Is the perfection to which the arts are carried, the test of civilization? Then Bavaria and Italy are the most civilized countries. Then are we far behind the Greeks in civilization. Or, are the useful arts to carry the prize? Then the people showing the greatest mechanical genius is the most civilized. Are political institutions to be the test? Then the question, "Which is the best government?" must first be decided. But the philosophic answer would be: "That which is best adapted to the genius of the people, and therefore best answers the purposes for which all government is instituted." Those who believe in the abstract superiority of any governmental theory, may be compared to the tailor who would finish some beau-ideal of a coat, without taking his customer's measure. We could afford to laugh at such theorists, were not their schemes so often recorded in blood in the annals of the world. Besides, if this test be admitted, no two could agree upon what was a civilized community. The panegyrist of constitutional monarchy would call England the only civilized country; the admirer of municipal liberty would point to the Hanse towns of the Middle Ages, and their miserable relics, the present free cities of Germany; the friend of sober republicanism would exclude from the pale of civilization all but the United States and Switzerland; the lover of pure democracy would contend that mankind had retrograded since the time of Athens, and deplore that civilization was now confined to some few rude mountain or nomadic tribes with few and simple wants; finally, the defender of a paternal autocracy would sigh for the days of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, and hesitate whether, in our age, Austria or Russia deserved the crown.