The opening of I. CONDITION OF SCOTLAND TO THE END OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
In the preceding view of the rise and decay of Spain, I have sought to exhibit the successive steps by which what was formerly one of the greatest nations of the earth, was broken, and cast down from its high estate. As we look back on that scene, the picture is, indeed, striking. A country rich in all natural productions, inhabited by a brave, a loyal, and a religious people, removed, too, by its geographical position from the hazards of European revolutions, did, by the operation of those general causes which I have indicated, suddenly rise to unparalleled grandeur; and then, without the occurrence of any new combination, but by a mere continuance of the same causes, fall with an equal velocity. Yet, these vicissitudes, strange and startling as they appear, were perfectly regular. They were the legitimate consequence of a state of society, in which the spirit of protection had reached its highest point, and in which, every thing being done for the people, nothing was done by the people. Whenever this happens, there may be great political progress, but there can be no really national progress.