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no subject of wonder, then, even in the absence of foreign and hostile nations, that the Roman people could not succeed in permanently establishing the Agrarian Law. To have done this, required that they should have ascended to first principles: that they should have explored, philosophically, the primitive condition of man, and there have made themselves acquainted with the origin and fountain of all right, and of course, of all power. We, who live at the present day, know that such a search after first principles, has not been prosecuted, and attended with success, until three or four hundred years have expired since the invention of the Printing-Press. This important invention, of which the Romans knew nothing, was that, of which they, as well as all other nations, stood in need, as the means of creating, if I may be allowed the expression, an uniform public opinion. Although, as history informs us, they seemed very generally to wish for the Agrarian Law, yet, as they had no means of creating a common sentiment among its friends, as it regards the only effectual method of bringing it into permanent legislative existence; this circumstance may be reckoned as another of the obstacles that interposed themselves between the Roman people, and the possession of the object of their most anxious wishes. It is perhaps, not susceptible of rigid demonstration, that the people of no nation, could ever have arrived at the dis
