Page:Democracy in America (Reeve, v. 1).djvu/10

 Prince’ is closed for ever as a State manual; and the book of ‘The People’—a book of perhaps darker sophistries and more pressing tyranny—is as yet unwritten. Nevertheless, the events of every day ought to impress upon our minds the necessity of studying that element which threatens us; and for a generation which is manifestly called upon to witness the solemn and terrible changes of the constitution of the empires of the earth, the deadliest sin is thoughtlessness, the most noxious food is prejudice, and the most fatal disease is party-spirit. The relations between men and power have been so indifferently understood ever since the beginning of the world, that we have found out no remedy for evil but evil, no safety from injury but injury, no protection from attack but attack; and in all the wild experiments which a relaxed social condition has undergone, we have only had fresh confirmation of a truth enounced by Lord Bacon, namely, that the logical part of men's minds is often good, but the