text:  Without adopting the offensive prejudice which places the individual ability of the Englishmen in the first rank; or without doubting that nature has distributed nearly an equal share of personal ability among all European nations; we may not unjustly place the national mind of England in the very highest rank of general capacity--if that is the most intellectual nation by which the public intellect is most constantly employed in which all the great questions of society are most habitually referred to the decision of the intellect and in which that decision is the most irresistible in its effects no nation of Europe can stand upon equal ground with the English