manent.(36) It is undoubtedly true, that the exertions of the inventor or improver of the mariner's compass, the printing-press, and the steam-engine, are more cosmopolitan and diffusive in their results, than the political reforms and improvements of a statesman, however beneficial these may be in his own country. At the same time it is to be borne in mind, that he who succeeds in producing an excellent political institution exercises an influence which extends beyond his own nation and age. The institution which he has created attracts attention and admiration by its successful working. Those who live under its operation, and therefore experience its benefits, extol its merits, and recommend it to the imitation of the world. It serves as a real model to other nations, particularly to those enjoying the same degree of civilization; and it may be safely affirmed that good political institutions will be propagated from one country to another, if not as rapidly, at least as surely, as inventions in the useful arts. Such institutions as roads, a government post, banks, hospitals, museums, &c., are copied by one country from another, not less than such inventions as clocks, coaches, or thermometers. If any one of the larger states of the ancient world -either of the Oriental or Hellenic civilization-had hit upon the contrivance of a representative government; if an Oriental state, instead of governing its provinces by satraps-if a conquering Greek republic, or Rome, or Carthage, had incorporated its dependencies with the paramount state by means of permanent elected representatives, there is no doubt that the system would have attracted attention; it would have been described by the historians, commented upon by the philosophers, and scrutinized and judged by the practical politicians. And if the system had been successfully worked in any instance, there would undoubtedly have been a disposition to imitate it in countries similarly situated. Nor is it true that the influence of a really

(36) Etenim inventorum beneficia ad universum genus humanum pertinere possunt; civilia ad certas tantummodo hominum sedes: hæc etiam non ultra paucas ætates durant; illa quasi perpetuis temporibus.'-Nov. Org. i. aph. 129.

valuable improvement in political subjects is necessarily obliterated by its extinction in the country where it originated. The Greek invention of government by a political body has been perpetuated by the civilized world, and has long survived the fall of the diminutive commonwealths in which it took its rise. Much of the Roman law, having been adopted and copied by the modern European states, is in force at present; and, although the Roman empire has long been dissolved, it remains as a living monument of the wisdom of Roman legislation and jurisprudence. (37)

$ 10 There is a difference in the mode of employing real models in politics, which is also observable in the employment of similar models in the useful arts. In the works of the useful arts, it sometimes happens that the demand of numerous persons for a given article is uniform-that their wants are identical, and therefore copies of it are multiplied from the same original. If the circumstances admit, these copies are obtained by impression, as typographic prints, engravings, printed cottons; by stamping, as coins, buttons; by casting, as iron and bronze casts, plaster ornaments; if not, they are made according to a pattern, as stockings, gloves, shoes, hats, and other articles of dress, articles of hardware, tools of all sorts, and, in fact, all articles manufactured on a large scale. If, however, the demand is individual, and not general—if it is for a single peculiar article, and not for articles precisely similar to others of the same class, it is necessary to adapt the type to the conditions of the given Thus, if a bridge, or a road, or a dock, or a large building or ship of any sort, is to be constructed, or if any extensive machinery is to be erected, the work must be made to suit the peculiar circumstances of the case. The general type of a bridge, or a road, or a palace, or a church, or a ship, must be modified, so as to fulfil the conditions of the special problem. A specu

case.

(37) The Roman law was itself in part founded on the Attic law, the most complete system of Greek jurisprudence: Jus Romanum maximam partem ex jure Attico effictum atque expressum esse, res nota est ac manifesta omnibus.'-Luzac, Lectiones Atticæ, p. 75. See, however, Cic. de Orat. i. 44.

lator may build a street of identical houses, because there is a class of persons whose wants, in the way of habitation, are identical, but there is no class of persons who want several churches such as St. Peter's or St. Paul's-several bridges such as the Menai bridge-several palaces such as Versailles-several roads such as that of the Simplon-several buildings for the exhibition of works of industry, like the gigantic glass structure recently erected in Hyde-park. The difference between these two modes of dealing with a real type, in the useful arts, may be illustrated by comparing a suit of clothes made from measure, to fit a given person, with a suit of clothes purchased of a ready-made dealer, or supplied by contract, as a uniform dress in the army or navy, or to the inmates of a public establishment: or, again, by comparing a dinner ordered for the occasion with a dinner provided according to a dietary table.

Now in politics it is possible, in a considerable number of cases, to adopt the method of the identical multiplication of real types. In the execution of laws, the circumstances of different cases are often so simple and so similar, that the same mode of dealing with them can be adopted. Hence, in judicial matters, the same formulas of procedure-in administrative matters, the same instructions and regulations, are applied to large classes of cases, and are not varied, by the executive authorities, to suit each successive case. When once a set of regulations or instructions has been carefully prepared, it may be applied to many prisons, to many schools, to many workhouses, to many regiments, to many ships' crews, &c. But it is in politics as in the useful arts-if the circumstances of the case are complex, the general type must be individualized, and adapted to them by proper modifications. For the same reason that a palace or a fortress is built from a special plan, while cottages may be built in a class-that a coat is best made to order, while a hat or gloves can be chosen from similar articles, made of a certain size-it is necessary, in politics, to desert the general formula, and frame instructions for the individual case, where its circumstances are complex and intricate.

The advantages of these respective modes of dealing with the subject are similar in politics and in the useful arts. When the general type is adapted to the individual case, the work is more perfect. If everything that we use or consume was made to order, and was adapted to its special destination, our wants would be most perfectly satisfied. But, on the other hand, we must be content with fewer things. Articles made to order demand more labour, and are therefore more expensive, than articles manufactured uniformly from a fixed type. If gloves were made to measure, like shoes, they would be proportionally dearer. Impressions from a die can be multiplied at a cheap cost; but if every medal was engraved by hand, the price would be greatly increased. So, in politics, a measure of the government is most perfect when the real type is taken merely as a guide, and is adapted by a special operation to the circumstances of the given case. But to repeat this process of adaptation on every occasion would be tedious and difficult, and hence, where the circumstances of different cases are simple, and closely resemble one another, there is much economy of labour, together with some incidental advantages, in resorting to a multiplication of the same real type without alteration.

Legislation for an entire country by a single law is, so far as it limits the discretion of the executive authorities, equivalent to the multiplication of copies from a master-type. Thus, if a law is passed that all the prisons, all the schools, all the sewers, all the roads and bridges, throughout the country, shall be managed in the same manner, the principle enforced is that of identical repetitions of a single pattern. When, however, the legislation is local, the law is adapted to the circumstances of the particular district, and the general type is modified according to the specialities of the given case. For example, if there is a local act for the drainage and lighting of town A or parish B, or for the maintenance of its poor, or the repair of its roads, or any other public purpose, the general principles of legislation applicable to the subject are moulded to suit the peculiarities of the place.

There are certain advantages in politics which belong to

VOL. II.

Q

uniformity-there are certain advantages which belong to local adaptation. Thus, uniformity of institutions in different places facilitates inspection, comparison, and simplicity of management

-a class of advantages which may be compared with the convenience of opening several locks with a master-key; whereas local adaptation produces a measure in which the wants of the locality are more exclusively considered. The present, however, is not the proper place for a detailed investigation of the respective advantages of these two systems.

§ 11 While we recognise the importance and value of real models, we must be careful to bear in mind that there is a tendency in mankind to see in the past what does not exist thereto people a bygone age with forms of their own creation-to idealize historical realities to evoke from the dead imaginary states of society-and to fill up the obscure parts of history with a phantasmagoria reflected from their own conceptions. Under the influence of this optical delusion of the mind, political institutions and states of society assume new shapes, colours, and combinations: their defects and deformities disappear, their beauties are embellished, their proportions are magnified. The real and the idealized portraits bear the same relation to one another, which a company of actors at a rehearsal bear to the same actors dressed for their parts, and assisted by the stage illusions and theatrical decorations. It was this disposition which led the Lacedæmonians to imagine that they saw in the legislation of Lycurgus a plan for the equal division of lands among the citizens, thus transferring to a semi-fabulous age the later theories of a philosophical communism.(38) In like manner, the proto

(38) The unhistorical nature of the equal division of lands by Lycurgus was first proved by Mr. Grote: see his Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 528-47. After showing that this belief was suggested by the patriotic reforms of Agis III., combined with the idea of equality among the citizens contained in the legislation of Lycurgus, he proceeds thus: It was thus that the fancies, longings, and indirect suggestions of the present assumed the character of recollections out of the early, obscure, and extinct historical past. Perhaps the philosopher Sphærus of Borysthenes, author of works now lost, both on Lycurgus and Socrates, and on the constitution of Sparta, may have been one of those who gave currency to such a hypothesis; and we shall readily believe that, if advanced, it would find easy and sin