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very worthiness. It was through the instrumentality of this 

 all-important principle that man here sought the high attain- 

 ment of self-government. The adoption of this kind of gov- 

 ernment led to important results in a national point of view. 

 It clothed the state with new powers, invested it with new 

 attributes, threw over it the moral qualities of a person, and 

 thus rendered it a fit subject of the law of nations. Its will 

 was the blended wills of all its members ; its acts, their acts, 

 modified by each other. It bore nearly the same kind of re- 

 lation to its members, that life does to the organs through 

 which it operates, or that the entire mind does to the facul- 

 ties that compose it. 



The spirit actuating the movements of the Greek and Ro- 

 man era was the same. In the government of Rome we rec- 

 ognize indeed a new peculiarity, the aristocracy. To that, 

 perhaps, is owing the greater permanence of its institutions. 



One strong feature in the Greek and Roman character was 

 an unconquerable attachment to country. It was the source 

 of pleasure, the centre of sympathy. Hence resulted what 

 may be deemed the true spirit of the Greek and Roman era, 

 national enterprise and national glory. In Greece and Rome 

 human elements strongly tended to separation and develope- 

 ment. Industry, government, arts, religion, and philosophy 

 no longer exist, as they did in Asia, one commingled mass. 

 The arts and philosophy here achieve their enfranchisement. 

 The productions of the former exhibit definiteness, and pre- 

 cision, and beauty of proportion. The Grecian model was 

 worthy of the Grecian master. The trophies of the Grecian 

 arts have descended to us in the glowing canvass of her Apel- 

 les, in the all but breathing marble of her Phidias. 



The enfranchisement of philosophy was still more impor- 

 tant. The very point of separation is the centre of a deep 

 feeling, of an intense interest. Why ? That point was sealed 

 with the blood of a Socrates. In him philosophy first awoke 

 to a knowledge and comprehension of herself. She after- 

 wards investigated earth and its productions in the researches 

 of her Aristotle. She ascended to the source of things in the 

 splendid idealism of her Plato. 



