This renovation is required as well physically as morally. It is chiefly in regard to the interval of time between the period of necessary feudal authority, and that when the body of the population having acquired the power of self-government from the spread of knowledge, claim a community of rights, that we have adverted to the use of war. The manufacturer, the merchant, the sailor, the capitalist, whose mind is not corrupted by the indolence induced under the law of entail, are too much occupied to require any stimulant beyond what the game in the wide field of commercial adventure affords. A great change in the circumstances of man is obviously at hand. {367} In the first step beyond the condition of the wandering savage, while the lower classes from ignorance remained as helpless children, mankind naturally fell into clans under paternal or feudal government; but as children, when grown up to maturity, with the necessity for protection, lose the subordination to parental authority, so the great mass of the present population requiring no guidance from a particular class of feudal lords, will not continue to tolerate any hereditary claims of authority of one portion of the population over their fellow-men; nor any laws to keep up rank and wealth corresponding to this exclusive power.—It would be _wisdom_ in the noblesse of Europe to abolish every claim or law which serves to point them out a separate class, and, as quickly as possible, to merge themselves into the mass of the population. It is a law manifest in nature, that when the use of any thing is past, its existence is no longer kept up. Although the necessity for the existence of feudal lords is past, yet the same does not hold in respect to a hereditary head or King; and the stability of this head of the government will, in no way, be lessened by such a change. In the present state of European society, perhaps no other rule can be so mild and efficient as that of a liberal benevolent monarch, assisted by a popular representative Parliament. The poorest man looks up to his king as his own, with affection and pride, and considers him a protector; while he only regards the antiquated feudal lord with contempt. The influence of a respected hereditary family, as head of a country, is also of great utility in {368} forming a principle of union to the different members, and in giving unity and stability to the government.