_Sir Thomas More_.--It is a question of degree. The just medium between too much superintendence and too little: the mystery whereby the free will of the subject is preserved, while it is directed by the fore purpose of the State (which is the secret of true polity), is yet to be found out. But this is certain, that whatever be the origin of government, its duties are patriarchal, that is to say, parental: superintendence is one of those duties, and is capable of being exercised to any extent by delegation and sub-delegation. _Montesinos_.--The Madras system, my excellent friend Dr. Bell would exclaim if he were here. That which, as he says, gives in a school to the master, the hundred eyes of Argus, and the hundred hands of Briareus, might in a state give omnipresence to law, and omnipotence to order. This is indeed the fair ideal of a commonwealth. _Sir Thomas More_.--And it was this at which Alfred aimed. His means were violent, because the age was barbarous. Experience would have shown wherein they required amendment, and as manners improved the laws would have been softened with them. But they disappeared altogether during the years of internal warfare and turbulence which ensued. The feudal order which was established with the Norman conquest, or at least methodised after it, was in this part of its scheme less complete: still it had the same bearing. When that also went to decay, municipal police did not supply its place. Church discipline then fell into disuse; clerical influence was lost; and the consequence now is, that in a country where one part of the community enjoys the highest advantages of civilisation with which any people upon this globe have ever in any age been favoured, there is among the lower classes a mass of ignorance, vice, and wretchedness, which no generous heart can contemplate without grief, and which, when the other signs of the times are considered, may reasonably excite alarm for the fabric of society that rests upon such a base. It resembles the tower in your own vision, its beautiful summit elevated above all other buildings, the foundations placed upon the sand, and mouldering. _Montesinos_. "Rising so high, and built so insecure, Ill may such perishable work endure!" You will not, I hope, come to that conclusion! You will not, I hope, say with the evil prophet-- "The fabric of her power is undermined; The Earthquake underneath it will have way, And all that glorious structure, as the wind Scatters a summer cloud, be swept away!" _Sir Thomas More_.--Look at the populace of London, and ask yourself what security there is that the same blind fury which broke out in your childhood against the Roman Catholics may not be excited against the government, in one of those opportunities which accident is perpetually offering to the desperate villains whom your laws serve rather to protect than to punish!