Observe the process to which all this conduces. Before we were laid aside, we read, as everybody read, philosophical histories, in which the progress of society was presented; we read of the old times, when the chieftain, whatever his title, dwelt in the castle on the steep, while his retainers were housed in a cluster of dwellings under the shadow of his protection. We read of the indispensable function of the Priest, in the castle, and of the rise of his order; and then of the Lawyer and _his_ order. We read of the origin of Commerce, beginning in monopoly; and then of the gradual admission of more and more parties to the privileges of trade, and their settling themselves in situations favourable for the purpose, and apart from the head monopolists. We read of the indispensable function of the Merchant, and the rise of _his_ order. We read of the feuds and wars of the aristocratic orders, which, while fatally weakening them, left leisure for the middle and lower classes to rise and grow, and strengthen themselves, till the forces of society were shifted, and its destinies presented a new aspect. We read of the sure, though sometimes intermitting, advance of popular interests, and reduction of aristocratic power and privileges, throughout the general field of civilisation. We read of all these things, and assented to what seemed so very clear--so distinct an interpretation of what had happened up to our own day. At the same time, busy and involved as we were in the interests of the day, how little use did we make of the philosophic retrospect, which might and should have been prophetic! You, I think, dreaded in every popular movement a whirlwind of destruction--in every popular success a sentence of the dissolution of society. You believed that such a man, or such a set of men, could give stability to our condition, and fix us, for an unassignable time, at the point of the last settlement, or what you assumed to be the latest. I, meanwhile, believed that our safety or peril, for a term, depended on the event of this or that movement, the carrying of this or that question. I was not guilty of fearing political ruin. I did with constancy believe in the certain advance of popular interests, and demolition of all injurious power held by the few; but I believed that more depended on single questions than was really involved in such, and that separate measures would be more comprehensive and complete than a dispassionate observer thinks possible. In the midst of all this, you and I were taken apart; and have not our eyes been opened to perceive, in the action of society, the continuation of the history we read so long ago? I need scarcely allude to the progress of popular interests, and the unequalled rapidity with which some great questions are approaching to a settlement. We have a stronger tendency to speculate on the movements of the minds engaged in the transaction of affairs, than on the rate of advance of the affairs themselves. With