Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and swallowed up the
three great powers that had _seriatim_ cast the human race into one
mould, and had brought them under the unity of a single will, entered by
inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that career had
appropriated, but in a condition of far ampler development. Estimated
merely by longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman empire was
the finest by much that has ever fallen under a single sceptre. Amongst
modern empires, doubtless, the Spanish of the sixteenth century, and the
British of the present, cannot but be admired as prodigious growths out of
so small a stem. In that view they will be endless monuments in
attestation of the marvels which are lodged in civilization. But
considered in and for itself, and with no reference to the proportion of
the creating forces, each of these empires has the great defect of being
disjointed, and even insusceptible of perfect union. It is in fact no
_vinculum_ of social organization which held them together, but the
ideal _vinculum_ of a common fealty, and of submission to the same
sceptre.
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