The imagination is not extinct; but its chief function is to devise what may be useful, and to represent what is real.
The principle of equality not only diverts men from the description of ideal beauty--it also diminishes the number of objects to be described.
Aristocracy, by maintaining society in a fixed position, is favorable to the solidity and duration of positive religions, as well as to the stability of political institutions.

It not only keeps the human mind within a certain sphere of belief, but it predisposes the mind to adopt one faith rather than another.

An aristocratic people will always be prone to place intermediate powers between God and man.

In this respect it may be said that the aristocratic element is favorable to poetry.
When the universe is peopled with supernatural creatures, not palpable to the senses but discovered by the mind, the imagination ranges freely, and poets, finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find a countless audience to take an interest in their productions.

In democratic ages it sometimes happens, on the contrary, that men are as much afloat in matters of belief as they are in their laws.