With the exception, therefore,
of a few studious men who take an intellectual interest in speculation
for its own sake, the intelligence and sentiments of the whole
people are given up to the material interests, and, when these are
provided for, to the amusement and ornamentation, of private life. But
to say this is to say, if the whole testimony of history is worth
anything, that the era of national decline has arrived: that is, if
the nation had ever attained anything to decline from. If it has never
risen above the condition of an Oriental people, in that condition
it continues to stagnate. But if, like Greece or Rome, it had realised
anything higher, through the energy, patriotism, and enlargement of
mind, which as national qualities are the fruits solely of freedom, it
relapses in a few generations into the Oriental state. And that
state does not mean stupid tranquillity, with security against
change for the worse; it often means being overrun, conquered, and
reduced to domestic slavery, either by a stronger despot, or by the
nearest barbarous people who retain along with their savage rudeness
the energies of freedom.
Such are not merely the natural tendencies, but the inherent
necessities of despotic government; from which there is no outlet,
unless in so far as the despotism consents not to be despotism; in
so far as the supposed good despot abstains from exercising his power,
and, though holding it in reserve, allows the general business of
government to go on as if the people really governed themselves.
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