a wise one. The people should be so accustomed to hear good speaking, and to take part in discussions, as to be competent to follow a sound argument, and detect a fallacious and they cannot discharge these functions well unless aided by an enlightened and powerful

one;

press.

Democracy is a condition in which the personal influence of able speakers and writers is likely to win ascendency, and whether this will prove a good or an evil, must depend upon the diffusion of education and the regularity with which the system is worked. It can only do good if oral discussion forms a part of daily life to a sufficient extent to

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test the accuracy and powers of the candidates for public support; but if the habit of frequent meeting should be permitted to drop, occasional explosions of oratory will be apt to mislead. The public taste is already so far advanced, that first-class thinkers who are fluent speakers are more popular than empty declaimers; and if the rise of Spurgeonism or similar facts should appear to militate against this statement, it must be remembered that such cases are instances of revulsion from a conventional treatment of peculiar subjects, and that for a long while no speaker of this class has succeeded in secular public life. It is a fallacy to attribute the decline of any state to the influence of orators: all they could do was to put in motion forces they did not create; and a people who deserve a great place among nations will never want expounders of truth and defenders of sound principles able to cope with the most eloquent opponents. Stagnation is of all things to be dreaded; while a full and free collision of intellects is sure to elicit sparks of truth.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.

THE relations which exist between different states must depend upon the relations which have been established between the component parts of the states themselves. When a people and its rulers are reciprocally connected by submission and violence, that state will have a relation of violence to other countries, and it can only cease to be aggressive, or repressive, when the fear of consequences compels it to moderate its tone. When the majority of any country habitually tyrannizes over the minority, the external policy of that state will have a tendency to be overbearing and aggressive, and always on the verge of embodying and gratifying the prominent vices of the community. On the other hand, as soon as the rights of minorities and of individuals are duly respected, an aggressive policy ceases, and no effort of war or coercion can be popular, that does not carry with it the moral

feeling of the people. In the former cases the satisfaction of interest, or the gratification of passion, were prevailing motives; in the latter, action is based upon an appreciation of duty and a love of right. Wars of aggression and ambition naturally led to the doctrine of a "balance of power," and when the low condition of general intelligence and morality made it impossible to base the operation of governments upon simple principles of justice, very much was done to check outrage and devastation by a determination among rival states that no one of their number should obtain a dangerous predominance. Shallow politicians of the mercantile class ridicule this doctrine, and vilify the practice to which it has given rise. They represent all wars as useless, and, entirely forgetful of the perishable character of most of the wealth which any generation enjoys, endeavour to make it appear that nearly all the expense of past struggles is borne by the present population. It is easy to look through the pages of history, and show that most of the wars which they record were for objects that would now be repudiated, or for the assertion of principles which would now be wholly or partially rejected. But this is not a philosophical way of judging their value or their effects; the duty of every nation is to act up to the ideas. which it enter

tains, a course that necessarily falls short of the best ideas then known, or which may hereafter be discovered. In an age of conquest, it is the duty of a people who believe in conquest to compete manfully with their neighbours, and instead of looking with condemnation at Cressy and Agincourt, as certain emasculated teachers would have them do, the English are quite right in treasuring their heritage of military glory and pride. The morality of those wars was an affair of the times, and, so judged, stands well enough in the archives of the past: the heroism has descended to the present; and for a cause which stood as well now as the old cause did in its own day, the people would do their best to repeat it, or would deserve to perish before a manlier race. It is in the same spirit that the wars against the first Napoleon should be judged. We now know better, and would do better, than imitate the policy of George III. and Mr. Pitt; but the work then done appeared as a duty to the bulk of the people; and had it not been done well and bravely, the English nation would have suffered under a debt of shame far more onerous than the money obligations which those wars incurred. English public opinion, although more advanced than that of other part any of Europe, was not then prepared to recognize the claims of peoples as superior to