There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and instituting it in his own way.

Condillac.—­“Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of Lycurgus or of Solon.  Before you finish reading this essay, amuse yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in Africa.  Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them to keep flocks....  Endeavour to develop the social qualities which nature has implanted in them....  Make them begin to practise the duties of humanity....  Cause the pleasures of the passions to become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and gain a virtue.

“All these people have had laws.  But few among them have been happy.  Why is this?  Because legislators have almost always been ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a common interest.

“Impartiality in law consists in two things:—­in establishing equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens....  In proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the dearer will they become to every citizen....  How can avarice, ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy, agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?

     “What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
     enlighten you on this question.  No other State has had laws more in
     accordance with the order of nature or of equality.”

It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything, form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a great legislator, or a great genius.  These ages were reared in the study of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by imposture.  And what does this prove?  That because men and society are improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must be more prevalent in early times.  The mistake of the writers quoted above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future generations.  Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity, morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment, right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of herself.