PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN. 187 



the mass of this population with that of a modern 

 capital ! And, if reaching any plausible conclusion as 

 to cities, how little does this tell us of the multitudes 

 peopling the empires and kingdoms to which these 

 cities belong ! Such comparisons, applied either to 

 different ages or to different countries and races of 

 men, rest much on ill-defined words and phrases, and 

 afford little assurance of truth. The vocabulary of 

 the most abstruse physical science is simple compared 

 with that of moral and social philosophy. 



Allowing, however, for all these ambiguities, we 

 cannot doubt the well-proved fact that the moral and 

 social character of a people, taking these terms in their 

 highest and clearest sense, may be greatly and last- 

 ingly elevated by the concurrent influence of good laws 

 and government, of religion and education truthfully 

 and wisely administered. While in every case the 

 actual attainment is far below theoretic perfection, the 

 existence of such attainment becomes a pledge for 

 progress beyond. Even taste, 6 that delicate and aerial 

 faculty which can scarcely endure the chains of a de- 

 finition,' may well be supposed capable, if not of higher 

 powers, yet certainly of so much larger diffusion as to 

 give fresh life and refinement to those moral conditions 

 with which it is always closely associated. 



History furnishes no such pregnant example of the 

 change in question as that already referred to, viz., the 

 contrast between the last three centuries, during which 

 Western Europe has ripened into its actual civilisation, 

 and the thousand years directly preceding them. Many 

 single stars are seen through this long gloom of ages 



