I EARLY LIFE 23 



an absolute monarch ; and we have already had an instance of 

 this kind, sufficient to convince us, that such a person will 

 never resign his power, or establish any free government. 

 Matters, therefore, must be trusted to their natural progress 

 and operation ; and the House of Commons, according to its 

 present constitution, must be the only legislature in such a 

 popular government. The inconveniences attending such a 

 situation of affairs present themselves by thousands. If the 

 House of Commons, in such a case, ever dissolve itself, which 

 is not to be expected, we may look for a civil war every 

 election. If it continue itself, we shall suffer all the tyranny 

 of a faction subdivided into new factions. And, as such a 

 violent government cannot long subsist, we shall at last, after 

 many convulsions and civil wars, find repose in absolute 

 monarchy, which it would have been happier for us to have 

 established peaceably from the beginning. Absolute monarchy, 

 therefore, is the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the 

 British constitution. 



"Thus if we have more reason to be jealous of monarchy, 

 because the danger is more imminent from that quarter ; we 

 have also reason to be more jealous of popular government, be- 

 cause that danger is more terrible. This may teach us a lesson 

 of moderation in all our political controversies." (III. 55). 



One may admire the sagacity of these specula- 

 tions, and the force and clearness with which they 

 are expressed, without altogether agreeing with 

 them. That an analogy between the social and 

 bodily organism exists, and is, in many respects, 

 clear and full of instructive suggestion, is undeni- 

 able. Yet a state answers, not to an individual, 

 but to a generic type ; and there is no reason, in 

 the nature of things, why any generic type should 

 die out. The type of the pearly Nautilus, highly 

 organised as it is, has persisted with but little 



