The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.
Theologians in all ages have looked out admiringly upon the material universe, and from its inanimate existences demonstrated the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God; but we know of no one who has demonstrated the same attributes from the History of the human race.
Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe, that the world is a Cosmos, not a chaos.
The assertion of the reign of Law has been stubbornly resisted at every step. The divinities of Heathen superstition still linger in one form or another in the faith of the ignorant, and even many intelligent men shrink from the contemplation of one Supreme Will acting regularly, not fatuitously, through laws beautiful and simple, rather than through a fitful and capricious Providence.
English liberty to-day rests not so much on the government as on those rights which the people have wrested from the government. The rights of the Englishman outnumber the rights of the Englishman's king.