the stage where permanence is most wanted into that where
variability is most wanted; and you cannot comprehend why progress
is so slow till you see how hard the most obstinate tendencies of
human nature make that step to mankind.

Of course the nation we are supposing must keep the virtues of its
first stage as it passes into the after stage, else it will be
trodden out; it will have lost the savage virtues in getting the
beginning of the civilised virtues; and the savage virtues which
tend to war are the daily bread of human nature. Carlyle said, in
his graphic way, 'The ultimate question between every two human
beings is, "Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?"' History is
strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little
progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and
have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the
movements of the world gave a chance for it. But these nations have
come out of the 'pre-economic stage' too soon; they have been put to
learn while yet only too apt to unlearn. Such cases do not vitiate,
they confirm, the principle--that a nation which has just gained
variability without losing legality has a singular likelihood to be
a prevalent nation.

No nation admits of an abstract definition; all nations are beings
of many qualities and many sides; no historical event exactly
illustrates any one principle; every cause is intertwined and
surrounded with a hundred others. The best history is but like the
art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes,
on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in
shadow and unseen. To make a single nation illustrate a principle,
you must exaggerate much and you must omit much. But, not forgetting