Could the judges have been free, there would have been no great harm done; a musical democracy would have been well enough--but conceit has been our ruin.

Everybody knows everything, and is ready to say anything; the age of reverence is gone, and the age of irreverence and licentiousness has succeeded.

'Most true.' And with this freedom comes disobedience to rulers, parents, elders,--in the latter days to the law also; the end returns to the beginning, and the old Titanic nature reappears--men have no regard for the Gods or for oaths; and the evils of the human race seem as if they would never cease.

Whither are we running away?
Once more we must pull up the argument with bit and curb, lest, as the proverb says, we should fall off our ass.

'Good.' Our purpose in what we have been saying is to prove that the legislator ought to aim at securing for a state three things--freedom, friendship, wisdom.