INTRODUCTION. 



3 



one hand, an entailed aristocracy*, whose founders had 

 been gradually thrown uppermost in more stirring 

 times, the boldest and the wisest, but whose pro- 

 geny, " in a calm world" entailed to listless satiety, 

 have little left of hope or fear to awaken in them 

 the dormant energies of their ancestors, or even to 

 preserve these energies from entirely sinking ; and, 

 on the other hand, an overflowing population, chain- 

 ed, from the state of society, to incessant toil, the 

 scope of their mental energies narrowed to a few ob- 

 jects from the division of labom% all tending to that 

 mechanical order and tameness incompatible with 

 liberty ; thus, perhaps, equally in danger of deterio- 

 rating and sinking into caste, both classes yielding 

 to the natural law of restricted adaptation to condi- 

 tion : — when we reflect on this, the conclusion is 

 irresistibly forced upon us, that the periodical re- 

 turn of war is indispensable to the heroic chivabous 

 character and love of freedom which we have so long 

 maintained, and which (Britain being the first in 

 name and power in the family of nations) must be 

 so influential on the morale of the civilized world. 

 It is by the jar and struggle of the conflict that the 

 baser alloy and rust of our manners and institutions 

 must be removed and rubbed away : it is by the en- 



* See App. B. 



A ^ 



