The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests, they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most

—–­ {96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not, and even those who have separate interests make part of that very public.—­This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the course of the present chapter. -=-

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other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive power.

It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of society.  Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in France, l’esprit du corps, for which we have no proper expression, though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more dangerous.

In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is limited.  It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men, from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper subjection. {97}

—–­ {97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people, which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad purpose.  It is, therefore, impossible that the government and clergy can, for any length of time, act in opposition to each other:  one or other of the two must soon fall, and there have been instances of the triumph of each.  We have sometimes seen kings triumph over the clergy, but not very often; and we have frequently seen governments overturned by their means:  except, therefore, in a state of revolution, they must mutually support each other.  This is the natural state of things; but, in Roman Catholic countries, priests have a superior sway to what they have in any other, for several reasons that are very obvious.  In the first place, the sovereign of the nation is not the head of the church; and, in the second, by means of a very superior degree of art and attention, during the dark ages, when the laity were sunk in ignorance, the catholic clergy contrived to entail the church property, from generation to generation, upon the whole body:  at the same time, enjoining celibacy, by which all chance of alienation, even of personal property, was done away.  As to the means of acquiring property, and of augmenting it; they were many, and, in every contest with the secular authority, they had a great advantage, by speaking, as it were, through ten thousand mouths at once, and