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ANCIENT GBEECE. [CHAP. ix.sensibly, that he existed only through the state and withthe state ;where every revolution of the state in somemeasure inevitably affected him ;and the security of person and property was necessarily much less firmly established, than in well-regulated monarchies. We leave toevery one to form his own judgment, and select his owncriterion ;but we will draw from the whole one general inference, that the forms under which the character of thehuman race can be unfolded, have not been so limited bythe hand of the Eternal, as the wisdom of the schools wouldlead us to believe.But whatever may be thought of the value of these constitutions, the reflection is forced upon us, that they surpassed all others in internal variety ;and therefore in noother nation could so great an abundance of political ideashave been awakened, and preserved in practical circulation.Of the hundreds of Grecian cities, perhaps there were notwo, of which the constitutions were perfectly alike ;andnone, of which the internal relations had not changed thoirform. How much had been tried in each one of them, uuclhow often had the experiments been repeated! And did noteach of these experiments enrich the science of politicsnew withresults ? Where then could there have been so muchpolitical animation, so large an amount of practical knowledge, as among the Greeks ? If uniformity is, in the politicalworld, as in the regions of taste and letters, the parent ofnarrowness, and if variety, on the contrary, promotes cultivation, no nation ever moved in better paths than theGreeks. Although some cities became pre-eminent, no singlecity engrossed every thing the ; splendour of Athens couldas little eclipse Corinth and Sparta, as Miletus and Syracuse.Each city had a life of its own, its own manner of existenceand action ;and it was because each one had a consciousness of its own value, that each came to possess an independent worth.