Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/32

claimed the government in turn: and after all the turbulence, wars, and revolutions, which compoſe the hiſtory of Europe for ſo many ages, we find ſimple monarchies eſtablilhed every where. Whether the ſyſtem will now become stationary, and laſt for ever, by means of a few further improvements in monarchical governments, we know not; or whether ſtill further revolutions are to come. The moſt probable, or rather the only probable change is, the introduction of democratical branches into thoſe governments. If the people ſhould ever aim at more, they will defeat themſelves; and indeed if they aim at this, by any other than gentle means, and by gradual advances; by improvements in general education, and informing the public mind. The ſyſtems of legiſlators are experiments made on human life and manners, ſociety and government. Zoroaſter, Confucius, Mithras, Odin, Thor, Mahomet, Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, and a thouſand others, may be compared to philoſophers making experiments on the elements. Unhappily a political experiment cannot be made in a laboratory, nor determined in a few hours. The operation once begun, runs over whole quarters of the globe, and is not finiſhed in many thouſands of years. The experiment of Lycurgus laſted ſeven hundred years, but never ſpread beyond the limits of Laconia. The proceſs of Solon blowed out in one

century;