It loves to invent for him noble pleasures, to carve out splendid objects for his ambition.
Aristocracies often commit very tyrannical and very inhuman actions; but they rarely entertain grovelling thoughts; and they show a kind of haughty contempt of little pleasures, even whilst they indulge in them.

The effect is greatly to raise the general pitch of society.

In aristocratic ages vast ideas are commonly entertained of the dignity, the power, and the greatness of man.

These opinions exert their influence on those who cultivate the sciences, as well as on the rest of the community.

They facilitate the natural impulse of the mind to the highest regions of thought, and they naturally prepare it to conceive a sublime--nay, almost a divine--love of truth.