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He would not harass them with minute regulations, he would have

allowed some changes in the laws: but not changes which would

affect the fundamental institutions of the state, such for

example as would convert an aristocracy into a timocracy, or a

timocracy into a popular form of government.

Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has

been the exception rather than the law of human history. And

therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of progress

is of modern rather than of ancient date; and, like the idea of a

philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two old. It

seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human mind

by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church,

and to be due to the political and social improvements which they

introduced into the world; and still more in our own century to

the idealism of the first French Revolution and the triumph of

American Independence; and in a yet greater degree to the vast

material prosperity and growth of population in England and her

colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a measure

to the greater study of the philosophy of history.