of which, the canon of inspiration never being complete, the persons
most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not only denounce and
reprobate, with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever
appeared to them deserving of such treatment, but could give forth
better and higher interpretations of the national religion, which
thenceforth became part of the religion. Accordingly, whoever can
divest himself of the habit of reading the Bible as if it was one
book, which until lately was equally inveterate in Christians and in
unbelievers, sees with admiration the vast interval between the
morality and religion of the Pentateuch, or even of the historical
books (the unmistakable work of Hebrew Conservatives of the sacerdotal
order), and the morality and religion of the prophecies--a distance as
wide as between these last and the Gospels. Conditions more favorable
to Progress could not easily exist; accordingly, the Jews, instead of
being stationary like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the
most progressive people of antiquity, and, jointly with them, have
been the starting-point and main propelling agency of modern
cultivation.

It is, then, impossible to understand the question of the adaptation
of forms of government to states of society, without taking into
account not only the next step, but all the steps which society has
yet to make; both those which can be foreseen, and the far wider
indefinite range which is at present out of sight. It follows, that to
judge of the merits of forms of government, an ideal must be
constructed of the form of government most eligible in itself, that
is, which, if the necessary conditions existed for giving effect to
its beneficial tendencies, would, more than all others, favor and
promote, not some one improvement, but all forms and degrees of it.
This having been done, we must consider what are the mental conditions