Apart from the special causes to which Mr. Reid and other historians have alluded, and apart, moreover, from the intentions—­often the very wise intentions—­of individual Emperors, the municipal system, and with it the principle that local affairs should be dealt with locally, was almost bound to founder directly the force of circumstances strengthened the hands of the central authority at Rome.  The battle between centralisation and decentralisation still continues.  Every one who has been engaged in it knows that, whatever be the system adopted, the spirit in which it is carried out counts for even more than the system itself.  Once place a firm, self-confident man with the centralising spirit strong within him at the head of affairs, and he will often, without any apparent change, go far to shatter any system, however carefully it may have been devised, to encourage decentralisation.  Such a man was Napoleon.  Every conceivable subject bearing on the government of his fellow-men was, as M. Taine says, “classified and docketed” in his ultra-methodical brain.  It is useless to ask a man of this sort to decentralise.  He cannot do so, not always by reason of a deliberate wish to grasp at absolute power, but because he sees so clearly what he thinks should be done that he cannot tolerate the local ineptitude, as he considers it, that leads to the rejection of his views.  Thus, whilst Napoleon said to Count Chaptal, “Ce n’est pas des Tuileries qu’on peut diriger une armee,” at the same time, as a matter of fact, he never ceased to interfere with the action of his generals employed at a distance, with results which, especially in Spain, were generally disastrous to French arms.  Another general cause which militates against decentralisation is the inevitable tendency of any disputant who is dissatisfied with a decision given locally to seek redress at the hands of the central authority.  St. Paul appealed to Caesar.  A discontented Rajah will appeal to the Secretary of State for India.  It is certain that in these cases, unless the appellate authority acts with the greatest circumspection, a risk will be incurred of giving a severe blow to the fundamental principles of decentralisation.  It is no very hazardous conjecture to assume that many of the Roman Emperors were, like Napoleon, constitutionally disposed to centralise, and that the greater their ability the more likely was this disposition to dominate their minds.  Thus Tacitus, speaking of Tiberius, says, “He never relaxed from the cares of government, but derived relief from his occupations."[102] A man of this temperament is a born centraliser.  However much his reason or his statesmanship may hold him in check, he will probably sooner or later yield to the temptation of stretching his own authority to such an extent as materially to weaken that of his distant and subordinate agents.