' And after exemplifying this at length he
goes on, 'It is not then to be wondered at that Thucydides, when
speaking of a city founded jointly by Ionians and Dorians, should
have thought it right to add "that the prevailing institutions of
the two were Ionian," for according as they were derived from one or
the other the prevailing type would be different. And therefore the
mixture of persons of different race in the same commonwealth,
unless one race had a complete ascendancy, tended to confuse all the
relations of human life, and all men's notions of right and wrong;
or by compelling men to tolerate in so near a relation as that of
fellow-citizens differences upon the main points of human life, led
to a general carelessness and scepticism, and encouraged the notion
that right and wrong had no real existence, but were mere creatures
of human opinion.' But if this be so, the oligarchies were right.
Commerce brings this mingling of ideas, this breaking down of old
creeds, and brings it inevitably. It is now-a-days its greatest good
that it does so; the change is what we call 'enlargement of mind'.
But in early times Providence 'set apart the nations;' and it is not
till the frame of their morals is set by long ages of transmitted
discipline, that such enlargement can be borne.
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