Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/217

 Plebeians, or descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of Italy. These two most dissimilar ingredients we see crowded together within the narrow limits of a city, constantly exposed to the observation of each other, and shut up from the possibility of extension on any side by the universal and well-deserved hatred of the neighbouring States;—in this emergency, the Aristocracy firmly combining amongst themselves, and desirous of living at the expense of the People whom they treated like slaves;—this People, on the other hand, rising against them, but yet, with the true European national sense of Right, not desiring the subjugation of the oppressors, but only Equal Rights and Equal Laws;—the Aristocracy, again, in need of the strength of these People for the defence of the State against outward enemies, and hence conceding, under the pressure of necessity, what, when the necessity was past, they would willingly have recalled:—and thus arising a struggle of several centuries duration between these two parties; which began with the Aristocracy declaring all affinity with the families of the People to be a degrading contamination, and refusing to the People, by denial of the privileges of the Auspices, all portion in the sympathy of the Gods; and ended by this same Aristocracy sharing the possession of the highest dignites of the State with men from the ranks of the People, and being compelled to admit that these offices were as beneficially and ably filled by the latter as by themselves. Nevertheless the Aristocracy could not for many centuries forget their former Privileges, and neglected no opportunity of again overreaching the People; who, on the other hand, scarcely ever failed to find the means of protection:—and this endured until all power fell into the hands of a single individual, and both combatants were at once and in like manner subdued. In this contest, prolonged for many centuries, between the effort for Equal Rights