was at least to be found in the wild spasms of 'wild justice,' half
punishment, half outrage,--but anyhow, being unfixed by steady law,
it was intermittent, vague, and hard for us to imagine. Everybody
who has studied mathematics knows how many shadowy difficulties he
seemed to have before he understood the problem, and how impossible
it was when once the demonstration had flashed upon him, ever to
comprehend those indistinct difficulties again, or to call up the
mental confusion, that admitted them. So in these days, when we
cannot by any effort drive out of our minds the notion of law, we
cannot imagine the mind of one who had never known it, and who could
not. by any effort have conceived it.

Again, the primitive man could not have imagined what we mean by a
nation. We on the other hand cannot imagine those to whom it is a
difficulty; 'we know what it is when you do not ask us,' but we
cannot very quickly explain or define it. But so much as this is
plain, a nation means a LIKE body of men, because of that likeness
capable of acting together, and because of that likeness inclined to
obey similar rules; and even this Homer's Cyclops--used only to
sparse human beings--could not have conceived.

To sum up--LAW--rigid, definite, concise law--is the primary want of
early mankind; that which they need above anything else, that which
is requisite before they can gain anything else. But it is their
greatest difficulty, as well as their first requisite; the thing
most out of their reach, as well as that most beneficial to them if
they reach it. In later ages many races have gained much of this
discipline quickly, though painfully; a loose set of scattered clans
has been often and often forced to substantial settlement by a rigid
conqueror; the Romans did half the work for above half Europe. But