In the second place, such a state of things is favourable to public liberty. The congregation of men in great masses is found to give great force to the influence of public opinion; by the spirit of discussion which it generates; by the anxiety for intelligence which it diffuses; by the collisions of opinion which it engenders, and by the facility of union which it affords. Nations purely or principally agricultural are generally under a despotic government, especially large states, for the maxim of _divide et impera_ is applicable as well to internal as to external politics. Ancient Persia and Assyria, and modern Russia and Poland, are instances in point. The fierce and demoralizing tyranny of the feudal system, which, after [p289] the destruction of the Roman monarchy, left scarcely any other division of the people than those of tyrant and vassal, could only be effectually broken by the rise of great towns. These communities were alone competent to resist the aristocratical and subordinate despotisms into which all the nations of Europe were subdivided, and which, as is well known, overawed the throne, whilst they enslaved the people. In confirmation of this, it may be remarked, that the free republics of antiquity, as well as those of the middle ages, derived the spirit which nurtured them almost entirely from the capital city; and though, in the former case, there was scarcely any commerce to excite the activity of the people, yet the mere congregation of a numerous body of men sustained the power of public opinion.