Cormafier Bandolito Directory 02
Page 11

Nor is it at all certain that there ought to have been. The difficulties of really, truly, and honestly laying the national sovereignty in the hands of the whole population of such a realm as England, and of so organizing the population that its decisions shall actually control the legislation of the country and the public administration of its affairs, are all but insuperable. The English people found the tyranny and oppression of royalty intolerable. They arose and set royalty aside. It devolved, then, on the next strongest power in the state to assume the authority thus divested; this was the Parliament, who governed, just as the king had done, by the exercise of their own superior power, keeping the mass of the community just where they were before. It is true that many individuals of very low rank rose to positions of great power; but they represented only a party, and the power they wielded was monarchical power usurped, not Republican power fairly conferred upon them. Thus, though in the time of the Commonwealth there were plenty of Republicans, there was never a republic. It has always been so in all European revolutions. In America, Legislatures and executive officers of state are only _agents_, through whom the great population itself quietly executes its will, the two millions of votes in the great elections being the real power by which every thing is controlled. But Cromwell, Napoleon, Lamartine, Cavaignac, and all the others, whatever formalities of voting may have attended their induction into office, have always really held their power by force of bayonets, not of ballots. There is great danger that it will continue so in Europe for a long time to come.

At this day the scholar must be ready to explain the steps by which he reaches his conclusions. Not necessarily explaining the minutiae of his journey hither, but the main outlines of his course. This seems to call for a slight outline of Geology. The animal and vegetable tribes which have come and gone upon the earth, following each other like the shadows of passing clouds on a Summer's day, have left their remains in the rocks which at that time were forming. A close investigation of these remains shows that they form the record book of nature, wherein we are permitted to read somewhat of her secrets. This had long been a sealed book to man; but science, as we have seen, constantly extending her domain, at length taught him the alphabet.

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