HIS PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTER. 405 
position among the nations, and celebrated for its exemplary civic 
virtues, did not contain more than ten thousand free citizens, the 
remainder of the population consisting of slaves, debased beyond 
description. Rome, that pattern of republics, was crowded with 
workhouses, wherein inhuman cruelties were perpetrated on the in- 
mates, which can be fitly compared only to the torments endured in 
the bagnios at Constantinople. In the cold, heartless, and unchari- 
table Civism, was comprehended all the virtues of which the an- 
cients could boast. It guaranteed the enjoyment of unlimited liber- 
ty, and the unrestrained exercise of sovereign power, to a few thou- 
sands. whilst it imposed extreme degradation, and hopeless misery, 
on the remaining millions, rendering the condition of our modern 
slaves comparatively enviable: such, indeed, was the rigour with 
which that civic virtue was carried into practice, that the more it 
was divested of humanity, the nearer the system was considered to 
approach perfection. The republics of the ancients afford, therefore, 
an example to be shunned, except by those politicians who despair 
of the progress of moral and intellectual refinement in society ; or 
by fanatics who, in the extremity of their admiration and zeal, be- 
come insensible to the grievous calamities which must ensue, if a 
system so pregnant with mischief were applied to modern times.— 
Rousseau, though he well knew that the civism of the ancients was 
directly at variance with those sublime principles of Christianity 
out of which modern civilization has sprung, was nevertheless fully 
impressed with the conviction that the frailties of human nature 
would always incapacitate man from the attainment of those higher 
virtues, and was therefore satisfied to recommend to society the in- 
ferior institutions of early civilization. Robespiérre, too, was far 
from being ignorant that the boasted liberty of the ancients was a 
privilege in which but a very small proportion of the community 
participated, falling far short of the freedom claimed by modern na- 
tions ; yet was he ever impressed with the belief that this ancient 
civism was in itself most perfect. Even the more sober Montes- 
quieu considered this ancient virtue as the sole moral principle best 
calculated to promote the welfare of the Republic: while the sys- 
tem acted, as if by a magic spell, on the chaotic brain of our fanatic, 
and conjured up in his imagination all the miraculous and heroic 
deeds of antiquity, whether historical or fabulous; and the word 
civism (patriotism) was considered so comprehensive by him, and 
presented to his mind so many virtues in various forms, and so well 
suited to all the exigencies of practical life, as to constitute perfec- 
tion itself, 
