“When we once recognize, however, that _all absolute beginning lies out of the reach of our mental conceptions, which comprehend nothing beyond development and progress_, and when we attempt nothing more than to go back from the later to the earlier stages in the compass of history, we shall often find, on opposite coasts of the same sea, people of one stock (that is, of the same peculiar customs and language,) without being warranted in supposing that either of these separate coasts was the primitive home from whence emigrants crossed over to the other. This is analogous to the geography of animals and plants, whose wide districts are severed by mountains and inclose internal seas.” 1. The political condition, which Grecian legend everywhere presents to us, is in its principal features strikingly different from that which had become universally prevalent among the Greeks in the time of the Peloponnêsian war. Historical oligarchy, as well as democracy, agreed in requiring a certain established system of government, comprising the three elements of specialized functions, temporary functionaries, and ultimate responsibility (under some forms or other) to the mass of qualified citizens—either a Senate or an Ecclesia, or both. There were, of course, many and capital distinctions between one government and another, in respect to the qualification of the citizen, the attributes and efficiency of the general assembly, the admissibility to power, etc.; and men might often be dissatisfied with the way in which these questions were determined in their own city. But in the mind of every man, some determining rule or system—something like what in modern times is called a _constitution_—was indispensable to any government entitled to be called legitimate, or capable of creating in the mind of a Greek a feeling of moral obligation to obey it. The functionaries who exercised authority under it might be more or less competent or popular; but his personal feelings towards them were commonly lost in his attachment or aversion to the general system. If any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the constitution, and render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and pleasure,—even though he might govern well, he could never inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him. His sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the shedding of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious. Nor could he be mentioned in the language except by a name[84] (τύραννος, _despot_,) which branded him as an object of mingled fear and dislike.