says he, “not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne, because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened; as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions changed with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.” It is well to stand fast in the old paths; but the old paths should be the paths of progress; to shrink from mere change for the sake of change; but fearlessly to change, whenever change is really needed. All mountain races love the past, and suspect new things. Their fundamental laws are few and slowly formed; as slowly formed as they are stoutly held. The constitutions of the Swiss Cantons were originally of the simplest forms of ancient democracy. The old democracy, whether absolute or modified in form, was always direct; modern democracy is, as a rule, representative. It is obvious that the former presupposes great simplicity of life and occupation, as in the small communities of mountain valleys; nothing could render it consistent with the public peace, but the simple habits of a people of shepherds and husbandmen among whom political dissensions do not prevail. This substitution of the many for the one or the few, of the totality of the community for a determinate portion of it, is an experiment perhaps of insuperable difficulty, except for very small states, and especially for agricultural or pastoral peoples. The Landsgemeinde is only able, at most, to announce the general opinion, to express its approval or its disapproval of a proposition already known; but altogether incapable of deliberating seriously on a projected law, or of solving the more complicated problems of politics. On a wider field and with a more complex society, no such polity would be possible. To a great nation with extended territories and large population, the application of the federal principle is necessary. Therefore in all but four Cantons of Switzerland this primitive type of government has passed away. That it contains the germs out of which every free constitution in the world has grown cannot be denied. A cognate influence, if well considered, will go far towards accounting for that prodigious resolution and success with which the ancient commonwealths maintained their national rights. The whole territories of the Athenian, Spartan, and Roman republics, were originally but a single province; and the whole strength of the province was concentrated in a single city, the embryo of their future greatness, the nucleus around which all their subsequent acquisitions were formed. Within the sacred walls of Rome and Athens, all classes