Human nature is equal to much, but not to
everything. It can rise to altitudes where it is alike unable to sustain
itself or to retire from them to a safer elevation. Yet when the field is
open it pushes forward, and moderation in the pursuit of greatness is
never learnt and never will be learnt. Men of genius are governed by their
instinct; they follow where instinct leads them; and the public life of a
nation is but the life of successive generations of statesmen, whose
horizon is bounded, and who act from day to day as immediate interests
suggest. The popular leader of the hour sees some present difficulty or
present opportunity of distinction. He deals with each question as it
arises, leaving future consequences to those who are to come after him.
The situation changes from period to period, and tendencies are generated
with an accelerating force, which, when once established, can never be
reversed. When the control of reason is once removed, the catastrophe is
no longer distant, and then nations, like all organized creations, all
forms of life, from the meanest flower to the highest human institution,
pass through the inevitably recurring stages of growth and transformation
and decay. A commonwealth, says Cicero, ought to be immortal, and for ever
to renew its youth. Yet commonwealths have proved as unenduring as any
other natural object:
Everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
And this huge state presenteth nought but shows,
Whereon the stars in silent influence comment.
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