122 SHEHITIC CIVILIZATION. 



Subject. It is true they have by no means 

 at all times reconciled these two opposite 

 necessities equally well. But we never find 

 amongst them those great single despotisms, 

 destroying all individuality, and reducing 

 man to a sort of abstract state and name- 

 less function, as we see him in Egypt, 

 Babylonia, China, and in Mussulman and 

 Tartar despotisms. Take, one after another, 

 the little municipal republics of Greece and 

 Italy, the Germanic feudality, the grand 

 centralized organizations of which Eome 

 gave the first model, and of which the 

 French Eevolution reproduced the ideal, 

 and you will always find a vigorous moral 

 element, a strong sense of the public weal, 

 and sacrifice to one general end. Indi- 

 viduality was but little secured in Sparta ; 

 the petty democracies of Athens, and of 

 Italy in the middle ages, were nearly as fero- 

 cious as the most venal tyrant ; the Boman 

 Empire reached (partly, it is true, through 

 the influence of the East) to an intolerable 

 despotism ; German feudality bordered upon 



