[Sidenote: The author feels he is fighting a losing game against democracy and its advocates.]
The love of political liberty, and the importance attached to political independence, are so strong in the minds of the Anglo-Saxon nations that it is not likely any one will persuade them, against the splendid advocacy of Grote, that there may be such losses and mischiefs in a democracy as to justify a return to a stronger executive and a greater restriction of public speech. Nevertheless, the conviction derived from a life-long study of Greek history is so strong in me on this question that I feel compelled to state my opinions. It is all the more a duty as I hold that one of the greatest lessons of ancient history is to suggest guiding-posts and advices for the perplexities of modern life. So far is mankind the same in all places and countries, that most civilized peoples will stumble upon the same difficulties and will apply the same experiments to their solution.
[Sidenote: The education of small free States.]
§ 58. There is no one more convinced than I am that this complex of small, independent cities, each forming a separate State in the strictest sense of the term, each showing modifications of internal constitution, each contending with the same obstacles in varied ways,--this wonderful political Many-in-one (for they were one in religion, language, and general culture) afforded an intellectual education to Greek citizens such as the world has not since experienced. The _Politics_ of Aristotle is a summary of the theoretical side of that experience, which could find no parallel till the days of Machiavelli, whose scheme, if completed by the promised _Repubblica_, would have been very similar. For his _Principe_ is plainly suggested by the then re-discovered _Politics_ of Aristotle, which naturally struck the Florentine statesman with its curiously close and various analogies to the history of the Italian republics of the Middle Ages.
Even far more deeply did the lessons of Athenian political life act upon the practical character of the citizen, and train him to be a rational being submitting to the will of the majority, to which he himself contributed in debate, taking his turn at commanding as well as obeying, regarding the labours of office as his just contribution to the public weal, regarding even the sacrifices he made as a privilege,--the outward manifestation of his loyalty to the State which had made him in the truest sense an aristocrat among men. Even when he commanded fleets or armies he did so as the servant of the State; and any attempt to redress private differences by personal assertion of his rights, other than the law provided, was regarded as essentially a violation of his civility and a return to barbarism. To carry arms for personal defence, to challenge an adversary to mortal combat, to take forcible possession of disputed property,--these things were greater outrages and greater violences to civilization at Athens than they are in most of the civilized countries of the nineteenth century.