Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilisation. The history of the two cannot be disentangle… - Henry James Sumner Maine

There is no belief less warranted by actual experience, than that a democratic republic is, after the first and in the long-run, given to reforming legislation. As is well known to scholars, the ancient republics hardly legislated at all; their democratic energy was expended upon war, diplomacy, and justice; but they put nearly insuperable obstacles in the way of a change of law. The Americans of the Umted States have hedged themselves round in exactly the same way.

Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin.

Whether - and this is the last objection - the age of aristocracies be over, I cannot take upon myself to say. I have sometimes thought it one of the chief drawbacks on modern democracy that, while it gives birth to despotism with the greatest facility, it does not seem to be capable of producing aristocracy, though from that form of political and social ascendency all improvement has hitherto sprung.