But though this conspiracy can in no respect be regarded as the proximate cause of the re–establishment of democracy; though neither its motives nor its effects, so far as we can judge after the long lapse of ages, merit the encomiums which have been showered on them so profusely, it nevertheless affected vitally the interests of Athens, and, through her, of the civilised world. The mind need indeed be far–sighted and acute which presumes to trace the changes which a single deviation from the ordained course of events would have produced; yet it is neither uninteresting nor uninstructive to consider in what way a nation’s destiny might have been modified, and to observe the natural connexion by which crime results from intemperance and injustice, misfortune and misconduct from crime; while the melancholy series is still overruled to restore freedom to an injured people, and to punish the ambition which produced such fatal effects. From the apparently uninterrupted content which prevailed at Athens during a period of twenty–four years, from the last return of Pisistratus to the death of Hipparchus, there is good reason to believe that, but for private enmity, the brothers might have borne uninterrupted sway for the natural period of their lives. That of Hippias was prolonged for twenty–three years; making a sufficient period in the whole to have habituated the Athenians to usurpation, and to have enabled him to transfer the sceptre to his children as easily as he received it from his father. Athens, thus converted, like the Ionian cities, into a tyranny,[178] would probably have offered no more effectual progress than they did to the Persian power, and without her assistance all Greece would have fallen under the dominion of the King.[179] To pursue the subject further would be both rash and useless: it is obvious that such an event would have exercised a most powerful influence over the subsequent history of mankind: to define that influence would be difficult to the most penetrating and comprehensive understanding, and the attempt would be presumption here.