This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ... of libel, commensurate with every possible object of attack in the state, privilege, which acts, or ought to act, only as a substitute for other laws, could have nothing to do with it. I have heard that one distinguished individual said,--" That he, for one, would not shrink from affirming, that if#the House of Commons chose to burn one of their own members in Palace Yard, it had an inherent power and right by the constitution to do so." This was said, if at all, by a moderate-minded man; and may show to what atrocious tyranny some persons may advance in theory, under shadow of this word privilege. There are two principles in every European and Christian state: Permanency and Progression. In the civil wars of the seventeenth century in England, which are as new and fresh now as they were a hundred and sixty years ago, and will be so forever to us, these two principles came to a struggle. It was natural that the great and the good of the nation should be found in tha ranks of either side. In the Mohammedan states, there is no principle of permanence; and, thejfore, they sink directly. They existed, and could only exist, in their efforts at progression; when they ceased to conquer, they fell in pieces. Turkey would long since have fallen, had it not been supported by the rival and conflicting interests of Christian Europe. The Turks have See this position stated and illustrated in detail in Mr. Coleridge's work, " Ou the Constitution of the Church and State, according to the Idea of each," page 38. Well acquainted as I am with the fact of the comparatively small acceptation which Mr. Coleridge's.prose works have ever found in the literary world, and with the reasons, and, what is more, with the causes of it, I still wonder that this parti... |