Civil society is great and unlimited in its extent; the
time has been, when the whole known world was in a manner united in one
community: but the sphere of education has always been limited. It is
for nations to produce the events, that enchant the imagination, and
ennoble the page of history: infancy must always pass away in the
unimportance of mirth, and the privacy of retreat. That government
however is a theme so much superior to education, is not perhaps so
evident, as we may at first imagine.
It is indeed wider in its extent, but it is infinitely less absolute in
its power. The state of society is incontestibly artificial; the power
of one man over another must be always derived from convention, or from
conquest; by nature we are equal. The necessary consequence is, that
government must always depend upon the opinion of the governed. Let the
most oppressed people under heaven once change their mode of thinking,
and they are free. But the inequality of parents and children is the law
of our nature, eternal and uncontrolable.--Government is very limited in
its power of making men either virtuous or happy; it is only in the
infancy of society that it can do any thing considerable; in its
maturity it can only direct a few of our outward actions.
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