Nor need we be surprised at this result, for it proceeded from a cause yet deeper and more decisive than those I have just indicated. Of all systems of government and political guarantees, assuredly the most difficult to establish, and give stability to, is the federative; that system which consists in leaving to each locality and particular society all the portion of governing power that can possibly remain in it, and removing only that portion which is indispensable to the maintenance of general society, in order to form therefrom, in the heart of that society, a central government. In fact the federal system, although logically the most simple, is actually the most complex. To reconcile the degree of local independence and liberty which it leaves in force, with the degree of general order and submission which it demands and involves in certain cases, evidently requires a very advanced civilisation: it is absolutely essential that the inclinations of men, and individual choice, co-operate in the establishment and maintenance of the system much more than in any other, for the coercive means are far inferior. {84} The federal system, therefore, is one which certainly requires the highest development of reason, morality, and civilisation, in the society for which it is intended. Yet this was the system that feudalism essayed to establish, for, in its general features, it was an actual federation. It rested upon the same principles as those upon which the confederation of the United States of America is at present founded. It assumed to confer upon each lord all the government and sovereignty that he could wield, and invest the suzerain, or the general assembly of barons, with the least possible portion of power, and this only in cases where it was absolutely necessary. The impossibility of establishing such a system amidst the ignorance, the brutal passions, and the imperfect moral state of men, as existing under the feudal regime, cannot be matter of doubt. The very nature of such a government was utterly opposed to the manners of the men to whom it was to be applied. Who, then, can be surprised at the failure of these attempts at organisation! We have now considered the feudal society, first in its most simple and fundamental element, and latterly in its entirety. Under these two aspects, we have endeavoured to trace what its necessary and natural influence must have been on the course of civilisation. We are led, as I conceive, to this double result: 1_st_, Feudalism has exercised a considerable, and, upon the whole, a salutary influence upon the inward development of the individual being; it excited in the minds of men energetic ideas and sentiments, moral wants, and fine displays of character and passion.