[T]he extreme forms of government, Monarchy and Democracy, have a peculiarity which is absent from the more tempered political systems founded on com… - Henry James Sumner Maine

The natural condition of mankind (if that word "natural" is used) is not the progressive condition. It is a condition not of changeableness but of unchangeableness. The immobility of society is the rule; its mobility is the exception. The toleration of change and the belief in its advantages are still confined to the smallest portion of the human race, and even with that portion they are extremely modern.

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.

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.