Many things which are ascribed to human foresight are the result of chance.

Ancient, and in a less degree modern political constitutions, are never consistent with themselves, because they are never framed on a single design, but are added to from time to time as new elements arise and gain the preponderance in the state.

We often attribute to the wisdom of our ancestors great political effects which have sprung unforeseen from the accident of the situation.

Power, not wisdom, is most commonly the source of political revolutions.

And the result, as in the Roman Republic, of the co-existence of opposite elements in the same state is, not a balance of power or an equable progress of liberal principles, but a conflict of forces, of which one or other may happen to be in the ascendant.