So many evils are the lot of human society, but almost all of them are secondary and subordinate to oppression, violence, and slavery.
"The issue of a local disease in health consists either in the perfect re-establishment of the normal condition, or else in partial recovery; more or fewer important residua and sequellæ of the disease not incomparable with a tolerably fair state of health, remaining entailed."
The history of the slow recovery of post-Roman Europe from domestic bondage justifies the application of this pathologic axiom to the social condition of nations.
"Issue in death: 1. Through exhaustion of power and of organic matter."
The history of republican, but above all, of imperial Rome, demonstrates that its decline and death were caused through the extinction of freedom, free labor, and the free yeomanry, which in every state constitutes the power, the organic matter of a nation.
"2. Through the suspended function of organs essential to life, through palsy, etc."
When the laboring classes are enslaved, the life of a nation is speedily palsied.
"3. Through vitiation of the blood."
What blood is to the animal organism, sound social and political principles are to society. When such principles become vitiated, the nation is on the path of decline and death.