114: MANNERS AND FASHION. 



eminent, suggests a community in modes of change also 

 On the other hand, Nature often 23erforms substantially 

 similar operations, in ways apparently different. Hence 

 these details can never be foretold. 



Meanwhile, let us glance at the conclusions that have 

 been reached. On the one side, government, originally 

 one, and afterwards subdivided for the better fulfilment of 

 its function, must be considered as having ever been, in all 

 its branches — political, religious, and ceremonial — bene- 

 ficial ; and, indeed, absolutely necessary. On the other 

 side, government, under all its forms, must be regarded as 

 subserving a temporary oflice, made needful by the unfit- 

 ness of aboriginal humanity for social life ; and the succes- 

 sive diminutions of its coerciveness in State, in Church, and 

 in Custom, must be looked upon as steps towards its final 

 disappearance. To complete the conception, there requires 

 to be borne in mind the third fact, that the genesis, the 

 maintenance, and the decline of all governments, however 

 named, are alike brought about by the humanity to be con- 

 trolled : from which may be drawn the inference that, on 

 the average, restrictions of every kind cannot last much 

 longer than they are wanted, and cannot be destroyed 

 much faster than they ought to be. 



Society, in all its developments, undergoes the process 

 of exuviation. These old forms which it successively 

 throws off, have all been once vitally united with it — have 

 severally served as the protective envelopes within which 

 a higher humanity was being evolved. They are cast 

 aside only when they become hindrances — only when some 

 inner and better envelope has been formed ; and they be- 

 queath to us all that there was in them good. The periodi- 

 cal abolitions of tyrannical laws have left the administration 

 of justice not only uninjured, but purified. Dead and 

 buried creeds have not carried with them the essential 



