Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/16

 10 INTRODUCTION. eign nations; it is almost always ourselves that wo see in ihcra. Hence spring many errors. Wo rarely fail to deceive ourselves regarding these ancient na- tions when we sec them through the ojnuions and facts of our own time. Now, errors of this kind are not without danger.. The ideas which the moderns have had of Greece and Rome have often been in their way. Having imper- fectly observed the institutions of the ancient city, men have dreamed of reviving them among us. They have deceived themselves about the liberty of the an- cients, and on this very account liberty among the moderns has been put in peril. The last eighty yeai-s- have clearly sliown that one of the great difhcultics which impede the march of modem society, is the habit which it has of always keeping Greek and Ro- man antiquity before its eyes. To understand the truth about the Greeks and Ro- mans, it is wise to study them without thinking of ourselves, as if they were entirely foreign to us ; with the same disinterestedness, and with the mind as frec^ as if we were studying ancient India or Arabia. Thus observed, Greece and Rome appear to us in a character absolutely inimitable; notliing in modern times resembles them ; nothing in the future can re- semble them. We shall attempt to show by wliat rules these societies were regulated, and it will bo freely admitted that the same rules can never govern humanity again. Whence comes this? Why are the conditions of human government no longer the same as in earlier times? The great changes whith appear from time to time in the constitution of society can bo the effect neither of chance nor offeree alone.