, that it is "the cheap defence of
nations;" for the security which is thus obtained, be it recollected, does
not regard a small succession of princes, but the whole rights and
interests of social man: since the contests for the rights of belligerent
rivals do not respect themselves only, but very often spread ruin and
proscription amongst all orders of men. The principle of hereditary
succession, says one writer, had it been a discovery of any one
individual, would deserve to be considered as the very greatest ever made;
and he adds acutely, in answer to the obvious, but shallow objection to it
(viz. its apparent assumption of equal ability for reigning in father and
son for ever), that it is like the Copernican system of the heavenly
bodies,--contradictory to our sense and first impressions, but true
notwithstanding.
CHAPTER VI.
To return, however, to our sketch of the Caesars--at the head of the third
series we place Decius. He came to the throne at a moment of great public
embarrassment. The Goths were now beginning to press southwards upon the
empire. Dacia they had ravaged for some time; "and here," says a German
writer, "observe the shortsightedness of the Emperor Trajan.
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