Political Science Of The State

INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CAUSES. 529
2. The Influence of equality as it regards state rights will
necessarily be expressed in manners and character. One
effect of it is the higher character of the lowest class where it
is not depressed by the feeling that they can never reach re-
spectability. The possession of political rights, or the pros-
pect of reaching them by temperance and thrift, is a cause of
self-respect, and leads to the respect of the rights of others.
This brings with it a general civility-of manners, and caution
in regard to giving offense to others, which free intercourse
might otherwise make easy.
On the other hand, the greater the equality of political con-
dition in a country, the greater is the want of reverence. This
was long ago remarked upon as a characteristic of Athenian
democracy, that old age did not meet with the same respect
there as in some other Greek states, that the subordination of
the young to the old was injured by the institutions of the
city.* The same feeling is carried into the outward manifes-
tations of religion, among Protestants, and, most of all, in
those denominations which have a democratic government,,
or are especially religions of the people ; there is a want
among us of those sentiments of veneration and reverence
with which the ancients strove to inspire the young by a strict
discipline of manners.
3. The more free a state is in its polity, the more law-abid-
ing is the spirit of the people. It is true there may be a
stolid obedience in a despotism dictated by fear, ignorance,
and a sense of weakness, as well as a reverence bordering on
religious awe, but there is little of a feeling such as a free man
under political institutions ought to entertain towards law and
its ministers. It may be plausibly said that they who make
the law and yet have not reason and reflection enough to per-
ceive the necessity of obedience, will be more ready to break
the law than others ; but the institutions, of a free government,
*Xenophon (respubl. Athen., L, 11) says that "at Athens a slave
will not stand out of the way for you," and, that in Lacedaemon " my
slave fears you/'
VOL. II.—34